I picked up In the Tail of the Peacock expecting a straightforward colonial memoir and was immediately surprised. Isabel Savory’s book is her personal diary from 1898-1899, written as a young woman embarking on a wildly ambitious venture: starting an ostrich farm in the Eastern Cape of South Africa with her brother, Bertie.

The Story

The plot is her life. There’s no manufactured drama, just the relentless challenge of daily existence. We follow her as she learns to run a household in a new country, navigates complex relationships with her Xhosa and Boer neighbors, and tries to make a financial success of the farm. Her observations are sharp and often funny—describing everything from the bizarre beauty of ostriches to the struggles of finding good butter. But this isn't just a pastoral idyll. The shadow of war looms over everything. As tensions between the British Empire and the Boer republics escalate, her personal mission becomes entangled with forces far beyond her control. The diary format means we experience the approach of the Second Boer War in real time, through her confused reports, local rumors, and the gradual militarization of the world around her. The story ends not with a neat conclusion, but with the outbreak of hostilities, leaving her future—and the future of her peacock-tailed ostriches—profoundly uncertain.

Why You Should Read It

You should read it because Savory is a fantastic narrator. She’s not a historian analyzing events; she’s a person living through them, which makes her account incredibly vivid and relatable. Her voice is witty, perceptive, and sometimes painfully naive, offering a raw look at the attitudes of her time without modern editorializing. The book’s power comes from this intimate scale. A major historical event unfolds through the lens of burnt dinners, worrying about livestock, and awkward social calls. It highlights the absurdity and tragedy of how large political conflicts crash into ordinary lives. You get a real sense of the land’s beauty and her genuine affection for it, which makes the coming conflict feel even more wasteful.

Final Verdict

In the Tail of the Peacock is perfect for readers who love immersive historical diaries, like those of Samuel Pepys or Virginia Woolf. It’s also a great pick for anyone interested in South African history, but from a ground-level, personal angle rather than a military or political one. If you enjoy strong, witty narrative voices and stories about people trying to carve out a home in unfamiliar territory, you’ll be captivated. Just be prepared—it’s a snapshot that ends abruptly, leaving you to wonder what happened next to Isabel, Bertie, and all those ostriches.