As the world falls apart outside, the narrator watches over Emily, a young child brought into her care by a stranger. Emily is also guarded by Hugo, half cat and half dog, the bizarre and lovable beast whose presence dominates the tale.

The fourth in Doris Lessing's visionary novel cycle Canopus in Argos: Archives. It is a mix of fable, futuristic fantasy and pseudo-documentary accounts of 20th-century history.

The second in Doris Lessing's visionary novel cycle Canopus in Argos: Archives. It is a mix of fable, futuristic fantasy and pseudo-documentary accounts of 20th-century history.

The third in Doris Lessing's visionary novel cycle Canopus in Argos: Archives. It is a mix of fable, futuristic fantasy and pseudo-documentary accounts of 20th-century history.

The diaries introduce us to Jane, an intelligent and beautiful magazine editor concerned with success, clothes and comfort. After her husband, then her mother, die from cancer she befriends ninety-something Maudie, whose poverty and squalor contrast with her own life.

A classic tale from Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, of a family torn apart by the arrival of Ben, their feral fifth child.

The first book in the Children of Violence series, a quintet of novels tracing the life of Martha Quest from her childhood in colonial Africa through to old age in a post-nuclear Britain. The other novels are A Proper Marriage, A Ripple from the Storm, Landlocked and The Four-Gated City.

Rich and various in mood and background - the settings range across England and France - these stories powerfully convey the uncompromising insight, intelligence and vision of one of the most ardently admired writers of our time.