Editing Doris Lessing (section)

===Early life===
Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in [[Kermanshah]], [[Qajar Iran|Persia]], on 22 October 1919, to Captain Alfred Tayler and Emily Maude Tayler (née McVeagh), both British subjects.<ref name="englishbloom">{{cite news|last=Hazelton|first=Lesley|title=Golden Notebook' Author Lessing Wins Nobel Prize|work=Bloomberg|date=11 October 2007|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=anexY5Z5sGgw|access-date=11 October 2007|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131024030417/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=anexY5Z5sGgw&refer=home|archive-date=24 October 2013}}</ref> Her father, who had lost a leg during his service in [[World War I]], met his future wife, a nurse, at the [[Royal Free Hospital]] in London where he was recovering from his [[amputation]].<ref name="broken">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/klein-lessing.html|title=Doris Lessing|access-date=11 October 2007|author= Carole Klein|work=The New York Times}}</ref><ref name="scifirefa">{{cite web |url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dlessing.htm |title=Doris Lessing |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080608133357/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dlessing.htm |archive-date=8 June 2008 |url-status=dead  }}</ref> The couple moved to Persia, for Alfred to take a job as a clerk for the [[Imperial Bank of Persia]].<ref name="space fiction">{{cite news|last =Hazelton| first=Lesley|title=Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and 'Space Fiction'|work=The New York Times|date=25 July 1982|url=http://mural.uv.es/vemivein/feminismcommunism.htm| access-date=11 October 2007 }}</ref><ref name="bbcref1">{{cite news| title=Author Lessing wins Nobel honour|date=11 October 2007|url =http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7039100.stm|work=BBC News|access-date=11 October 2007}}</ref>

In 1925 the family moved to the British colony of [[Southern Rhodesia]] (now Zimbabwe) to farm maize and other crops on about {{convert|1000|acre}} of bush that Alfred bought. In the rough environment, his wife Emily aspired to lead an [[Edwardian]] lifestyle. It might have been possible had the family been wealthy; in reality, they were short of money and the farm delivered very little income.<ref name="dobref"/>

As a girl Doris was educated first at the [[Dominican Convent High School, Harare|Dominican Convent High School]], a Roman Catholic [[convent]] [[Single-sex school|all-girls school]] in the Southern Rhodesian capital of Salisbury (now [[Harare]]).<ref name="UnderMySkin" /> Then followed a year at [[Girls High School, Harare|Girls High School]] in Salisbury.<ref name="UnderMySkin">{{cite book |last1=Lessing |first1=Doris |title=Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 |url=https://archive.org/details/undermyskinvolum01less |url-access=registration |date=1994 |publisher=Harper Collins |location=London |isbn=000255545X|page=[https://archive.org/details/undermyskinvolum01less/page/147 147]}}</ref> She left school at age 13 and was self-educated from then on. She left home at 15 and worked as a [[nursemaid]]. She started reading material that her employer gave her on politics and sociology<ref name="scifirefa"/> and began writing around this time.

In 1937 Doris moved to Salisbury to work as a [[Switchboard operator|telephone operator]], and she soon married her first husband, civil servant Frank Wisdom, with whom she had two children (John, 1940–1992, and Jean, born in 1941), before the marriage ended in 1943.<ref name="scifirefa"/> Lessing left the family home in 1943, leaving the two children with their father.<ref name = "telegraph"/>