Lady Chatterley’s Lover

By D. H. Lawrence

“Lady Chatterley’s Lover” is D. H. Lawrence’s controversial novel which tells the story of an aristocratic woman, Constance (Lady Chatterley), who has an affair with her estate’s gamekeeper when her husband is paralyzed and rendered impotent. Central to the theme of the novel is the need for both physical as well as mental stimulation in order to feel complete as a human being. When the novel was first published publically in its unexpurgated form in 1960, its publishers were famously brought up on obscenity charges for the novel’s offensive language and explicit depictions of sexuality. The novel however was cleared of any obscenity charges when the jurors found that it had literary merit and for the first time it was allowed to be published without restriction. It has been argued by critics that it was not the sexual passages which caused so much a stir as it was the frankness in which Lawrence presents the novel’s theme of man’s search for wholeness in mind and body. For as Lawrence writes, “body without mind is brutish; mind without body... is a running away from our double being.” Presented here is the original unabridged version first published privately in Florence in 1928.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Dec 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781420956641

D. H. Lawrence

David Herbert (D. H.) Lawrence was a prolific English novelist, essayist, poet, playwright, literary critic and painter. His most notable works include Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The Rainbow, Sons and Lovers and Women in Love.

Reviews for Lady Chatterley’s Lover

[kemilyh1988 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Misogyny abound. Regardless, it's quite hilarious. The first time I read this all I remembered was sex and chickens. This time around I picked up on much more. The narration by John Lee was perfect.

[theampersand · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've loved modernist fiction for a long time, but I've had a love-hate relationship with D.H. Lawrence for about as long. Lady Chatterley's lover is the best Lawrence I've ever read. Yes, you can still find what I think of as his bad habits there: his tendency to describe everything using opposites, his obsession with vitality which often seems, as someone else put it, "a sick man's dream of health," his obvious disdain for many of his characters and their choices. But all of these tendencies are reined in here: even his tendency toward repetition comes off as lyrical rather than merely trying. I can enthusiastically recommend it to people who don't much like D.H. Lawrence. What's most delightful about "Lady Chatterley" is that, considering a book that's supposedly about an intense, erotic affair between two people, it's surprisingly wide-ranging. One of the things that makes this book work is, oddly enough, is how carefully Lawrence crafts its temporal and physical setting. Beyond Constance and Oliver's relationship, we get a clear-eyed description of the generalized despair that followed the end of the First World War, a pitiless description of the British artistic scene, a careful transcription of the Derby dialect, and a look destructive effects of the coal industry on Lawrence's beloved British countryside that's simultaneously regretful and buzzing with dark energy. His descriptions of both the main characters' erotic adventures and the lush woods that they have them in are truly beautiful, there are passages where everything in the book seems to pulse with sensuality and life. For all his opinions about the state in which he found the world, I can't think of too many writers who were more interested in writing the body than Lawrence was. This novel might owe its notoriety to its four-letter words and its explicitness, but it also communicates the physicality of both sex and mere being exceptionally well. The paralyzed Clifford is sort of given short shrift here -- one imagines that he's got a body, too, though Lawrence depicts him as largely inert. Also, even while he praises the joy of sexual congress, Lawrence seems to have a lot of ideas about exactly how men and women should and shouldn't have sex. In the final analysis, though, seeing as it was produced by a writer who sometimes comes off as bitter and spiteful about the modern world, "Lady Chatterley" seems like a surprisingly optimistic argument for romantic and physical love. This may be especially true of its lovely final pages, where Constance and Oliver plan out a future that emphasizes the rhythms of nature, their love, and their truest selves. A difficult book from a difficult writer, but certainly worth the effort.

[capiam1234 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I read this for the 1001 books to read before you die group challenge. The book was known for it's discussions on class systems and social conflict, and not to forget the challenge on censorship. But despite all that I just couldn't find myself liking this one that much.

