WITH A TLS FROM LESSING TO HUNTER DAVIES.

LESSING, Doris ~ The Sirian Experiments. The Report by Ambien II, of the Five. Signed and dated by the author.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Jonathan Cape, London: 1981.

8vo., navy blue publisher's boards, lettered and lined in gilt to spine with publisher's device to foot; pale grey endpapers; together in the black and white printed dustwrapper, repriced publisher's sticker of £7.50 net to front flap, and full panel portrait of the author to the lower panel; THE BOOK a touch bumped and sunned at spine tips; with very faint spotting to the fore-edge; near-fine; THE WRAPPER essentially fine, with one tiny scuff mark to the front flap fold. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. FIRST UK EDITION, this copy signed by the author and dated 12th May 1982. The book comes together with a TLS from Lessing to the British author and journalist Hunter Davies, in which she refers to a comment made by Tom Maschler (head of Jonathan Cape) referring to personal questions about the Booker Prize as being "banal, irritating and a trick". "This comment is stupid and paranoid and I don't think in this way", she writes, before continuing "that was very careless of you". Maschler had helped to establish the Booker Prize in 1969, and though Lessing was shortlisted three times (the second being for the present work), she never won, something she was certainly in support of ("it is unfair for established authors to enter for the Booker, when there are so many deserving and unknown writers", she writes here). She ends the letter by saying "I see... that I have been on the short list twice previously. Is this true? An error. If so, I know nothing about it." In fact, when Lessing did win a significant prize (the Nobel, in 2007), she famously responded with the disparaging comment "Oh Christ". The third work in the 'Canopus in Argos: Archives' series, which followed Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta; The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five. Lessing's switch to the genre of science fiction had not been particularly well recieved by the general public, these particular books were the best reviewed of her later work, and are often referred to as 'soft' sci fi, focusing on morality in which Lessing claimed that the true aim was to "put questions, both to myself and to others" and to "explore ideas and sociological possibilities." This particular work was inspired by the ill-fated expedition of Robert Falcon Scott. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1981. A fabulous copy with a unique letter.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Fine