Lady Chatterley's Lover (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

1 (p. 4) one of the cultivated Fabians, in the palmy, rather pre-Raphaelite days: This is a reference to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, formed in 1848 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, and William Holman Hunt, all young English painters or poets who idealized medieval beauty and Renaissance culture and were devoted to nature and truth in art.

2 (p. 9) And armies were ridiculous, and old buffers of generals altogether, the red-faced Kitchener supremely: Field Marshal Horatio Kitchener (1850-1916) was secretary of state for war during World War I. His face was featured in a well-known recruiting poster captioned “Your country needs you.”

3 (p. 10) Till things developed over there, and Lloyd George came to save the situation over here: British statesman David Lloyd George (1863-1945), an adversary of Kitchener (see note 2), was an innovative and effective minister of munitions during the early years of World War I. He served as prime minister from 1916 to 1922.

4 (p. 10) so divorced fram the England that was really England... he even thought well of Horatio Bottomley: Bottomley (1860-1933) was a wildly successful financial speculator notorious for his conviction for fraud in 1922. He was also the founder and editor of John Bull, a journal that attacked Lady Chatterley’s Lover on its publication as a “landmark in evil.” Lawrence despised john Bull, which he termed a “bloated ignominy” and once wrote that he feared leaving responsibility for England to the “Bottomleys, etc.”

Chapter 2

1 (p. 19) Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof: See Bible, Matthew 6:34.

Chapter 3

1 (p. 23) bitch-goddess Success: Lawrence attributes these words to the American novelist Henry James on pp. 66-67, but William James (1842-1910), the philosopher and brother of Henry James, actually coined the phrase in a letter to H. G. Wells: “The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS” (September 11, 1906).

2 (pp. 26-27) infant crying in the night: This refers to Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam (1850), canto 54, stanza 5, lines 18-19: “An infant crying in the night: / An infant crying for the light.”

Chapter 4

1 (p. 37) As for Hammond, he’s got a property instinct, so naturally the straight road and the narrow gate are right for him: See the Bible, Matthew 7:14: “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

2 (p. 37) he’ll be an English Man of Letters: This refers to the “English Men of Letters” series that Lord John Morley edited from 1878 to 1919; when completed, this series of short biographies comprised sixty-seven volumes.

3 (p. 39) “Blest be the tie that binds / Our hearts in kindred something-or-other”: This is a reference to a very popular hymn by the Rev. John Fawcett (1740-1817). The correct lyrics are: “Blest be the tie that binds / Our hearts in Christian love; / The fellowship of kindred minds / Is like to that above.”

4 (p. 39) “there’s something wrong with the mental life, radically. It’s rooted in spite and envy, envy and spite. Ye shall know the tree by its fruit”: See the Bible, Matthew 7:20: “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them”; see also Matthew 12:33: “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.”

5 (p. 40) They all looked at him as if the ass had spoken: In the Bible, Balaam tries to join with an enemy of the Hebrews against the command of God, who then sends an invisible angel to stop him from going forward. When Balaam beats the animal for refusing to go forward, God allows the ass on which Balaam is riding to speak to his master and ask, “What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?” (Numbers 22:28).

6 (p. 42) Renoir: The reference is to the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), whose arthritic hands made it difficult for him to paint in his later years.

Chapter 5

1 (p. 47) “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”: This line is taken from a famous refrain from a poem by French lyric poet François Villon (1431-1463?) entitled “Ballade of the Ladies of Bygone Times.”

2 (p. 53) The colliers at Tevershall were talking again of a strike: There was a General Strike in Britain in 1926 to protest the lockout of coal miners and the subsequent suffering of the miners and their families. The destitute strikers were forced to capitulate.

Chapter 6

1 (p. 69) She would sift the generations of men ... and see if she couldn’t find one who would do.—“Go ye unto the streets ... and see if ye can find a man”: See the Bible, Jeremiah 5:1: “Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now... if ye can find a man ... that seeketh the truth.”

Chapter 7

1 (p. 81) “Give me the resurrection of the body! ... when we’ve shoved the cerebral stone away”: See the Bible, Luke 24:2: After Jesus’ crucifixion, the disciples find “the stone rolled away from the sepulchre” and the body of Jesus missing.

Chapter 8

1 (p. 91) Connie took it in good part.... “Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of Ev’n or Morn”: Connie is recalling lines from book 3 of Paradise Lost, by John Milton (1608-1674).

2 (p. 91) She had forgotten him in her unspeakable depression. But now something roused... “Pale beyond porch and portal”: She is quoting line 49 from The Garden of Proserpine, by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909). The stanza reads: “Pale, beyond porch and portal, / Crowned with calm leaves, she stands / Who gathers all things mortal / With cold immortal hands; / Her languid lips are sweeter / Than love’s who fears to greet her / To men that mix and meet her / From many times and lands.”

