Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.This was more or less Constance Chatterley's position. The war had brought the roof down over her head. And she had realized that one must live and learn.

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen. This was more or less Constance Chatterley's position. The war had brought the roof down over her head. And she had realized that one must live and learn.

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING THE CROWN’S EMMA CORRIN AND UNBROKEN’S JACK O’CONNELL Introduction by Kathryn Harrison Inspired by the long-standing affair between D. H. Lawrence’s German wife and an Italian peasant, Lady Chatterley’s Lover follows the intense passions of Constance Chatterley. Trapped in an unhappy marriage to an aristocratic mine owner whose war wounds have left him paralyzed and impotent, Constance enters into a liaison with the gamekeeper Mellors. Frank Kermode called the book D. H. Lawrence’s “great achievement,” Anaïs Nin described it as “his best novel,” and Archibald MacLeish hailed it as “one of the most important works of fiction of the century.” Along with an incisive Introduction by Kathryn Harrison, this Modern Library edition includes the transcript of the judge’s decision in the famous 1959 obscenity trial that allowed Lady Chatterley’s Lover to be published in the United States.

Lady Chatterley's Lover is a novel by D. H. Lawrence, first published privately in 1928 in Italy, and in 1929 in France and Australia.[1] An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960, when it was the subject of a watershed obscenity trial against the publisher Penguin Books. Penguin won the case, and quickly sold 3 million copies.[1] The book soon became notorious for its story of the physical (and emotional) relationship between a working class man and an upper class woman, its explicit descriptions of sex, and its use of then-unprintable words.The story is said to have originated from events in Lawrence's own unhappy domestic life, and he took inspiration for the settings of the book from Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, where he grew up. According to some critics, the fling of Lady Ottoline Morrell with "Tiger", a young stonemason who came to carve plinths for her garden statues, also influenced the story...Summary : The story concerns a young married woman, the former Constance Reid (Lady Chatterley), whose upper class husband, Sir Clifford Chatterley, described as a handsome, well-built man, has been paralysed from the waist down due to a Great War injury. In addition to Clifford's physical limitations, his emotional neglect of Constance forces distance between the couple. Her sexual frustration leads her into an affair with the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, the novel's title character. The class difference between the couple highlights a major motif of the novel which is the unfair dominance of intellectuals over the working class. The novel is about Constance's realization that she cannot live with the mind alone; she must also be alive physically. This realization stems from a heightened sexual experience Constance has only felt with Mellors, suggesting that love can only happen with the element of the body, not the mind...Extrait : This was in 1920. They returned, Clifford and Constance, to his home, Wragby Hall, the family 'seat'. His father had died, Clifford was now a baronet, Sir Clifford, and Constance was Lady Chatterley. They came to start housekeeping and married life in the rather forlorn home of the Chatterleys on a rather inadequate income. Clifford had a sister, but she had departed. Otherwise there were no near relatives. The elder brother was dead in the war. Crippled for ever, knowing he could never have any children, Clifford came home to the smoky Midlands to keep the Chatterley name alive while he could.He was not really downcast. He could wheel himself about in a wheeled chair, and he had a bath-chair with a small motor attachment, so he could drive himself slowly round the garden and into the line melancholy park, of which he was really so proud, though he pretended to be flippant about it.Having suffered so much, the capacity for suffering had to some extent left him. He remained strange and bright and cheerful, almost, one might say, chirpy, with his ruddy, healthy-looking face, arid his pale-blue, challenging bright eyes. His shoulders were broad and strong, his hands were very strong...Biography : David Herbert Richards "D. H." Lawrence (11 September 1885 - 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter. His collected works represent, among other things, an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. Some of the issues Lawrence explores are emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct.Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile which he called his "savage pilgrimage"...

Constance, the young Lady Chatterly, is married to a handsome, well-built man. Clifford, her husband, was wounded in the war, and is paralyzed from the waist down. His physical limitations lead him to emotionally neglect Constance, and for comfort, she turns to the gamekeeper, Oliver. In his arms, she finds the passion she needs, even as she struggles with the class differences between the intellectuals and the working class. She realizes that she cannot with the mind alone, but that she also needs her body to be alive. Told in a blunt style, with explicit descriptions of sex, "Lady Chatterly's Lover" used language largely unseen in print at that time, which resulted in its banning and the author's censorship. Indeed, the book is perhaps most famous for its publication history. First published in 1928, it was printed privately in Italy. It was immediately banned in both the author's home of England and in the USA. Expurgated, abridged editions were published in the 1930s in the English-speaking world. In 1960, the case R v Penguin Books Ltd prosecuted Penguin Books for publishing the novel under the Obscene Publications Act. The jury found for the defendant, usher in the liberalization of British publishing. In the USA, the book was part of a three-book test case (along with "Tropic of Cancer" and "Fanny Hill"), to overturn the ban on obscene imported books first enacted in the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. The US Court of Appeals found in favor of the books in 1959, overturning the ban on the grounds that the books had "redeeming social or literary value." Thus, the original, unexpurgated edition (presented here) finally appeared in English for the first time more than thirty years after it was written. About the author: David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) was a prolific writer working in a wide range of styles and forms. A major theme in his work is discussion of the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization, confronting issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, sexuality, and instinctive behavior. By the time of his death from tuberculosis, he was considered a pornographer who had wasted his talents. Some however, challenged that view. E.M. Forster, writing an obituary of Lawrence, described him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, critics championed his reputation, noting his artistic integrity and moral seriousness, and assigning his fiction to the "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now considered a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.

Constance, the young Lady Chatterly, is married to a handsome, well-built man. Clifford, her husband, was wounded in the war, and is paralyzed from the waist down. His physical limitations lead him to emotionally neglect Constance, and for comfort, she turns to the gamekeeper, Oliver. In his arms, she finds the passion she needs, even as she struggles with the class differences between the intellectuals and the working class. She realizes that she cannot with the mind alone, but that she also needs her body to be alive. Told in a blunt style, with explicit descriptions of sex, Lady Chatterly's Lover used language largely unseen in print at that time, which resulted in its banning and the author's censorship. Indeed, the book is perhaps most famous for its publication history. First published in 1928, it was printed privately in Italy. It was immediately banned in both the author's home of England and in the USA. Expurgated, abridged editions were published in the 1930s in the English-speaking world. In 1960, the case R v Penguin Books Ltd prosecuted Penguin Books for publishing the novel under the Obscene Publications Act. The jury found for the defendant, usher in the liberalization of British publishing. In the USA, the book was part of a three-book test case (along with Tropic of Cancer and Fanny Hill), to overturn the ban on obscene imported books first enacted in the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. The US Court of Appeals found in favor of the books in 1959, overturning the ban on the grounds that the books had "redeeming social or literary value." Thus, the original, unexpurgated edition (presented here) finally appeared in English for the first time more than thirty years after it was written. About the author: David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) was a prolific writer working in a wide range of styles and forms. A major theme in his work is discussion of the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization, confronting issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, sexuality, and instinctive behavior. By the time of his death from tuberculosis, he was considered a pornographer who had wasted his talents. Some however, challenged that view. E.M. Forster, writing an obituary of Lawrence, described him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, critics championed his reputation, noting his artistic integrity and moral seriousness, and assigning his fiction to the "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now considered a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.