Assembled here for the first time in book form are the very best of several decades' worth of occasional writings from perhaps the best-loved and most-admired of Britain's great female writersA selection of the very best of Doris Lessing's essays, never before collected together and published in book form. Articles on writers as diverse as Jane Austen, Muriel Spark, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Mikael Bulgakov sit alongside autobiographical looks at the beliefs that have shaped Lessing's thinking. There are adoring and adorable pieces on the beloved cats that she has allowed to share her life and insightful looks at the Africa in which she grew up and London and England, the place where she made her home.The range of subjects, cultures and periods within these essays is huge but the collection is utterly consistent in one key regard: Doris Lessing's clear-eyed vision and clearly-expressed prose are present throughout.