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Doris LessingA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The Grass Is Singing (1950)
Lessing’s first published novel, this is almost certainly the model for Anna Wulf’s Frontiers of War.
Children of Violence (1952-1969)
A series of five semi-autobiographical novels: Martha Quest (1952); A Proper Marriage (1954); A Ripple from the Storm (1958); Landlocked (1965); The Four-Gated City (1969). These books explore some of the same themes about which The Golden Notebook is concerned. They are also even more autobiographical in nature than The Golden Notebook. Ultimately, they stretch beyond realistic fiction into what Lessing termed her “inner space fiction.”
Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979-1983)
This is another sequence of five novels that depict future societies at various points in their development: Shikasta (1979); The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five (1980); The Sirian Experiments (1980); The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (1982); The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire (1983). These novels are all more overtly “inner space fiction” or science fiction, though they are all resonant with ideas about mental health, the fragmentation of society, and the end of history and empire.
The Doris Lessing Society
The Doris Lessing Society publishes a journal and hosts panels and conferences related to Lessing. An archive of their journals is available, along with links to other resources related to Lessing.
By Doris Lessing
A Woman on a Roof
Doris Lessing
Briefing for a Descent Into Hell
Doris Lessing
Martha Quest
Doris Lessing
No Witchcraft for Sale
Doris Lessing
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside
Doris Lessing
The Fifth Child
Doris Lessing
The Grass is Singing
Doris Lessing
Through the Tunnel
Doris Lessing
To Room Nineteen
Doris Lessing
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