Doris Lessing and the Perils of the Pseudonymous Novel

ARTICLE BY JAMES LASDUN VIA THE NEW YORKER

In the early nineteen-eighties, a literary agent in London sent the manuscript of a first novel titled “The Diary of a Good Neighbour,” by a certain Jane Somers, to the publishing company Jonathan Cape. Cape still maintained the old-fashioned practice of employing in-house readers, and the manuscript duly appeared in their office, on the shelf reserved for agented material, guaranteeing it prompt and serious attention. Of the half-dozen or so men and...