# The Golden Notebook

Doris Lessing

The landmark novel of the Sixties – a powerful account of a woman searching for her personal, political and professional identity while facing rejection and betrayal.In 1950s London, novelist Anna Wulf struggles with writer’s block. Divorced with a young child, and fearful of going mad, Anna records her experiences in four coloured notebooks: black for her writing life, red for political views, yellow for emotions, blue for everyday events. But it is a fifth notebook – the golden notebook – that finally pulls these wayward strands of her life together.Widely regarded as Doris Lessing’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, ‘The Golden Notebook’ is wry and perceptive, bold and indispensable.

DORIS LESSING

The Golden Notebook


## Copyright

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Previously published in paperback by Penguin 1964, Grafton 1973 (reprinted thirteen times), Paladin 1989 (reprinted three times), Flamingo as a Flamingo Modern Classic 1993 (reprinted six times), and by Harper Perennial as a Harper Perennial Modern Classic (reprinted thirteen times)

First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd 1962

New edition published 1972

Copyright © Doris Lessing 1962, 1972

Doris Lessing asserts the moral right to be

identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007247202

Ebook Edition © 2007 ISBN: 9780007369133

Version 2018-09-27

## Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Preface

Free Women 1

The Notebooks

The Black Notebook

The Red Notebook

The Yellow Notebook

The Blue Notebook

Free Women 2

The Notebooks

The Black Notebook

The Red Notebook

The Yellow Notebook

The Blue Notebook

Free Women 3

The Notebooks

The Black Notebook

The Red Notebook

The Yellow Notebook

The Blue Notebook

Free Women 4

The Notebooks

The Black Notebook

The Red Notebook

The Yellow Notebook

The Blue Notebook

The Golden Notebook

Free Women 5

Keep Reading

By the Same Author

Q & A: Doris Lessing talks to Sarah O’Reilly about The Golden Notebook

Biographical Sketch

About the Author

About the Book

Read on

The Grass is Singing

The Good Terrorist

Love, Again

The Fifth Child

About the Publisher