The Story of an African Farm: A Novel.

SCHREINER, Olive [as Ralph Iron].

$5,000.00

Item Number: 118143

London: Chapman and Hall, 1883.

First edition of this highspot of African literature. Octavo, 2 volumes bound in three quarters contemporary morocco over marbled boards with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, top edge gilt, marbled endpapers. Published under the pseudonym ‘Ralph Iron’, the entire printing of this first edition has been estimated to be about 300 copies and most were destined to libraries. From the library of British-born South African financier, mining magnate and politician Sir Lionel Phillips with his bookplates to the pastedowns. Lionel and Florence Phillips left South Africa a major legacy through their art collections. Florence campaigned for the founding of the Johannesburg Art Gallery and arranged its first collections, including her lace collection, while Lionel donated seven oils and a Rodin sculpture. Rare and with desirable provenance.

The Story of an African Farm (published in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron) was South African author Olive Schreiner's first published novel. It was an immediate success and has become recognized as one of the first feminist novels. In writing the first great South African novel, Schreiner drew on childhood memories of life on the isolated African veld to fashion a powerful indictment of the rigid Boer and English social conventions of her day. It was greeted by both praise and condemnation for its feminist views on women's status and on marriage, and for its unorthodox critique of dishonesty and hypocrisy in the doctrines and practices of "respectable" Christian church people.