Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, by Olive Schreiner (Used)

Cecil Rhodes, one-time Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, dreamed of the Union Jack flying over Africa from the Cape to Cairo. Olive Schreiner described him as 'the only great man and man of genius South Africa possesses' and believed 'any accident to him would:.. mean the putting back of our South African development for fifty years'. Later, however, Rhodes had 'below the fascinating surface, the worms of falsehood and corruption creeping' and after the Jameson Raid, Olive Schreiner had an 'awful sense of relief that the terrible power which was threatening to crush all South Africa (was) broken'.

The reasons for her change of opinion are reflected in Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, an allegorical and savage attack on Rhodes and his British South Africa Company. Through Peter Halket, a simple soldier engaged in putting down a rebellion in Mashonaland (now Rhodesia), Olive Schreiner slams Rhodes and his methods of implementing his ideals.

Condition: fair, 2001 edition, hardcover