"About Rebecca Schreiner, OS's childhood, her writing" Read the full letter
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Letter ReferenceHRC/CAT/OS/2a-xvi
ArchiveHarry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin
Epistolary TypeCard
Letter DateTuesday 28 April 1885
Address From4 Robertson Terrace, Hastings, East Sussex
Address To
Who ToHavelock Ellis
Other VersionsCronwright-Schreiner 1924: 40; Rive 1987: 51; Draznin 1992: 345
PermissionsPlease read before using or citing this transcription
Legend
The Project is grateful to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner card, which is part of its Manuscript Collections. In the absence of other information, dating this card has followed Draznin (1992), who has done so by relating its content to other letters in the Olive Schreiner/Havelock Ellis correspondence. Schreiner was resident at two addresses in Hastings from the end of November 1884 to the end of April 1885. On one side of the card is a printed pen and ink cartoon of a man and a woman on a two-seater bicycle, being chased by a fat man, who could be the woman?s father.
1Tuesday afternoon
2
3Oh Harry try & get rooms for me by Saturday or Friday of this week. I
4can’t stay here any more. I shall go mad. I never felt like this
5before It’s so awful.
6
7Olive
8
9I think those rooms on Primrose Hill might do. If Don’t take too
10much trouble because I can change if I make up my ^when I’ve been
11there a week.^
12
13^Henry what does make me feel like this It is as much my mind as my
14body that is ill.^
15
Notation
Draznin's (1992) version of the text on this card is in some respects different from our transcription. Some of Schreiner's comments - 'I can't stay here any more. I shall go mad. I never felt like this before It's so awful.', and 'Henry what does make me feel like this It is as much my mind as my body that is ill.' - appear in Rive's (1987) version of Schreiner's 9 September 1884 letter to Ellis; his version is also in a number of other respects incorrect. A short extract appears in a letter dated 5 September 1884 in Cronwright-Schreiner (1924) which is also incorrect in various ways.