3 (p. 91) “Ye must be born again!”: See the Bible, John 3:7.

4 (p. 91) “I believe in the resurrection of the body!”: In the Bible, 1 Corinthians 15:42, Saint Paul speaks of the “resurrection of the dead.” Connie used the term “resurrection of the body” on p. 81.

5 (p. 91) “Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it shall by no means bring forth”: Compare Connie’s quote to the passage in the Bible, John 12:24: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

6 (p. 92) “The world has grown pale”: This is a misquote of line 35 in Algernon Charles Swinburne’s Hymn to Proserpine: “... the world has grown grey from thy breath”.

7 (p. 92) there was an anger of entangled wind caught among the twigs. It, too, was caught and trying to tear itself free, the wind, like Absalom: In the Bible, 2 Samuel 18:9 tells the story of Absalom, rebellious son of King David, who died during battle against his father’s forces when his head became ensnarled in the branches of a tree.

8 (p. 98) “Sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes”: Clifford is quoting Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (act 4, scene 3): “Violets dim, / But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes.”

9 (p. 100) “Thou still unravished bride of quietness”: This is the first line of the great Romantic poem by John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819).

Chapter 9

1 (p. 108) It was more than gossip. It was Mrs. Gaskell and George Eliot and Miss Mitford all rolled in one, with a great deal more, that these women left out: In describing Mrs. Bolton’s village gossip, Connie recalls the British novelists Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865), George Eliot (1819-1880), and Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855), all of whom wrote about village life.

2 (p. 111) And then they go to the Primitive Chapel: The reference is to a chapel of the Primitive Methodist Church, a revivalist form of Methodism associated with the working class.

3 (p. 115) Bitch-goddess of success: See chapter 3, note 1.

4 (p. 116) far more interesting than art... was this technical science of industry. In this field, men were like gods: This phrase was probably suggested by a novel about utopian technology, Men Like Gods (1923), by H. G. Wells, an acquaintance of D. H. Lawrence.

Chapter 10

1 (p. 120) You are the great I-am: Compare Clifford’s statement to what God says to Moses—I AM THAT I AM—in the Bible, Exodus 3:14.

2 (p. 142) he stood in the path like Balaam’s ass: See chapter 4, note 5.

3 (p. 145) to be passionate like a Bacchante, like a Bacchanal: A bacchanal was a festival in honor of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine (called “Iacchos” on the next line). Here Lawrence uses the term bacchanal, associated with drunken revelry and ecstatic orgies, interchangeably to refer to the bacchante or bacchae, the female worshipers at these festivals.

4 (p.147) “Read Racine”: French dramatist Jean Racine (1639-1699) wrote in the neoclassical manner and was known for his tragic plays.

5 (p. 148) “For hands, she hath none”: This is a slight misquote of Algernon Charles Swinburne’s “The Pilgrims” (1871; lines 6-7).

6 (p. 149) “The lady loves her will”: This is a line from the Mother Goose rhyme “The Hart.”

7 (p. 150) “Who knoweth the mysteries of the will—for it can triumph even against the angels—: Here Lawrence’s words echo the epigraph to “Ligeia,” a short story by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849): ”Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.”

Chapter 11

1 (p. 157) So in the lumber room there were bad Sir Edwin Landseers: Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873) was a popular painter, especially of animals, though his later works were criticized for their anthropomorphism and sentimentality.

2 (p. 157) pathetic William Henry Hunt birds’ nests: Known as “Bird‘s-nest” Hunt (1790-1864), this popular watercolorist specialized in studies of flowers, eggs, and nests.

3 (p. 167) England, my England: See the poem “For England’s Sake,” by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903): “What have I done for you, / England, my England? / What is there I would not do / England, my own?” Lawrence used “England, My England” as the title for both a short story and the 1922 collection that contains it.

4 (p.171) “she ranks you even higher than Nurse Cavell”: Edith Cavell (1865-1915) was a British nurse who was executed by the Germans during World War I. She was famous for her heroism in helping allied soldiers escape occupied territory.

5 (p. 171) “You can’t be so adored without making some slight return. St. George of Cappadocia was nothing to you, in her eyes”: George of Cappadocia was a fourth-century Greek Orthodox prelate who was excommunicated for his Arianism, a Christian heresy that claims Jesus was not divine. Known for his violent persecution of his enemies, he is nevertheless often conflated with Saint George, patron saint of England.

6 (p. 172) “do you realize you are the Roman de la rose of Miss Bentley and lots like her?”: This is a reference to a thirteenth-century French allegory on romance that was an important literary influence on European and English authors, including Geoffrey Chaucer.

7 (p. 173) “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings”: This line is from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (act 1, scene 2).

