Olive Schreiner

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Olive Schreiner (Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner) (March 24, 1855 – December 11, 1920) was a South African writer. She was born in Wittebergen, South Africa, the ninth child of Gottlob and Rebecca Schreiner.

Her first novel, The Story of an African Farm, was published in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Iron. It was an immediate success and has become recognised as one of the first feminist novels. Not long after this she met the sexologist Havelock Ellis with whom she had a close friendship up until her death.

In 1891 she published Dreams, a collection of allegorical and visionary writings. The next year she met Samuel Cronwright whom she would later marry in 1894.

Her next novel, Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland (1897), was an attack on Cecil Rhodes, who she had met in 1890.

Her most important political work is Woman and Labour (1911).