“If I think of my childhood it is always as if there was a sort of inner darkness, like the gloss of coal in which we moved and had our being.”
I am in love – and, my God, it is the greatest thing that can happen to a man. I tell you, find a woman you can fall in love with. Do it. Let yourself fall in love. If you have not done so already, you are wasting your life.
Born in England on September 11, 1885, D.H. Lawrence is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Lawrence published many novels and poetry volumes during his lifetime, including Sons and Lovers and Women in Love, but is best known for his infamous novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The graphic and highly sexual novel was published in Italy in 1928, but was banned in the United States until 1959, and banned in England until 1960. Garnering fame for his novels and short stories early into his career, Lawrence later received acclaim for his personal letters, in which he detailed a range of emotions, from exhilaration to depression to prophetic brooding. He died in France in 1930.Early Life
Author D.H. Lawrence, regarded today as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, was born David Herbert Lawrence on September 11, 1885, on the Haggs Farm in the small mining town of Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England. His father, Arthur John Lawrence, was a coal miner, and his mother, Lydia Lawrence, worked in the lace-making industry to supplement the family income. Lawrence’s mother was from a middle-class family that had fallen into financial ruin, but not before she had become well-educated and a great lover of literature. She instilled in young D.H. Lawrence a love of books and a strong desire to rise above his blue-collar beginnings.Lawrence’s hardscrabble, working-class upbringing made a strong impression on him, and he later wrote extensively about the experience of growing up in a poor mining town. “Whatever I forget,” he later said, “I shall not forget the Haggs, a tiny red brick farm on the edge of the wood, where I got my first incentive to write.”As a child, D.H. Lawrence often struggled to fit in with other boys. He was physically frail and frequently susceptible to illness, a condition exacerbated by the dirty air of a town surrounded by coal pits. He was poor at sports and, unlike nearly every other boy in town, had no desire to follow in his father’s footsteps as a miner. However, he was an excellent student and in 1897, at the age of 12, he became the first boy in Eastwood’s history to win a scholarship to Nottingham High School. At Nottingham, Lawrence once again struggled to make friends. He often fell ill and grew depressed and lethargic in his studies, graduating in 1901 having made little academic impression. Reflecting back on his childhood, Lawrence said, “If I think of my childhood it is always as if there was a sort of inner darkness, like the gloss of coal in which we moved and had our being.”In the summer of 1901, Lawrence took a job as a factory clerk for a Nottingham surgical appliances manufacturer called Haywoods. However, that autumn, his older brother William suddenly fell ill and died, and in his grief, Lawrence also came down with a bad case of pneumonia. After recovering, he began working as a student teacher at the British School in Eastwood, where he met a young woman named Jessie Chambers who became his close friend and intellectual companion. At her encouragement, he began writing poetry and also started drafting his first novel, which would eventually become The White Peacock.
— D.H. Lawrence
http://www.nerve.com/regulars/jacksnaughtybits/12-27-99
excerpt from LADY CHATTERLEY
D.H. Lawrence
I am in love – and, my God, it is the greatest thing that can happen to a man. I tell you, find a woman you can fall in love with. Do it. Let yourself fall in love. If you have not done so already, you are wasting your life.
— D.H. Lawrence
Poet, Playwright, Author, Journalist (1885–1930)
D.H. Lawrence is best known for his infamous novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was banned in the United States until 1959, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.
CULTURED TRAVELER
D.H. Lawrence’s New Mexico: The Ghosts That Grip the Soul of Bohemian Taos
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/travel/22culture.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
THE TRIAL-LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/22/dh-lawrence-lady-chatterley-trial
Piano
Snake
Bavarian Gentians
The Wild Common
How Beastly the Bourgeois Is (1929)
The Ship of Death (1933)
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