From man to man or perhaps only

'I love my new book so, a hundred times better than I ever loved an African farm.' So wrote Olive Schreiner, the first South African-born novelist. Though she is best known for her youthful The story of an African farm, the 'new book' of her adult years may well be her greatest achievement. Written and rewritten over many years, it remained unfinished on her death in 1920. Her husband published it in 1926, adding a final chapter in the form he said Schreiner had recounted to him. The story is about two white women, Rebekah and Bertie, sisters born into the racist and sexist society of mid-nineteenth-century South Africa. One sister remains in the Cape, marries and has children, the other becomes a kept woman and then a prostitute in London's East end. But, the novel asks, how far are marriage and prostitution really apart in a world where women are valued mainly for their bodies? From exploring white women's confinement to domesticity the novel expands its gaze to include black women and girls, whose presence gradually informs Rebekah's struggle to re-create herself and educate her children (including her black foster-child) so that they may pursue a more humane and fulfilled destiny than was open to her generation. This new edition of From man to man, edited by Dorothy Driver, corrects the editorial and proofreading errors that marred previous editions. It also provides another ending, in Schreiner's own words, as told in a letter to a friend. This edition includes the editor's introduction; the alternative endings; historical, literary and linguistic annotations, and extracts from Schreiner's letters and journals. Driver's additions all cast light on the genesis, composition, context and significance of an extraordinary novel which, through the power of its story-telling and the vibrancy of its language, envisions a future society no longer subject to inhuman racial and gender restrictions.