Lady Chatterley’s Lover: AND A Propos of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”

Banned and vindicated, condemned and lauded, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is D.H. Lawrence’s seminal novel of illicit passion and forbidden desire.

Lady Constance Chatterley feels trapped in her sexless marriage to the Sir Clifford. Paralysed in the First World War, Sir Clifford is unable to fulfil his wife emotionally or physically, and encourages her instead to have a liaison with a man of their own class. But Connie is attracted instead to Oliver Mellors, her husband’s gamekeeper, with whom she embarks on a passionate affair that brings new life to her stifled existence. Can she find true love with Mellors, despite the vast gulf between their positions in society? One of the most controversial novels in English literature, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is an erotically charged and psychologically powerful depiction of adult relationships.

In her introduction Doris Lessing discusses the influence of Lawrence’s sexual politics, his relationship with his wife Frieda and his attitude towards the First World War. Using the complete and restored text of the Cambridge edition, this volume includes a new chronology and further reading by Paul Poplawski and notes by Michael Squires.

Edited with notes by Michael Squires and an introduction by Doris Lessing.

‘A brave and important book, passionate and wildly ambitious’
Independent on Sunday

‘A masterpiece’
Guardian