[yooperprof · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sir Clifford Chatterley (partially a self-portrait of author D.H. Lawrence) is a frustrated writer who thinks he knows Everything about Everything, but he is actually an embittered and impotent World War I veteran suffering from PTSD. His wife Connie finds solace in his gamekeeper's hut and in the gamekeeper's bed, discovering The Joy of Sex decades before Alex Comfort coined the term.Here, the prose of Lawrence is occasionally purple, it is occasionally profane, it is occasionally full of nearly incomprehensible dialect. But it's never dull. However, if you laugh whenever you see the words "loins" or "bowels" in connection with human intercourse, you might want to avoid this book!!!

[aaronbaron_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

D.H. Lawrence is such an interesting writer that even his failures are worth reading, and Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a bit of a failure. Today, with virulent pornography always a click away, I expected the famous sexy bits of this book to lose their shock, but I did not expect them to be comic. Yet they were, unless you do not find tropes such as “mound of Venus” rather funny. Still, these howlers came as a relief, because Lady Chatterley’s Lover is starkly humorless. Whether describing the miasma of industrialization or the rapacious drive of the clitoris, D.H. Lawrence is in deadly earnest. He shouts from the pulpit, and righteousness can never afford much laughter. So why read it? First and least, the text is an historical landmark in development of the English novel, both for it’s famous sexual content and the even more famous censorship battles it inspired. But historical landmarks are often bores to read, and Lady Chatterley Lover, for all it’s flaws, still engages. Much of it’s allure stems from the profound and maverick strangeness of the author’s mind. By the time Lady was written, decrying the evils of industrialization was common practice. But Lawrence surpassed all his peers in pure rage. Unlike the well-to-do members of the Bloomsbury group, Lawrence was a coalminer’s son who personally witnessed the mines physically and mentally cripple the community of his childhood. Add to this fact his atavistic love of nature, rarely shared by his modernist colleagues, and imagine him watching factories level the forests and pollute the air. It was a shock to me to discover that a seemingly erotic novel turned out so unconditionally angry. And this anger explains in part why Lady still has an edge; the sex may seem silly and tame, but the molten rage beneath it continues to unnerve. Much to his credit, Lawrence did not merely condemn industrial society, he proposed an alternative. Now, his solution, taken in the extreme manner in which he believed in it, is where the book shows its age. “Organic Fucking” is the best summary I can give his vision of redemption. It is the fierce ancestor of the milk toast “Make Love Not War” ethos of the 1960s. “Mound of Venus” references aside, I believe Lawrence would ultimately reject the willed naiveté of the hippy movement; he was too discerning, too acquainted with struggle and sacrifice, to merely hold up the flower and bliss out. But both Lawrence and the flower children drew on adolescent fantasies in order to overthrow grim realities. Like all utopian visions, it ultimately failed. Lawrence shares this fate with another articulate and outraged enemy of industrialization, John Ruskin. Yet while their respective solutions failed, Lawrence and Ruskin’s fiery salvos against modernity cannot be easily dismissed, nor can their willingness, at great personal sacrifice, to try and build a better world than the one they saw around them. But Lawrence’s fighting spirit does not mark the beginning and end of his appeal. While even in his more successful works his writing is uneven, with clods of purple pose choking the flow of the page, at is best it is nigh perfect: sensuous yet limpid, reaching depths of emotion that seldom surface on the cool waters of English prose. At times he manages to combine dazzling complexity of language with a irresistible primitivism of feeling, like a frightening ancient and barbaric statue wrapped in exquisite lace. Once more, his insight into the relationships of men and women are unsurpassed in all of English literature. No one has written on that ancient subject with such honesty, observation, and intelligence. And this is the real reason that I still enjoy Lawrence, for all of his flaws. As I write this I have been married to a woman for five years, and I hope for many years to come. Lawrence helps me make sense, and ultimately helps me better appreciate, this wonderful, frightening, protean, beloved, despairing, baffling, joyous, mercurial bond that is a cornerstone of my life.

