LESSING, Doris ~ Under my Skin. Volume One of my autobiography, to 1949. Signed and dated on the day of publication.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Harper Collins, London: 1994.

Large 8vo., black boards lettered in gilt to spine with Harper Collins device to foot; together in the photographic dustwrapper (unclipped, priced £20.00 net to front flap); pale blue endpapers; with photographic frontis showing a photograph of Lessing at age 14, and numerous other black and white photographs interspersed throughout text; aside from ever-so-slight rubbing at spine tips, THE BOOK fine; THE WRAPPER fine. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. FIRST UK EDITION with full number line 1-10, this copy signed by the author and dated on the day of publication, 20th October 1994. The first volume of Lessing's autobiography, which begins with her childhood growing up in Africa and ends with her arrival in London and the typescript of 'The Grass is Singing' (possibly now her best-known work) in her suitcase. Volume two, 'Walking in the Shade', which covers the years of 1949 to 1962, appeared in 1997. "I was born with skins too few. Or they were scrubbed off me by...robust and efficient hands."

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Fine
JACKET: Fine