DL/A-Z//10D - [Correspondence between 10 Downing Street and Doris Lessing]

DL/A-Z//10D

File

[Correspondence between 10 Downing Street and Doris Lessing]

15/05/1977-18/11/1999
1992
1997

8 Letters (typescript)

Great Britain. Prime Minister.
Lessing, Doris May, 1919-2013

Correspondence with 10 Downing Street.

[1977]

001 is a letter from 10 Downing Street asking whether Doris Lessing would accept an Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) honour. 002 is an O.B.E. acceptance form, not filled in.

003 is a reply from Lessing: “Please thank the Prime Minister for the suggestion that my name should be submitted to the Queen as a possible recipient of the O.B.E. But I would rather not.”

[1992]

005 is a letter from 10 Downing Street asking whether Doris Lessing would accept an O.B.E.

006 is a reply from Lessing: “There is something ruritannical about honours given in the name of a non-existent Empire.”...”And surely there is something unlikable about a person, when old, accepting honours from an institution she attacked when young?”...”And yet... how pleasant to be a dame! I would adore it. Dame of what?"

[1999]

008 is a letter from 10 Downing Street thanking Lessing for her support of an honour for David Pease, director of the Arvon foundation.

009 is a letter from 10 Downing Street asking whether Lessing would accept being appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour.