Doris Lessing aged fourteen.

UNDER MY SKIN

ALSO BY DORIS LESSING

NOVELS

The Grass is Singing The Golden Notebook Briefing for a Descent into Hell The Summer Before the Dark The Memoirs of a Survivor The Diaries of Jane Somers:

The Diary of a Good Neighbor If the Old Could ...

The Good Terrorist The Fifth Child

"CANOPUS IN ARGOS: ARCHIVES" SERIES

Re: Colonized Planet 5-Shikasta The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five The Sirian Experiments The Making of the Representative for Planet Eight Documents Relating to the Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire

"CHILDREN OF VIOLENCE" SERIES

Martha Quest A Proper Marriage A Ripple From the Storm Landlocked The Four-Gated City

SHORT STORIES

This Was the Old Chief's Country The Habit of Loving A Man and Two Women The Temptation of Jack Orkney and Other Stories Stories African Stories The Real Thing: Stories and Sketches

OPERA

The Making of the Representative for Planet Eight (Music by Philip Glass)

POETRY

Fourteen Poems

NONFICTION

In Pursuit of the English Particularly Cats Going Home A Small Personal Voice Prisons We Choose to Live Inside The Wind Blows Away Our Words Particularly Cats ... And Rufus African Laughter

The Doris Lessing Reader

DORIS LESSING

UNDER MY SKIN

Volume One of

My Autobiography, to 1949

.. -HarperCollinsPublishers

This book was published In Great Britain In 1994 by HarperCoIlins Publishers.

UNDER MY SKIN: VOLUME ONE OF MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY, TO 1949. Copyright © 1994 by Doris Lessing. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCoIlins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.

HarperCoIlins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please write: Special Markets Department, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.

FIRST U.S. EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lessing, Doris May, 1919-Under my skin I Doris Lessing. - 1st ed.

p. cm. "Volume one of my autobiography, to 1949." ISBN 0-06-017150-2 1. Lessing, Doris May, 1919- -Biography. 2. Women authors,

English-20th century-Biography. I. Title. PR6023.E833Z477 1994 823'.914-dc20 94-20051

9495969798 HC 1098765432 1

Acknowledgements

The author and publisher are grateful to the proprietors listed below for permission to quote extracts from the following material:

(p.ix) Coercive Agencies. Reprinted by permission from Caravan of Dreams by Idries Shah (The Octagon Press Ltd.); (p.ix) The Dance of Life by Edward T. Hall. Copyright © 1983 by Edward T. Hall. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.; (p.ix) Cold Warrior by Tom Mangold. Copyright © Tom Mangold 1991. Reprinted with permission of Simon & Schuster Ltd.; (p.360-l) "The Age" from Osip Mandelstam: Selected Poems translated by Clarence Brown and WS. Merwin (OUP 1973), pp.44-45. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press; (p.vii & p.204) "I've Got You Under My Skin" (Porter), (p.21l) "Swinging on a Star" (Van Heusen/Burke), (p.272) "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" (Burke & Dubin), (p.273) "It's a Sin to Tell A Lie" (Mayhew), (p.283) "Brother Can You Spare A Dime?" (Gorney/Harburg), (p.303) "Night and Day" (Porter), (p.303 & 359) "Man I Love" (Gershwin), (p.359) "Somebody Loves Me" (DeSylva/MacDonald), and (p.376) "There's A Small Hotel" (Rogers/Hart) © Warner Chappell Music Ltd., London W1Y 3FA. Reproduced by permission of International Music Publications Ltd.; (p.122) "Blue Skies" (Berlin) Copyright © 1927, and (p.205) "Cheek to Cheek" (Berlin) Copyright © 1935 by Irving Berlin. Copyright renewed. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission of Irving Berlin Music Company. All Rights Reserved; (p.122) "Red Sails in the Sunset" (music by Hugh Williams and words by Jimmy Kennedy) © 1935, reproduced by permission of Peter Maurice Music Co. Ltd., London WC2H OEA; (p.273) "Goodbye-ee" (words and music by R.P. Weston and Bert Lee) © 1917, reproduced by permission of Francis Day and Hunter Ltd., London WC2H OEA; (p.273) "We'll Meet Again" (Ross Parker/Hughie Charles) copyright © 1939 by Dash Music Co. Ltd., 8-9 Frith Street, London W1V 5TZ. Used by permission. All rights reserved; (p.359) "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (Otto Harback/Jerome Kern) © Reproduced by kind permission of Polygram Music Publishing Ltd., 347-353 Chiswick High Road, London W4 4HS.

And with thanks to my researcher, Elizabeth Murray, two of whose nutshell biographies I have quoted.