The Fifth Child | The Fifth Child

At a glance:

Author: Doris Lessing
First Published: 1988
Type of Work: Novel
Time of Work: 1966-1986
Setting: Near London
Principal Characters: Harriet Lovatt, James Lovatt, Dorothy Walker, Ben Lovatt
Genres: Long fiction
Subjects: 1960’s, 1970’s, Child rearing or parenting, Children, Family or family life, Mothers, Crime or criminals, Twentieth century, Supernatural, Marriage, Gangs, youth, Class consciousness, 1980’s, England or English people, Fathers, Conservatism, Devils or demons, Mental institutions, hospitals or asylums
Locales: London, England

Since the publication of her first book, The Grass Is Singing, in 1950, Doris Lessing has proven to be a writer as versatile as she is prolific, producing approximately thirty-three books of poems, stories, plays, essays, and, most important, novels. Even as a novelist, she has proved extraordinarily varied in her approach; the realism of her early and middle periods gave way to the mysticism and science fiction of her Canopus in Argus series, published in the 1970's and 1980's. Lessing's willingness to experiment with fiction's forms, indeed her obsessive need to do so, is best...

The Fifth Child | The Fifth Child

At a glance:

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