THE LAND OF FREE SPEECH

First edition: 456 pages + [1] - appendix musical score - Soldiers of the Queen, frontispiece portrait, numerous other portraits, uncut fore-edge and bottom edge, blue coth titled gilt on the upper cover and spine, a good copy.

During the South African War, of which both Schreiner and Cronwright-Schreiner were very outspoken critics, Cronwright-Schreiner spent six months in England in 1900 campaigning against British military action. He embarked on an extensive lecture tour organised in part by the so-called ‘pro-Boer’ movement, but on a number of occasions his speeches were disrupted by ‘jingo mobs’ that not only heckled him, but also on occasion violently attacked him. Some commentators have speculated that, "t seems likely that Cronwright’s experiences in 1900 - and they must have tortured his nerves - had permanently altered his personality" (Buchanan-Gould 1949: 195). It was also on this visit to England that Cronwright-Schreiner came to know many of Schreiner’s British friends from the 1880s, including Dr and Mrs Philpot. https://www.oliveschreiner.org/vre?view=personae&entry=14