"Writing, retouching, ambition" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceLetters/212
Archive
Epistolary Type
Letter Date24 February 1887
Address FromClarens, Montreux, Switzerland
Address To
Who ToHavelock Ellis
Other VersionsCronwright-Schreiner 1924: 110
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
When Cronwright-Schreiner prepared The Letters of Olive Schreiner, with few exceptions he then destroyed her originals. However, some people gave him copies and kept the originals or demanded the return of these; and when actual Schreiner letters can be compared with his versions, his have omissions, distortions and bowdlerisations. Where Schreiner originals have survived, these will be found in the relevant collections across the OSLO website. There is however a residue of some 587 items in The Letters for which no originals are extant. They are included here for sake of completeness. However, their relationship to Schreiners actual letters cannot now be gauged, and so they should be read with caution for the reasons given.
1To Havelock Ellis.
2Clarens, 24th Feb.
3
4I’m writing such a lovely paper on sex experiment. I shall die easier
5after I’ve written it. But you know I won’t like it when it’s done,
6it’s only when I’m writing. There was an earthquake here this morning;
7it was like being on a ship.
8
Notation
The 'lovely paper' paper on ‘sex experiment’ referred to cannot be established but could be Schreiner’s planned ‘Introduction’ to a new edition of Mary Wollstoncraft’s (1792) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman London: J. Johnson. A very early draft fragment of this appears in Carolyn Burdett (1994) History Workshop Journal 37: 189-93.