SCHREINERS,OLIVE HIDDEN AGONY - FACT, FICTION AND TEENAGE ABORTION

Scholars exploring Olive Schreiner's life have provided diverse interp retations of a crucial year: 1872, when Schreiner was a teenager in th e Cape Colony. Primary sources relating to this period were destroyed. it is impassible to provide conclusive evidence of what 'really happe ned.' Nonetheless, this article argues that the possibility that Victo rian women could induce abortions has been neglected by both historian s and literary critics. It contends that Schreiner's fiction displays acute awareness of pregnancy terminations. It concludes by arguing tha t the most likely interpretation of events is that Olive Schreiner fel l pregnant in 1872, contributed to her own miscarriage, and repeatedly reworked this painful experience in fiction, creating new versions of the past to serve the needs of the present.