This pioneering work was a cause celebre when it appeared in London, transforming the shape and course of the late Victorian novel. Lynall, Schreiner's articulate young feminist, marks the entry of the controversial New Woman into nineteenth-century fiction. From the haunting plains of South Africa's high Karoo, Schreiner boldly addresses her society's greatest fears: the loss of faith, the dissolution of marriage, and women's social and political independence.