The Story of an African Farm (first published in 1883) marks an early appearance in fiction of Victorian society’s emerging New Woman. The novel follows the spiritual quests of Lyndall and Waldo, who each struggle against social constraints in their search for happiness and truth: Lyndall, against society’s expectations of women, and Waldo against stifling class conventions.
Written from the margins of the British empire, the novel addresses the conflicts of race, class, and gender that shaped the lives of European settlers in Southern Africa before the Boer Wars.
Highly acclaimed ever since its first publication in 1883 for the bold manner in which it dealt with some of the issues of the day, it also caused some controversy over its frank portrayal of freethought, feminism, premarital sex, pregnancy out of wedlock, & cross dressing.
Please keep in mind that older books include some things nowadays considered unsavory, outdated, or wrong such as racism.