Letters have sometimes been assumed to be a private form of life writing, and certainly many of the South African writer Olive Schreiner’s (1855–1920) letters have been read in this way. However, her letters trouble any simple, binary notions of public and private. This article offers a re-reading of Schreiner’s letters to the statistician and founder of the Men and Women’s Club, Karl Pearson (1857–1936). It argues that the dominant reading that has been made of these letters as ‘unrequited love letters’ needs rethinking, for when these letters are considered in their entirety and contextualised as part of Schreiner’s wider extant letters, and when the intertwining of their public and private aspects is recognised, it becomes clear that a considerably more complex interpretation of her letters is required, and that this has implications for reading letters more generally.

有时，信件被认为是生活写作的一种私人形式，当然，南非作家奥利夫·史莱纳（Olive Schreiner）（1855–1920）的许多信件都是以此方式阅读的。但是，她的来信困扰着任何简单的公共和私人二元概念。本文重读了舍勒纳给统计员和男女俱乐部创办人卡尔·皮尔逊（Karl Pearson，1857–1936）的来信。它认为，对这些字母作为“单相思的情书”的主流解读需要重新思考，因为当这些字母被整体考虑并作为舍勒纳更广泛的现存字母的一部分进行情境化时，以及当它们的公私交织时认识到各个方面，很明显，需要对她的信件进行更为复杂的解释，