''A Proper Marriage'' (1954) is the second novel in British

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

-winner

Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing (; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remain ...

five volume, semi-autobiographical, series, ''

Children of Violence The Children of Violence is a sequence of five semi-autobiographical novels by British Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing: ''Martha Quest'' (1952), ''A Proper Marriage'' (1954), ''A Ripple from the Storm'' (1958), '' Landlocked'' (196 ...

''. The first volume is ''

Martha Quest ''Martha Quest'' (1952) is the second novel of British Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing, and the first of the five-volume semi-autobiographical ''Children of Violence'' series, which traces Martha Quest’s life to middle age. The ...

'' (1952), and the others are, ''

A Ripple from the Storm ''A Ripple from the Storm'' (1958) is the third novel in British Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing five volume, semi-autobiographical, series, ''Children of Violence''. The first volume is ''Martha Quest'' (1952), and the others are ...

'' (1958), ''

Landlocked A landlocked country is a country that does not have territory connected to an ocean or whose coastlines lie on endorheic basins. There are currently 44 landlocked countries and 4 landlocked de facto states. Kazakhstan is the world's largest ...

'' (1965), and ''

The Four-Gated City ''The Four-Gated City'', published in 1969, is the concluding novel in British Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing's five-volume, semi-autobiographical series '' The Children of Violence'', which she began, in 1952, with ''Martha Quest''. In ...

'' (1969). The Children of Violence series, follows the life of protagonist Martha Quest "from girlhood to middle age". ''A Proper Marriage'' continues the story of Lessing's eponymous protagonist that she began in ''Martha Quest''. In that novel Martha, aged fifteen left the

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally kn ...

n farm on which she was brought up to work as a typist in the provincial capital, 'the big city'. "Although rapidly disillusioned, she was inescapable drawn into the hectic life of the smart set" and then gets married. ''A Proper Marriage'' reveals the way in which "Martha's rebellious temperament reacted to her new life", and of "her growing discontent with the young married set to which she and her husband Douglas now belong; of the arrival of her baby, which seems another threat to her freedom". The novel also deals with the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

"and of her husband's "departure with the army".From the dust jacket of the first edition.

References

Novels by Doris Lessing 1954 British novels Novels set in Rhodesia Zimbabwean novels Michael Joseph books {{1950s-novel-stub