Olive Schreiner

South African writer Olive Schreiner was born in what is now Lesotho on 24 March 1855. The ninth of twelve children born to Rebecca Lyndall and her husband, Gottlob Schreiner (1814–1876), a German-born missionary, she and just six of her siblings survived childhood. In adulthood, she suffered debilitating ill-health, exacerbated for a time by grinding poverty.

For a time, Schreiner earned a living as a governess and teacher, but she devoted her free time to writing The Story of an African Farm, a radical feminist novel informed by her experience of growing up in Africa. As soon as she could afford to, she sailed for Britain where she hoped to train as a doctor. Unfortunately, although she attended lectures at the London School of Medicine for Women, established in 1874 by an association of pioneering women physicians, ill-health prevented her from completing her training.

Wilde’s Women – by Eleanor Fitzsimons

They say not to judge a book by its cover, however in this case I’d disagree. I really love the cover of Wilde’s Women by Eleanor Fitzsimons, a gorgeous rendereing of Oscar Wilde, his mother Jane, wife Constance & friend Lille Langtry in purple & green hues reminiscent of the Suffragettes. I think it’s brilliant, and as it turns out, so too is the content that lies within.

This is a book about Oscar Wilde, it is also not a book about Oscar Wilde. Wilde’s Women follows the story of Oscar’s life, giving many wondeful details along the way, brilliantly interwoven with the lives of a multitude of fascinating women who influenced him. It is every bit as much about them as it is about him.

Lady Jane Wilde

Long before Oscar Wilde became a household name, his mother, Jane, was a celebrity in her native Dublin and far beyond. A poet, an essayist, an accomplished linguist, a wit, a beauty, a very loving wife and mother, and a campaigner for liberty and women’s rights, she earned a reputation as a fiery revolutionary in Ireland and as a very accomplished translator of key literary works throughout Europe.