The Rainbow Paperback - 2011

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.

Details

• Title The Rainbow
• Author D. H. Lawrence; Introduction by Rachel Cusk
• Binding Paperback
• Edition Reprint
• Pages 460
• Volumes 1
• Language ENG
• Publisher Random House UK
• Date 2011-03-07
• Features Table of Contents
• ISBN 9780099541455 / 0099541459
• Weight 0.72 lbs (0.33 kg)
• Dimensions 7.82 x 5.14 x 1.19 in (19.86 x 13.06 x 3.02 cm)
• Reading level 910
• Library of Congress subjects Domestic fiction, Midlands (England)
• Library of Congress Catalog Number 2011381674
• Dewey Decimal Code FIC