• LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER •
by D. H. Lawrence

Summary

A book most notable for the controversy surrounding its publication, Lady Chatterley's Lover underwent various printings due to its sexual content: it was published privately in Florence in 1928, in a bowdlerized version in London in 1932 and finally unexpurgated by Grove Press in America in 1959. It was also Lawrence's last novel. It is the story of Connie, Constance Reid, who marries Sir Clifford Chatterley in 1917 only to have him wounded in the war such that he must be confined to a wheelchair permanently soon afterwards. After a brief affair with Michaelis the playwright that leaves her unsatisfied, Lady Chatterley enjoys an extremely passionate relationship with Oliver Mellors, the gamekeeper on their estate. The later stages of the novel move onto the issue of her pregnancy by Mellors and her trip to Venice to disguise the true parentage of the child. The truth is eventually uncovered and the novel ends with a sense of fulfillment for both Lady Chatterley and Mellors although the situation is never fully resolved. The story and its sentiments suggest that the sexual relationship is the most profound of all and that it may be debased either by treating it lightly or by viewing it with shame (the attitudes seemingly taken by young and old respectively). The main reason for the censorship of the book in England was the unprecedented unrestrained and explicit language used to describe the Mellors affair.

Controversy

• British obscenity trial
When it was published in Britain in 1960, the trial of the publishers, Penguin Books, under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 was a major public event and a test of the new obscenity law. The 1959 act, introduced by Roy Jenkins, had made it possible for publishers to escape conviction if they could show that a work was of literary merit. One of the objections was to the frequent use of the word "fuck" and its derivatives.

Various academic critics, including E. M. Forster, Helen Gardner, Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, were called as witnesses, and the verdict, delivered on November 2, 1960, was not guilty. This resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the UK. The prosecution was ridiculed for being out of touch with changing social norms when the chief prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, asked if it were the kind of book "you would wish your wife or servants to read". (Perhaps the prosecutor took it for granted that any nontrivial person was male and had both a wife and servants.)

In 2006, this was dramatised by BBC Wales as The Chatterley Affair.

• Australia
Not only was the book banned in Australia, but a book describing the British trial, The Trial of Lady Chatterley, was also banned. A copy was smuggled into the country, and then published widely. The fallout from this event eventually led to the easing of censorship of books in the country. However the country still retains the Office of Film and Literature Classification. When the office considers material to be too offensive or obscene it will refuse to classify the material. Material that fails to receive a classification cannot be distributed. Its officers are called "classifiers", not "censors".

• United States
Lady Chatterley's Lover was one of a trio of books (the others being Tropic of Cancer and Fanny Hill), the ban on which was fought and overturned in court with assistance by lawyer Charles Rembar in 1959.

The movie version was the subject of attempted censorship in New York State on the grounds that it promoted adultery. The Supreme Court held that the law prohibiting its showing was a violation of the First Amendment's protection of Free Speech.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1 [proceed]
• Chapter 2 [proceed]
• Chapter 3 [proceed]
• Chapter 4 [proceed]
• Chapter 5 [proceed]
• Chapter 6 [proceed]
• Chapter 7 [proceed]
• Chapter 8 [proceed]
• Chapter 9 [proceed]
• Chapter 10 [proceed]
• Chapter 11 [proceed]
• Chapter 12 [proceed]
• Chapter 13 [proceed]
• Chapter 14 [proceed]
• Chapter 15 [proceed]
• Chapter 16 [proceed]
• Chapter 17 [proceed]
• Chapter 18 [proceed]
• Chapter 19 [proceed]