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| Letter Reference | Olive Schreiner: Miscellaneous: F.S. Lewis MSB 834/1.6.1 |
| Archive | National Library of South Africa, Special Collections, Cape Town |
| Epistolary Type | Letter |
| Letter Date | 25 December 1897 |
| Address From | The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape |
| Address To | Cape Town, Western Cape |
| Who To | F.S. Lewis |
| Other Versions | |
| Permissions | Please read before using or citing this transcription |
| Legend |
The Project is grateful to the National Library of South Africa (NLSA), Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Special Collections.
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1
The Homestead
2 Dec 25 / 97
3
4 Dear Mr Lewis
5
6 I am ashamed to trouble you again but necessity must be my excuse. In
7something I have written & which I have want to send off to England at
8once to be published, I have quoted from memory a passage from Tacitus
9concerning the German women. unreadable I want before I publish to
10compare the passage with the original, ?reluctantly as it seems there
11is no copy of the book in the Kimberley Library (except in Latin which
12is of no use to me. I sent for it to Darters, & they sent me up a vol
13without the passages I want. I think the passages I want are in a
14short essay or treatise on the Germans; ^& describe the character of
15the German women their relation to men &c.^ If you have have the vol in
16the library, & could be so very good as to send it me by post, I would
17return it at once. I enclose stamps for the postage.
18
19 Best Xmas wishes from my husband & myself
20
21 Yours sincerely
22 Olive Schreiner
23
2 Dec 25 / 97
3
4 Dear Mr Lewis
5
6 I am ashamed to trouble you again but necessity must be my excuse. In
7something I have written & which I have want to send off to England at
8once to be published, I have quoted from memory a passage from Tacitus
9concerning the German women. unreadable I want before I publish to
10compare the passage with the original, ?reluctantly as it seems there
11is no copy of the book in the Kimberley Library (except in Latin which
12is of no use to me. I sent for it to Darters, & they sent me up a vol
13without the passages I want. I think the passages I want are in a
14short essay or treatise on the Germans; ^& describe the character of
15the German women their relation to men &c.^ If you have have the vol in
16the library, & could be so very good as to send it me by post, I would
17return it at once. I enclose stamps for the postage.
18
19 Best Xmas wishes from my husband & myself
20
21 Yours sincerely
22 Olive Schreiner
23
Notation
The ‘something’ which Schreiner had written is her essay on ‘The Boer Woman’. This was one of the essays initially published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by ‘A Returned South African’, intended for publication in book form as ‘Stray Thoughts on South Africa’. However, although prepared for publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. The book referred to is: Cornelius Tacitus (1894) Agricola and Germania Pittsburgh: Pitt Press.
The ‘something’ which Schreiner had written is her essay on ‘The Boer Woman’. This was one of the essays initially published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by ‘A Returned South African’, intended for publication in book form as ‘Stray Thoughts on South Africa’. However, although prepared for publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. The book referred to is: Cornelius Tacitus (1894) Agricola and Germania Pittsburgh: Pitt Press.