Between “the lights and shadows”: Reading the new edition of Olive Schreiner’sFrom Man to Man or Perhaps Only —

Abstract

The introduction to this written symposium considers Olive Schreiner’s novel From Man to Man or Perhaps Only — (1926) in light of the release of a new edition by Dorothy Driver and UCT Press (2015). The symposium’s first article, by Liz Stanley, reflects on Schreiner’s writing process by studying two early manuscript fragments of the novel from 1886–1887. Joyce Berkman and Dorothy Driver then both perform a close reading of the novel. Berkman achieves an extended reading of the issue of possession, in relation to gender and race. Driver investigates Schreiner’s “poetics of plants” in relation to indigeneity and Schreiner’s social and political thought on race. Finally, an interview article provides multiple current academic voices on the relevance of reading From Man to Man today. Taken together, the symposium illustrates the complexity of Schreiner’s thinking in From Man to Man, the opportunities provided by the new edition for scholarship, and the value of reading this novel at the present moment.