Published (privately) 1928
Published (unexpurgated) 1960 / Length 242 pages
Connie Reid, the novel’s protagonist, leaves the cultured, bohemian life of her youth to marry Sir Clifford Chatterley, an aristocrat. Clifford and Connie enjoy a few weeks of married life before he is sent into battle in the First World War and wounded. He returns home paralysed and impotent. After Clifford begins a writing career, his house becomes a draw for intellectuals, who exhibit an emotional paralysis as powerful as the mansion owner’s physical one. Connie, feeling isolated and empty, begins an unsatisfactory affair that serves only to increase her despair and desire for genuine physical connection and heartfelt passion. Connie’s revulsion at her husband’s loss of masculinity, both physical and spiritual, eventually leads her to become attracted to the gamekeeper, Mellors. Mellors is vital, sensual and passionate, yet also aloof and conscious of class boundaries between himself and Connie. Nevertheless, they embark on an ardent, shocking love affair. The consequences are life-changing for them both.
‘Ask yourselves the question: would you approve of your young sons, young daughters – because girls can read as well as boys – reading this book? Is it a book that you would have lying around the house? Is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?’ – MERVYN GRIFFITH-JONES, for the prosecution in the Chatterley obscenity trial, 1960
• Is the book simply about sex between a man and a woman? Or does its message of connecting with our sexuality have something more profound to say about the nature of the human condition?
• Does Lawrence create believable characters, or does he put words into their mouths simply to articulate his own ideas – preaching rather than storytelling?
• Is the novel truly a modern one? Despite being a modernist novel in some of its themes, one could argue that the book is traditional in its structure and in some of the characters’ dreams of married life.
• How successful is the book as an exploration of the English class system and the damaging effects of industrialization and materialism?
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover was Lawrence’s final novel.
• The book’s frank sexual language and depictions of sex led to the infamous 1960 prosecution of Penguin Books under the Obscene Publications Act.
• The day after the jury delivered its verdict in favour of Penguin, shoppers queued outside bookshops and 200,000 copies were purchased on that first day alone, with 2 million copies being sold in just six weeks.
• Women in Love and The Rainbow by D. H. LAWRENCE – considered to be the author’s two greatest novels.
• Howards End by E. M. FORSTER – Forster was a witness in support of Lady Chatterley’s Lover; this novel also explores themes of class, sexuality and industrialization.
• The Trial of Lady Chatterley by C. H. ROLPH – a transcript of the court case, with commentary on contemporary press reaction.