[k8seren · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So this book I loved at first, then it got rather dry and depressing in the middle, but the end makes up for it.
At first I loved Connie for being a sort of modern, uninhibited, sexually-aware woman. And then she got besotted with Mellors and I was angry at her because she wasn't modern and free at all, and Mellors didn't seem to be anything special as a man. but in the end you do see them as a nation unto themselves, seeing their sad industrial world for what it is and living for love anyway.
Mellors final letter, which ends the book, is enough to merit 4 stars on its own.

I did a lot of underlining in here, because despite my annoyance with the characters, Lawrence says very beautiful and true things through them. I recommend this.

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Constance Chatterley has entered in a traditional marriage with Clifford Chatterley, a minor nobleman. But her life is turned around when her husband returns from the war paralyzed from the waist down and impotent. Her role in her young marriage shifts to being a caregiver for her demanding husband. She finds comfort from a dreary existence in an affair with the estate’s game keeper. My preconceived ideas about this book is that it is famous and interesting because of the explicit sexual content but there isn’t much more beyond that. Boy, was I wrong. The book is very explicit which caused it to be banned for many years (and continues to be listed on man banned book lists). But although the mechanics of sex is described, it didn’t come across as pornographic. The writing isn’t steamy and doesn’t seem to be written with an erotic intent. I was also surprised by how good the story was. The big taboo for Constance Chatterley isn’t that she is having an affair and cheating on her invalid husband, but that she has chosen someone who belongs to a much lower class.Very interesting story – worth the read!

[lisa.johnson.james · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am thrilled that I finally got a chance to read this book. I have heard many mixed reviews over the years, some appalled at the language the author uses, some at the um, expressiveness & offensiveness of his terminology, & some about how dry some of the book is compared to the more intimate scenes.I found it to be charming, even if some of the vernacular writing of how the Derbyshire accent is written, & I too found myself skimming the dryer parts. I was quite surprised at the terminology used, & the expressiveness of the intimate scenarios between Connie & Mellors. For the time in which it was written, it's quite "racy", although quite tame by today's steamy standards!There's a reason this classic has stood the test of time :)

[glennbell_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a well written book. The characters are believable and the story line is logical. I would be surprised if the events were not based on a real story. The discussions include opinions on society, happiness, pain, the future, and the relations of men and women including sex. I think the frankness is refreshing and is to be commended. I recommend the book but the timid or prudish need not bother.

[knightlight777 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wanted to see what all the excitement was about, I found out. I had a back and forth experience with this book, wanting to just finish it to wanting to see what would happen next. It was ho hum from on the sexual narrative at first but it turned into one of the racier novels I have read. But then again I don't read a lot of novels. But for its time, 1928, even in the jazz age it had to be simply sensational, and certainly labeled as pornography.Aside from the sexual side the story itself had a few messages to deliver also. Lawrence seemed to want to say a lot about the classes and aspects of socialism. The ending came rather abrupt and made me wanting to know more about how things turned out. But alas, no sequel to ruin those things.

[justmerosalie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really loved this book, although it's been years since I read it. I loved the romance and the setting. Risky for it's time, the subject of sexual incompatibility was addressed and the need for a healthy marital realtionship, something polite society did not "talk about" when if first published. I'm glad it survived being banned in so many places and can be read with better thought and tolerance today. This aside, it's a lovely story and a beautiful read....very romantic.

