LETTER: Three Autograph letters signed; with photo and clipping.
TO A FRIEND IN RHODESIA
Lessing, Doris. Three autograph letters signed, “Tigger,” to Joyce Oliver (“Lofty”); with a
clipping and photograph, February 12, 1949 and May 16, 1956; 8 pages, various sizes and papers.
Together with:
Lessing, Doris. The Four Gated City.
8vo.; cloth; dust-jacket.
First American edition. A presentation copy, inscribed by “Das Tigger (D. Lessing)” for Lofty on
4 September 1969.
Together with:
[Lessing, Doris, subject.] Snapshot of Lessing. Captioned “London, Xmas 1969” on the verso.
Three letters, with an inscribed volume and a candid photograph.
Lessing writes a farewell letter to a Rhodesian friend – Joyce Oliver (“Lofty”) – as she prepares
to leave Africa. Lessing, who signed herself “Tigger” after the A. A. Milne character, begins the
first letter, on N. B. Publications (Salisbury) letterhead: “Here it is the last day I grace this
glorious country, & I am saying a fond farewell & also giving you a hell of a raspberry on the
instructions of Dorothy.” She then explains the printing and publishing matters which are causing
problems. She goes on to mention her husband Gottfried Lessing, later an East German diplomat
murdered in Uganda.
The second letter, six pages long and written on New Year’s Eve of the same year, describes her
new life in London. She explains why she hasn’t written, “… imagine me sitting in front of a
typewriter for hours every day, & getting up in the evening without a word left in me.” “As for
me, since I came to England life has been hard, tho’ interesting. I live on the smell of an oil rag &
work. For recreation I go to the theatre & to picture galleries.” Her first book is being published
and she has completed the first draft of her second. Of her young son Peter, she writes, “He is tall
& heavy for his age, & not intelligent. He goes to a Council nursery school round the corner for
which I pay 6/- a week. Charity, & they make you feel it ….”
The third letter, seeking to arrange a meeting with “Lofty,” is written from Salisbury during
Lessing’s 1956 visit home. After this visit, Lessing was banned from Rhodesia and South Africa
for many years owing to her opposition to apartheid.
(#4657717)
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