Lady Chatterley’s Lover

One of the most controversial novels of the twentieth century, Lady Chatterley’s Lover follows the story of Lady Constance Chatterley, unhappily married to disabled World War I veteran and coal tycoon Sir Clifford Chatterley, as she takes as a lover the gamekeeper of her estate, Oliver Mellors, a working class man of the earth. Constance struggles with the guilt of her infidelity, but realizes that her marriage is over and wants to get more out of her life. Oliver, a veteran himself with some education, enjoys her company but worries about his own position in society.

Like D. H. Lawrence’s earlier novels Women in Love and The Rainbow, this novel describes in detail the sexual encounters between the two lovers, doing so using language that was shocking at the time. It was subsequently banned in many countries and for years was only available through underground means. It was not until 1960 that the full, unexpurgated edition was finally able to be published in its native United Kingdom, after being the subject of a court case about freedom of speech and the idea of redeeming social or literary value trumping any notions of obscenity in works of art. The novel’s victory at trial is seen by many as the moment Britain began changing into a permissive society.

As with other Lawrence novels, the novel features commentary on industrialization, the dying coal industry, and the societal class structure of England, but these themes are to this day still largely obscured by the book’s sexual content and the surrounding scandal.