[ganeshaka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm a babe in the world of D.H. Lawrence. I was assigned Lady Chatterley's Lover as a college assignment in Brit Lit 203. I read the Cliff Notes. I got a B-minus in the course. And that was forty years ago.Yes, I was the guy who never showed for morning classes, and closed the student pub. And at times, I was even the night watchman. So it should come as no surprise that when I finally got around to reading the book, last week, it was already the next century . A bit late. But better than never. Maybe even a form of a haute snobisme, my preferring to read dead authors AND be taught by dead professors?But now at least I have an authentic and passionate opinion on the novel. D.H.Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover is punk rock, in the finest sense. Sex pistols indeed. Anarchy in the UK - turn it up!. The book had me, using just three power chords: the conflict between classes, the barriers to sexual honesty, and the profound exploitation of the environment by capitalism.These were issues, for Lawrence, in England after the Great War of 1914. They remain issues world-wide to this day. Lawrence, speaking sometimes through the character of Mellors, and sometimes through Lady Chatterley, is prophetic in his pessimism. The gap between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, has not been addressed by a rise in the overall standard of living in the West. Global consumerism is laying waste to the Arctic, Africa and the Amazon. And, ironically, enormous technical advances in communications media, have only added barriers to honest conversation. Like OMG how much of yourself should you reveal if it might be texted, myspaced, youtubed and there for all, on Google, in perpetuity?It's hard not to love this novel for its underlying courage and outrage. And, its wit. I'm glad I never read it until 2008. In 1968, all my peers were rebelling, each to his or her own banner. Lawrence would have elicited a "So?" from me then. Now, many of my peers drive SUVs, live in McMansions, vote Republican, and kow-tow to evangelicals. Now I understand better, what a rare and brave cri de coeur this novel is.

[kenand66 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The quintessential banned book and more brilliant, warm, tragic and beautiful for being so. A landmark in English literature.

[jpsnow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At the end of the first page, you already have an appreciation for Lawrence's talent as a writer. This work is a classic because he applies that talent to convey both the stark reality and the subtle nuances of human relationships - even our human state in modern times (e.g, "And that is how we are. By strength of will we cut off our inner intuitive knowledge from our admitted consciousness. This causes a state of dread, or apprehension, which makes the blow ten times worse when it does fall."). Lawrence wrote a propos that explains his intent and expands on his points. He believed that modern man and woman had lost touch with their real emotions, especially about love. They were instead getting by on counterfeit feelings, almost to the point of completely obliterating the real human sense. And this played out in marriage more significantly because of the role of marriage in society.

[naoskopi · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The least execrable of Lawrence's work but still the most easily parodied. At least it's short, which is more than one can say for 'The Rainbow'.

[samantha464 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I won't discount this book, since it has had a profound effect on the history of literature, and it's good. But it's not my favorite of Lawrence, nor is it entirely well written. It seems like most of its fame is a result of it being controversial, rather than groundbreaking in a literary sense. It is good, it's just not up there with Sons and Lovers in my list of favorites.

[hlselz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very sexy, and very raw. Not written with pretty words or to many analagies or any type of fluff. This book is just about the amazing passion and sensuality that exists within us.

[dictator555 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this book when I was still a kid. It was raining out, and I was bored. I didn't think I'd like it, since classics can be boring. To my surprise, I enjoyed it, and I still think back on it to this day. DH Lawrence is, of course, a really amazing writer and there were some passages that have stayed with me all this time. The bit about there being plenty of fish in the sea, but if you aren't the right sort of fish (herring, mackeral?) then really there weren't that many fish in the sea. He said it better of course!I also really appreciated the depiction of intimacy. Sex as something imperfect and flawed yet still moving and meaningful. The focus on intimacy through imperfection was so new to me. I understand it more now than I did then, and I'm kind of amazed at how well Lawrence wrote the female character's experience so well.I'm really glad I read this book. I wonder if it isn't about time for a re-read!

[terrapinjetta_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Up until I read this, I hadn't imagined that any 'older' books could tackle the sort of topics that Lawrence tackles in Lady Chatterly's Lover. His insights made me look out especially for his other books.

[trinity_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There are a few things you need to get past in order to truly enjoy this book. It was banned and controversial, the book also focuses explicitly at times on the sexual relationships of the characters. You have to look beyond those things to truly understand what this book is about. Its about relationships but it more focuses on women's struggle with their own sexuality and being a good wife. As women we are taught to be dutiful wives, to worry more about our husbands and families than ourselves. Our sexuality is dirty or shameful. The book explores Constance's struggle against what she should do and her need to follow what she wants to do. I loved this book and could really identify with Constance's dilemmas throughout this book. I gave it 5 stars.

