It tells of a South African farmer's wife trapped in an unhappy marriage who falls in love with a visiting Englishman.

The play is a dramatisation by Edward Knoblock of the novel The Shulamite by the prolific romance writers Alice and Claude Askew.

When Waring plans to return to England where his alcoholic wife is dying, Deborah becomes jealous and tells the true story of Krillet's death to his sister.

[3] The play had only six characters, so could be staged at low cost, which made it attractive to Lena Ashwell's syndicate.

[5] The Era said it was, One of those plays that hold the audience in a pincer-like grip, that wring the heart and strain the nerves ... few, if any, actresses on the English stage could have so well rendered the indignant revolt, the mad passion, and the intense agony ... Norman McKinnel gave a grandly simple and nobly rugged impersonation of the stern, cruel, deeply serious Boer ... impressive, acted with tremendous fervour and intensity.

[10] The Shulamite was made into a film in 1915, later renamed The Folly of Desire, directed by George Loane Tucker.

The cast was:[11] The Shulamite was used as the basis for the 1921 silent movie Under the Lash starring Gloria Swanson, Russell Simpson and Mahlon Hamilton, directed by Sam Wood.

The movie included advanced special effects in the storm sequence, where trees were blown up to appear as though they had been struck by lightning.