The Shulamite is an Edwardian drama, or melodrama, based on a novel of the same name. It played in London and New York in 1906 with Lena Ashwell in the lead role. It tells of a South African farmer's wife trapped in an unhappy marriage who falls in love with a visiting Englishman. In a dramatic scene the husband is killed. The death is made to seem an accident, but the lovers must part. Later the play was changed to give it a happy ending.