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1883 · rif. 30040 — London: Chapman and Hall 1883. First edition of this highspot of African literature. Octavo original olive cloth 2 volumes. 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. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Rare especially in the original cloth. 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. Chapman and Hall hardcover