About this book
D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow follows three generations of the Brangwen family, with a particular focus on the sexual dynamics of, and relations between, the characters. Tom Brangwen, who is… let’s say “not the brightest,” succeeds to his father’s farm and falls in love with Lydia Lensky, a Polish widow; Anna, Lydia’s daughter (and Tom’s stepdaughter), marries Will, a distant relative of Tom’s; Anna and Will’s oldest daughter, Ursula, is a modern working woman.
For Tom Brangwen’s generation sex happens, but between the lines. For Anna and Will, bodies are alluded to and desires described. By the time Ursula Brangwen is a young woman, sex is frequent and directly addressed. This depiction of sexual desire as a natural force — perhaps spiritual, even! — caused quite a stir upon The Rainbow’s publication. The novel was almost instantly removed from the shelves of bookstores across the UKcountry and was then prosecuted in an obscenity trial in a British Magistrates’ court in November 1915, just two months after its release. As a result, roughly half of the copies of the novel’s original print run of were seized and burnt. The Rainbow was unavailable in the UK for 11 years following.
Lawrence initially conceived The Rainbow and what became its sequel, Women in Love, as a single novel titled The Sisters. However, after much revision, that manuscript became two of the author’s greatest novels. The Rainbow is ranked 48th on Modern Library’s “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century; Women in Love is ranked 49th.
From the rear cover
Set in the rural midlands of England, D.H. Lawrence's 'The Rainbow' explores the lives of three generations of the Brangwen family, conveying how their rural existence is gradually but profoundly changed by the influx of industry and urbanism. But it is young Ursula Brangwen, discovering herself through her sexual awakening, who becomes the focus of Lawrence's classic work, which was banned by court order when it was first published in London in 1915.
First Edition Identification
Methuen & Co. first published The Rainbow in London in 1915. Signed first editions have sold for upwards of $8,000.
Details
- Title The Rainbow
- Author D. H. Lawrence
- Binding Paperback
- Edition Paperback
- Pages 448
- Language ENG
- Publisher Wordsworth Editions Ltd, United Kingdom
- Date December 5, 1995
- ISBN 9781853262500
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The Rainbow (Wordsworth Classics) (Classics Library (NTC))
by D. H. Lawrence
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- Binding
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- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9781853262500 / 1853262501
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