Lady Chatterley's Lover

Description

Bold, passionate, and erotic, this true classic of the twentieth century was called 'the most improper novel in the world' by Lawrence himself 'Connie was aware, however, of a growing restlessness...It thrilled inside her body, in her womb, somewhere, till she felt she must jump into water and swim to get away from it; a mad restlessness. It made her heart beat violently for no reason...' Lady Constance Chatterley is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man who is impotent. Oppressed by her dreary life, she is drawn to Mellors the gamekeeper. Breaking out against the constraints of society she yields to her instinctive desire for him and discovers the transforming power of physical love which leads them both towards fulfilment. Banned for many years for its frank depiction of sex, Lady Chatterley's Lover was first published by Penguin in 1960 and was at the centre of a sensational obscenity trial at the Old Bailey. D. H. Lawrence himself called it 'the most improper novel in the world'.

David Herbert Lawrence was born in Nottinghamshire in 1885. After briefly working in both manufacturing and teaching, he published his first novel, The White Peacock in 1911. He then published Sons and Lovers, but his next novel, The Rainbow, was suppressed for its alleged obscenity, and for three years he could not find a publisher for Women in Love. After the First World War he decided to escape the persecution he had suffered in England and spent many years travelling. His last novel, Lady Chatterley's Novel, was published in 1928 but banned in Britain and America until 1960, when landmark trials cleared the way for publication of unexpurgated editions for the first time. D. H. Lawrence died in 1930.

No one ever wrote better about the power struggles of sex and love -- Doris Lessing A masterpiece, for its acute psychological insight, its complex relationships, and its intensity of feeling and expression. Beautiful and tender and frail as the naked self * Guardian * In no modern writer are sexuality and creativity more deeply and intricately connected than in Lawrence -- David Lodge * New York Review of Books *