Chapter 12

1 (p. 187) it was the sons of god with the daughters of men: Compare this line with that in the Bible, Genesis 6:2: “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair.”

Chapter 13

1 (p. 192) “And the souls in Plato riding up to heaven in a two-horse chariot”: In Phaedrus, a dialogue by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, a charioteer with a pair of winged horses, one good and one evil, represent the human soul, caught between spiritual love and base desires.

2 (p. 194) “The ownership of property has now become a religious question ... The point is not: take all thou hast and give to the poor”: See the Bible, Luke 18:22, in which Jesus tells a rich man: “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.”

3 (p. 199) Oh captain, my Captain, our splendid trip is done: This echoes the first line of “Memories of President Lincoln” in Leaves of Grass (1855), by Walt Whitman (1819-1892): “O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done.”

Chapter 14

1 (p. 226) “Lift up your heads”: See the Bible, Psalm 24:7.

2 (p. 227) “Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in kindred love”: See chapter 4, note 3.

Chapter 15

1 (p. 244) “You are the ‘Knight of the Burning Pestle’ ”: The reference is to a play by Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) of that title.

Chapter 16

1 (p. 249) alone and palely loitering: This language is from line 2 of John Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci” (1819).

2 (p. 251) scientific-religious books: Lawrence quotes a phrase from the last page of Religion in the Making, by the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947).

Chapter 17

1 (p. 281) When Jesus refused the devils money: See the Bible, Matthew 4:8-11 and Luke 4:5-8, for Satan’s temptation of Jesus with worldly goods.

2 (p. 288) “if a man likes to use his wife, as Benvenuto Cellini says, ‘in the Italian way’ ”: In his Autobiography, Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) refers to anal intercourse as having sex ”in the Italian way.”

3 (p. 288) “seems to make him more monstrous and shocking than a murderer like Crippen”: The London physician Dr. H. H. Crippen was hanged in 1910, after a dramatic shipboard arrest, for poisoning his wife and chopping up her corpse.

4 (p. 288) “with his Miller-of-the-Dee air, I care for nobody, no, not I, if nobody care for me”: A popular ballad about a jolly miller living on the river Dee, from Isaac Bickerstaff’s folk opera Love in a Village (1762), includes the refrain as “I care for nobody, no, not I, if no one cares for me.”

5 (p. 288) Don Rodrigo: This is a reference to “The Penitence of Don Roderick,” found in John Gibson Lockhart’s collection Ancient Spanish Ballads (1823). In the ballad Roderick is punished for sexual transgression by a two-headed serpent that eats his genitals and head at the same time.

6 (p. 290) until she broke into the hut and found one of your books, an autobiography of the actress Judith: Madame Judith was the stage name of the renowned actress Julie Bernat (1827-1912). Her autobiography was published in 1912.

Chapter 18

1 (p. 293) he took berths on the Orient Express, in spite of Connie’s dislike of trains de luxe: The Orient-Express, which ran from Paris to Constantinople from 1883 to 1977, was Europe’s first transcontinental express train and considered the most luxurious in Europe.

2 (p. 293) there would be a house-party for the grouse: The season for shooting grouse began in August and was usually a social occasion for the well-to-do.

3 (p. 303) “Only he is like Colonel C. E. Florence, who preferred to become a private soldier again”: The reference is obscure, but Lawrence may have been fictionalizing Colonel T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935), known as Lawrence of Arabia, who became a private in the Royal Tank Corps in 1923 after a career as a colonel.

4 (p. 309) “Vulcan and Venus under the net of art”: Vulcan was the Roman god of fire and the forge; his wife, Venus, was notoriously unfaithful with Mars, god of war. Vulcan threw a net over the two when he discovered them together.

Chapter 19

1 (p. 313) like the lady in Tennyson, he must weep or he must die: Here Lawrence borrows line 4 of the song “Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead” from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s narrative poem The Princess (1847): “She must weep or she will die.”

2 (p. 314) when he was a child stricken with an apparent candor and an apparent wonderment ... the perverse and literal rendering of “except ye become again as a little child”: See the Bible, Matthew 18:3: “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

3 (p. 324) There’s a bad time coming, boys, there’s a bad time coming: Compare these lines to the popular nineteenth-century song by Charles Mackay (1814-1889): “There’s a good time coming, boys! / A good time coming.”

4 (p. 325) “It’s my Pentecost, the forked flame between me and you”: In Christianity, Pentecost refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit and also to the celebration of the descent on the Apostles of the Holy Spirit, which is described in the Bible, in Acts 2, as cloven or forked tongues of flame.

5 (p. 326) “In the end he will want to spew you out as the abominable thing”: See the Bible, Deuteronomy 14:3: “Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing.”