About this book
D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love, the sequel to The
Rainbow (1915), was published in 1920. However, these novels, two of the
author’s greatest, were initially conceived as a single work. Women in Love
continues The Rainbow’s story of the Brangwen family, focusing namely on the
lives and loves of sisters Ursula and Gudren. Urusula, a teacher, becomes
romantically involved with Rupert Birkin, a school inspector with some
unconventional ideas and attitudes; Gurdren, an artist, becomes involved with
Gerald Crich, an industrialist and coal mine heir. Drawn together by a number
of incidents, all four yearn for fulfillment, but struggle to avoid destruction
in the process.
Getting Women in Love published proved to be a
challenge following The Rainbow’s obscenity trial, which resulted in the
novel’s being unavailable in the UK for over a decade after. Unsurprisingly,
Methuen & Co., publisher of The Rainbow, backed out of publishing Women in
Love. But after three long years of delays and extensive revisions, Thomas
Seltzer published Women in Love in New York City. Women in Love is ranked 49th
on Modern Library’s “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century; The
Rainbow is ranked 48th.
From the publisher
Classics for Your Collection: goo.gl/U80LCr --------- Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are sisters living in The Midlands in England in the 1910s. Ursula is a teacher, Gudrun an artist. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and coal-mine heir Gerald Crich, and the four become friends. Ursula and Birkin become involved, and Gudrun and Gerald eventually begin a love affair. All four are deeply concerned with questions of society, politics, and the relationship between men and women. At a party at Gerald's estate, Gerald's sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes the teacher and mentor of Gerald's youngest sister. Soon Gerald's coal-mine-owning father dies as well, after a long illness. After the funeral, Gerald goes to Gudrun's house and spends the night with her while her parents sleep in another room. Birkin asks Ursula to marry him, and she agrees. Gerald and Gudrun's relationship, however, becomes stormy. The two couples holiday in the Alps. Gudrun begins an intense friendship with Loerke, a physically puny but emotionally commanding artist from Dresden. Gerald, enraged by Loerke and most of all by Gudrun's verbal abuse and rejection of his manhood, and driven by his own internal violence, tries to strangle Gudrun. Before he has killed her, however, he realises that this is not what he wants, and he leaves Gudrun and Loerke, and climbs the mountain, eventually slips into a snowy valley where he falls asleep, and freezes to death. The impact of Gerald's death upon Birkin is profound. The novel ends a few weeks after Gerald's death with Birkin trying to explain to Ursula that he needs Gerald as he needs her; her for the perfect relationship with a woman, and Gerald for the perfect relationship with a man. Scroll Up and Grab Your Copy!
First Edition Identification
New York City-based Thomas Seltzer first
published Women in Love in November 1920. Because of controversy with The
Rainbow, the blue cloth-bound first edition of Women in Love was published in a
limited print run of 1,250 numbered copies that were available only to
subscribers. Twenty-five copies of the first edition are signed by Lawrence,
seemingly at random, and have sold for upwards of $25,000.
Details
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Title
Women in Love
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Author
Success Oceo (Editor); D. H. Lawrence
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Binding
Paperback
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Pages
416
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Volumes
1
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Language
ENG
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Publisher
Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
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Date
2017-05
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ISBN
9781547041022 / 1547041021
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Weight
1.22 lbs (0.55 kg)
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Dimensions
9 x 6 x 0.85 in (22.86 x 15.24 x 2.16 cm)
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Reading level
920
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Dewey Decimal Code
FIC
About the author
David Herbert 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 sexuality, 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 he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "The greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel.
