Doris Lessing, my magnificent panther from the African veldt...by her secret lover Anthony Sampson Political commentator said the author brought passion to 'politics and sex' Claimed Lessing pretended to visit for research just to get him into bed The novelist, who grew up in Rhodesia, died last week at the age of 94 She was always known as a woman with a bold attitude towards sex. But now an even raunchier side to the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing can be revealed. In a secret version of a memoir by the late political commentator Anthony Sampson, he described in detail how he was seduced by Lessing, who died last weekend aged 94. Relationship: Anthony Sampson, often described as a "reserved Englishman," wrote that Doris Lessing brought "a passionate African freshness to both politics and sex" Sampson, often described as a "reserved Englishman," wrote that Lessing brought "a passionate African freshness to both politics and sex." And in his recollections, seen by The Mail on Sunday, he recounted how she pretended to visit him for research purposes as a guise to take him to bed. Sampson's tribute to his lover, who arrived in Britain from Rhodesia in 1949 when she was 30, was removed from the version of the book that his widow Sally published in 2008, four years after his death. But in the unedited version, he wrote: "Doris Lessing, the communist novelist, had arrived from Rhodesia like a magnificent panther from the veldt, leaping across walls and fences, with a mixture of beauty and directness. Soon after I met her she rang up to ask to look through my copies of the South African newspaper New Age. Later I took her to see a John Osborne play and we came back for cold chicken at my flat. Travel: Doris Lessing, pictured in the 1950s, arrived in Britain from Rhodesia in 1949 when she was 30 " "I like the way we go through the preliminaries," said Doris, "when both of us know we're going to sleep together tonight. I've already tried twice. Why should I have wanted to look up New Age? Doris brought a passionate African freshness to both politics and sex. "Who organised that strike," she asked breathlessly in the midst of love- making, "the students or the workers?" " In the published version of Sampson's memoirs, titled The Anatomist, there is no reference to their sexual relationship, though Lessing is still described as a "magnificent panther from the veldt" and the book includes the reference to the play and the cold chicken meal. Sampson does not provide a date for the sexual encounter in the unedited version but it is clear it occurred before his marriage to Sally in 1965. What is uncertain is whether it was a one-night stand. Passed away: British author Doris Lessing, pictured with her Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007, died last week at the age of 94 Lessing, who published her first book The Grass Is Singing in 1950, was without doubt an established author when the affair took place. She wrote some of the most acclaimed novels of the post-war period, including the Children Of Violence series, The Golden Notebook and The Good Terrorist. She does not mention Sampson in her memoirs, but never named her lovers when writing of her affairs. Two drafts of the unpublished version of Sampson's memoirs were donated to the Bodleian Library in Oxford by his widow Sally in 2011. Other documents reveal that the reference to the fling with Lessing was still in drafts of the book dated 2005. In her foreword to his edited book, Sampson's widow acknowledged that although he had written all of the chapters himself, she had revised sections. But she denied editing out the passage about Lessing and declined to comment further.