D.H. Lawrence - The Man

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire at 8a Victoria Street, now the Birthplace Museum. He was the fourth child of Arthur, a miner at nearby Brinsley pit, and Lydia. During his childhood the Lawrence family lived at four different homes in Eastwood, which you can discover by walking along the The Blue Line Trail.

D.H. Lawrence was educated at Beauvale Board School and went onto win a scholarship to Nottingham High School. He worked briefly as a clerk in a surgical appliance factory and then for four years as a pupil-teacher. After studies at University College Nottingham, D.H. Lawrence pursued a teaching career.

In 1909, a number of Lawrence's poems were published by Ford Maddox Ford in the English Review. The appearance of his first novel, The White Peacock (1911), launched D.H. Lawrence into a writing career. In 1912 he met Frieda von Richthofen, the German wife of  Professor Ernest Weekly, who had been one of his teachers at university. Lawrence fell in love with Frieda and eventually she left her husband and three children to be with Lawrence and they married in 1914 in London.

D.H. Lawrence's semi-autobiographical novel Sons and Lovers appeared in 1913, and is based on aspects of his childhood in Eastwood. Lawrence's fourth novel, The Rainbow (1915), was about two sisters growing up in the north of England and was banned on publication, which devastated Lawrence.

During the First World War D.H. Lawrence and Frieda were unable to obtain passports and were targets of some harassment from the authorities. They were accused of spying for the Germans and officially expelled from Cornwall in 1917. The Lawrence's were not permitted to emigrate until 1919, when their years of travelling really began and they visited and lived in many places including Australia, Mexico, the United States and Italy.

Some of D.H Lawrence's other novels include Women In Love (1920), which was a sequel to The Rainbow. Aaron's Rod (1922), which shows the influence of Nietzsche, and Kangaroo (1923), where Lawrence expressed his own idea of a 'superman'. The Plumed Serpent (1926) was a vivid evocation of Mexico and its ancient Aztec religion.

D.H. Lawrence's last and most infamous novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover, which explores the love affair between Lady Constance Chatterley and her husband's gamekeeper, was first published in 1928 and instantly branded as obscene. D.H. Lawrence died within two years, leaving Lady Chatterley's Loveras evidence of his controversial beliefs in the overriding importance of sexual relations, in a world he saw as being ruined by intellectual and industrial concerns.

But, while the scandal surrounding the novel was certainly notable in his own lifetime, it was not until the 1960 court case, when Penguin Books fought to publish the unexpurgated version of this novel, that both D.H. Lawrence and Lady Chatterley's Lover became household names. While his novel and anti-censorship had triumphed, it was due to the publicity surrounding the trial that his reputation for writing 'dirty books' was sealed and remains with us today.

D.H. Lawrence died  in Vence, France on the 2^nd March, 1930.

Image of D.H. Lawrence above by courtesy of Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham.

Front cover of Lady Chatterley's Lover taken from 'Penguin By Design: A Cover Story 1935 –2005' published by Penguin.