In autumn 1920, convinced that her death was imminent, Schreiner returned to South Africa. Within a few months she had died of a heart attack. At her request she was (eventually) buried with her daughter and dog in a stone tomb on a mountain in the Karoo – she had bought the land at Buffels Hoek, near Cradock, especially for this purpose. Thousands lined the railway track when her body was taken there for burial.

"I wish to have buried with me in the same grave the bodies of my little daughter and my dog Nita, the most faithful friend a human being ever had."

Photo credit: The Life of Olive Schreiner by S. C. Cronwright-Schreiner published by Fisher Unwin, 1924.

"May I ask you what else you have written, and where it is to be found; also what magazines you write to or intend writing to? I need not ask you to advise me as to when any book you write may appear. I will be heard of...I hope you will pardon my having addressed you...[I]n extenuation I can only urge that you have no more appreciative admirer than myself... S C Cronwright"

What Cronwright does not mention is that someone had also written across the note: "I think this man has had a struggle to escape from being commonplace and very afraid."²

Although there was only the one formal will, Schreiner had left many notes with instructions about the disposition of her papers and manuscripts – appointing her brother Will and friend Havelock Ellis as literary executors. Cronwright was, however, quick to claim sole rights as executor – his first instruction on hearing of Schreiner's death was that her papers be secured in a strong room.

Throughout her adult life, Schreiner had worked on a manuscript which expressed her main political and sociological concerns: the exploitation of women in prostitution and marriage, the role of the old- and new-man, the promise of sisterhood, the potential for abusive relationships between adults and children, the moral duty of whites to promote anti-racism in their dealings with blacks, and the importance and meaning of death within life. The book, From Man To Man, or Perhaps Only was published posthumously by Cronwright in 1926. Only The Prelude (otherwise titled The Child's Day) was authorised for publication by Schreiner. In an introduction to the work, Cronwright justifies his decision to publish. He presents a timeline of references to the work from Schreiner's letters, and extracts from her diaries previously published in his biography – it seems fair to say he already had the publication in mind shortly after her death. He pompously admits to editing the work:

"I have striven to present it exactly as she might have presented it, if she herself, without further rewriting, had reduced to its final word-form the unrevised manuscript that came into my hands."

Cronwright also admits that:

"I give a brief account of what she told me as to the ending of the book. It is remarkable and fortunate that the novel does not stop until the tale is told almost to completion, and that the short account I am able to add will largely satisfy a legitimate desire of those whose interest will lie mainly in the incidents of the narrative."

Perhaps the most unforgivable act by Cronwright was to publish the manuscript Undine, a juvenile work that Schreiner had left with Havelock Ellis in 1884. She told Ellis that she had not looked at it since she wrote it and "ought to have burnt it long ago" but that she could not because of its autobiographical nature. She emphatically stated that it should not be published. Ellis revealed its existence of the manuscript shortly after Schreiner's death – he had re-discovered it in a trunk amongst some old papers – Cronwright quickly demanded a copy. The manuscript proved to be incomplete – not surprising since it had been so when she left for England that first time. However, in his introduction Cronwright claims to have found the missing ending – he had even published "an approximate specimen"³ in The Letters of Olive Schreiner in preparation for this. Curiously, recent studies of the published end to Undine suggest that the text was not written by Schreiner – one can only surmise its origins.

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