[jtho_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While at first I was impressed by Lady Chatterley's independence, half-way through the novel she reminded me of a needy teenager in lust. It was an easy read with a fairly interesting plot, but several of the characters are annoying. I understand why it was banned from the US for as long as it was: there were words in print here that I still rarely see now. The sex scenes are also fairly explicit, but written in a style that now seems hilarious.

[coffeesucker · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Interesting and groundbreaking - I guess, but not very good.

[allison7sivak · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The last DH Lawrence book I read was Sons & Lovers, a required novel for my grade 12 english class. At the time, I remember saying that I liked it, but found the surface of Lawrence's writing impenetrable (a nice irony for a man so concerned with sexual freedom). I always think kids reading this novel for the sexy bits; but I have to say that once Lady Chatterly actually got with the gamekeeper, that's when I lost interest. I found the negotiations and tension leading up to it more interesting; the post-coital dialogue becomes more pedantic.

[xinyi_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The book hasn't lost its freshness and realistic significance even today! As a male writer, Lawrence's understanding of women is frighteningly profound and precise, and he didn't hesitate to explore to the depth. I can understand why it was banned because of not only the explicit sex descriptions, but also, and more important, the symbolic meaning behind Constance's sexual awakening - which would shake the English gentry class to its foundations.

[msnikki · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wasn't impressed at all. I think I read it expecting really salacious stuff, and was completely blind to its qualities. So I'm due for a re-read.

[libraryofus · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

(Alistair) Unfortunately for such a well-known and historically important book, _Lady Chatterley's Lover_ posesses the dubious distinction of simply not being very good.Or, to make no bones about it, of being just plain bad.

[over.the.edge · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Lady Chatterley's Lover🍒🍒🍒
By DH Lawrence
1928

Constance Chatterley is trapped in an unfulfilling marriage to a rich aristocrat whose war wounds have left him paralyzed and impotent. After a brief sexual affair, she becomes involved with the gamekeeper on the family estate. Oliver Mellors, the composite opposite of her husband, is unfulfilled as well by his wife Bertha, whose method of punishment is to withhold any intimacy. Their relationship develops as Constance begins to use Olivers shed as a sort of retreat. The curiosity and eventual lust grow and develop and soon they are intimately involved. First as a need, then a desire. This is the story of their intimate and beautiful relationship, and an example of this books premise: individual rejuvenation through love and personal relationships.
This book brought to mind, for me anyway, how we define love. What it is...what is means....how it's shared. What is the meaning of adultery...is it more than sex?
Masterful....intense.....a classic.....

[justagirlwithabook · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

 This one was alright. I don't think there's a ton that's memorable aside from it being considered 'racy,' but it's DH Lawrence, so. It's not one that I'll likely reread again.

[fliss88_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At the start I thought, I'm not going to finish this, as I found the story quite slow moving. I'm glad I persevered, and although by today's standards it wouldn't be on a Banned Books List, I can see why it was at the time of publication. This is my first experience of D.H. Lawrence and his writing style slowly grew on me, so much so that by the end I had settled into and enjoyed the slow pace, the characters and the look back at his time and place. It's very well written and I could easily sympathise with all the characters, and appreciate the way they each found themselves trapped.

[madepercy-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am pleased to have read The First Lady Chatterley before reading this third draft of the same novel. The first draft, despite a similar plot, had a completely different feel to it. The emergence of socialism has little importance in Lady Chatterley's Lover, almost as if Lawrence tried to wrench away from political commentary and social change so he could nestle the third draft safely back into its own class. Despite the obviously more vulgar language used in this draft, and the notorious details that led to it being banned for decades, I think this more famous draft suffers if it is not read in the context of the first. Rather than predict the rise of nationalisation and social democracy in Britain, Lawrence's character Mellor (formerly Parkin), instead appears to presage the Great Depression. I can only guess as to the differences in the second draft, but I am curious enough to track it down and find out. As for this novel's notoriety, readers today will be well desensitised to the parts that caused a scandal in the past. I can only imagine Lawrence's shock if he were to experience what is now so passé in our own time. With three D.H. Lawrence novels now under my belt, I will venture to read the rest.