D. H. Lawrence: Dying Game 1922-1930: The Cambridge Biography of D. H. Lawrence

Description

Originally published in 1998, the final volume of the Cambridge Biography of D. H. Lawrence chronicles his progress from leaving Europe in 1922 to his death in Venice in 1930. Based on much previously unfamiliar material, it describes his travels in Ceylon, Australia, the USA and Mexico in an increasingly desperate search for an ideal community. With his return to Europe in 1925, there is a detailed account of his rediscovery of painting, his battle against censorship, and the vitality with which he resisted the debilitating effects of tuberculosis. Kangaroo, The Plumed Serpent and Lady Chatterley's Lover are usually seen as the literary landmarks of these years; but this was the period in which Lawrence also wrote remarkable novellas, essays, criticism, short stories and poems. He is revealed here as a man both more complex and more humorous than is usually allowed, and exemplary in his resolute grappling with the central problems of his age.

Review of the hardback: 'To say that the final chapters of David Ellis's exemplary biography are overwhelmingly moving is in no way to diminish the good work that has gone before. From the start Ellis combines the need for an exhaustive documentary record with the ability to tell a coherent, compelling story ... Ellis's greatest achievement, though, is to give us such a vivid sense of Lawrence at work, of how, on a day-to-day basis, he transmuted his experience into words.' Geoff Dyer, London Evening Standard Review of the hardback: '... scholarly, reverential, magnificently detailed, anatomising the multitudinous writings against the backdrop of his turbulent, loving, yet adversarial life.' William Scammell, Independent on Sunday Review of the hardback: 'The great achievement of this third volume lies in the biographer's ability to acknowledge the less attractive aspects of Lawrence's personality while still presenting his essential genius and integrity of the man. Professor Ellis provides the fullest and most perspicacious account of the novelist's last years; his insight is compelling and his narrative arresting. He is particularly good at displaying the gentler and more sympathetic aspects of Lawrence's character, in particular that instinctive gaiety which captivated acquaintances ... This third volume of the Cambridge biography also completes a worthy and brave endeavour: D. H. Lawrence will never again be known so completely or so well.' Peter Ackroyd Review of the hardback: '[This] is a most impressive achievement, and fully maintains the quite exemplarily high scholarly standards adhered to by the first two volumes. Written with the requisite tact (and a lot of tact is required), the ample, well-balanced text is supplemented by nearly 200 pages of extremely useful appendices and notes, which constitute an archive in themselves; plus a chronology, and a fifty-five-page index which could not be improved on.' Tony Tanner, The Times Literary Supplement Review of the hardback: 'As a record of Lawrence's daily life, of his movements, of where he stayed, who he talked to, what he wrote and said, Ellis's biography is a work of exemplary research.' Allan Massie, Literary Review Review of the hardback: 'All you want to know about Lawrence's wanderings in his final years.' The Observer Review of the hardback: 'This is a work of great assiduity and completeness, a fit companion to the other two volumes of the Cambridge life.' The Sunday Times