DORIS LESSING: FURTHER READING

Bibliography

Seligman, Dee. Doris Lessing: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981, 139 p.

Comprehensive bibliography of criticism on Lessing's canon through 1978.

Biographies

Brewster, Dorothy. Doris Lessing. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1965, 173 p.

Biography that traces major plots and themes in Less-ing's early fiction.

Klein, Carol. Doris Lessing: A Biography. London: Duckworth, 2000, 283 p.

Provides a biography of Lessing.

Criticism

Fishburn, Katherine. "The Nightmare Repetition: The Mother-Daughter Conflict in Doris Lessing's Children of Violence." In The Lost Tradition: Mothers and Daughters in Literature, edited by Cathy N. Davidson and E. M. Broner, pp. 207-16. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1980.

Examines the mother-daughter relationship in Lessing's Children of Violence series.

Gardiner, Judith Kegan. "Gender, Values and Lessing's Cats." In Feminist Issues in Literary Scholarship, edited by Shari Benstock, pp. 110-23. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Explores Lessing's contradictory attitude toward motherhood through a survey of her fiction that features cats.

Greene, Gayle. Doris Lessing: The Poetics of Change. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994, 295 p.

Full-length critical study of Lessing's work.

Kaplan, Carey and Ellen Cronan Rose, eds. Doris Lessing: The Alchemy of Survival. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1988, 187 p.

Collection of critical essays by Elizabeth Abel, Victoria Middleton, Eve Bertelsen, and others.

Labovitz, Esther Kleinbord. "Doris Lessing: Children of Violence." In The Myth of the Heroine: The Female Bildungsroman in the Twentieth Century: Dorothy Richardson, Simone de Beauvoir, Doris Lessing, Christa Wolf, pp. 145-200. New York: Peter Lang, 1986.

Contends that "the five volumes of Children of Violence through which Doris Lessing follows the growth process of a single protagonist is a rich source for the evolution of the twentieth-century female Bildungsroman."

Libby, Marion Vlastos. "Sex and the New Woman in The Golden Notebook." The Iowa Review 5, no. 4 (fall 1974): 106-20.

Considers Lessing's portrayal of sexuality and sexual relations within the sociopolitical context in The Golden Notebook.

Miller, Jane. "Doris Lessing and the Millennium." Raritan 18, no. 1 (summer 1998): 133-45.

Examines the autobiographies Under My Skin and Walking in the Shade within the framework of Lessing's life and writings.

Perrakis, Phyllis Sternberg, ed. Spiritual Exploration in the Works of Doris Lessing. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999, 150 p.

Examines the fiction of Lessing and provides a bibliographic index.

Rowe, Margaret Moan. Doris Lessing. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994, 137 p.

Elucidates the major themes of Lessing's oeuvre, highlighting the feminist concerns of her fiction.

Spencer, Sharon. "'Femininity' and the Woman Writer: Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook and the Diary of Anais Nin." Women's Studies 1, no. 3 (1973): 247-58.

Explores parallels between The Golden Notebook and Anais Nin's Diary.

Sprague, Claire and Virginia Tiger, eds. Critical Essays on Doris Lessing. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1986, 237 p.

Collection of critical essays on aspects of Lessing's work, including several that focus on her feminist themes.

Waxman, Barbara Frey. "Beginning the Journey to Selfhood in Middle Age." In From the Hearth to the Open Road: A Feminist Study of Aging in Contemporary Literature, pp. 45-74. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.

Discusses the middle-aged heroines in The Summer before Dark and The Diaries of Jane Somers.

OTHER SOURCES FROM GALE:

Additional coverage of Lessing's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: African Writers; British Writers Supplement, Vol. 1; Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, 1960 to Present; Contemporary Authors, Vols. 9-12R; Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, Vol. 14; Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vols. 33, 54, 76, 122; Contemporary British Dramatists; Contemporary Dramatists, Ed. 5; Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vols. 1, 2, 3, 6, 10, 15, 22, 40, 94, 170; Contemporary Novelists, Ed. 7; Contemporary Women Dramatists; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vols. 15, 139; Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook, 1985; DISCovering Authors; DISCovering Authors: British Edition; DISCovering Authors: Canadian Edition; DISCovering Authors Modules: Most-studied Authors and Novelists; DISCovering Authors 3.0; Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, Ed. 3; Exploring Short Stories; Feminist Writers; Literature and Its Times, Vol. 4; Literature Resource Center; Major 20th-Century Writers, Eds. 1, 2; Reference Guide to English Literature, Ed. 2; Reference Guide to Short Fiction, Ed. 2; St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers, Ed. 4; Short Stories for Students, Vols. 1, 12; Short Story Criticism, Vols. 6, 61; Twayne's English Authors; World Literature and Its Times, Vols. 2, 4; World Literature Criticism Supplement.