Olive Schreiner and the Progress of Feminism explores two key areas: first, the debates taking place in England during the last two decades of the nineteenth century about the position of women; and, second, the volatile events of the 1890s in South Africa, which culminated in war between the British Empire and the Boer republics in 1899. Through a detailed reading of the fictional and non-fictional writing of one extraordinary woman, Olive Schreiner, it traces the complex relations between gender and empire in a modernizing world.

This collection brings together essays by scholars from literature, history of art and history of science which explore the diversity of Victorian fascination with the supernatural: ghosts and fairies, table-rappings and telepathic encounters, occult religions and the idea of reincarnation, visions of the other world and a reality beyond the everyday. These essays demonstrate that the supernatural was not simply a reaction to the "post-Darwinian loss of faith," but was embedded in virtually every aspect of Victorian culture.

Essays by literary scholars, art historians and science historians explore the diversity of the Victorians' fascination with the supernatural.