LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER

Lady Chatterley’s Lover is Lawrence’s last novel, first published in 1928. The first edition was printed in Florence, Italy, as it could not be published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960. It soon became notorious for its story of the physical relationship between a working-class man and an aristocratic woman, with explicit sexual descriptions and what was deemed frequent uses of vulgar language.  The story is believed to have originated from events in Lawrence’s own unhappy domestic life, and he took inspiration for the settings of the book from Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, where he grew up. According to some critics, the fling of Lady Ottoline Morrell with “Tiger”, a young stonemason who came to carve plinths for her garden statues, also influenced the story. Lawrence considered calling the novel Tenderness and made significant alterations to the text and story in the process of its composition.