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

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

-winner

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

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'' (1965 ...

''. The first volume is '' Martha Quest'' (1952), and the others are, '' A Ripple from the Storm'' (1958), ''

Landlocked A landlocked country is a country that has no territory connected to an ocean or whose coastlines lie solely on endorheic basins. Currently, there are 44 landlocked countries, two of them doubly landlocked (Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan), and t ...

'' (1965), and '' The Four-Gated City'' (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 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 known as South ...

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 (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

"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