These letters, certain to satisfy the reawakened interest in Schreiner, give a full and rounded picture of the novelist's life and work. Containing 550 letters--some newly discovered, many unknown to general readers--this first of two volumes spans the years 1871 to 1899, when Schreiner worked as a governess on Eastern Cape farms; lived in England and Europe; formed a circle of friends including Havelock Ellis, Karl Pearson, Edward Carpenter, and W. T. Stead; published The Story of an African Farm; and married S.C. Cronwright, with whom she involved herself in the growing South African political crisis.