Lady Chatterley's Lover
Author | D. H. Lawrence |
---|---|
Country | Italy (1st publication) |
Language | English |
Genre | Romance Erotic |
Publisher | Tipografia Giuntina, Florence, Italy[1] |
Publication date |
"Complete and unexpurgated" edition:
|
Preceded by | John Thomas and Lady Jane (1927) |
Lady Chatterley's Lover is the last novel by English author D. H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in Italy, and in 1929, in France.[2] An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960, when it was the subject of a watershed obscenity trial against the publisher Penguin Books, which won the case and quickly sold three million copies.[2] The book was also banned for obscenity in the United States, Canada, Australia, India and Japan. The book soon became notorious for its story of the physical (and emotional) relationship between a working-class man and an upper-class woman, its explicit descriptions of sex and its use of then-unprintable profane words. It entered the public domain in the United States in 2024.[3]
Background
Lawrence's life, including his wife, Frieda, and his childhood in Nottinghamshire, influenced the novel.[4] 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.[5] Lawrence, who had once considered calling the novel John Thomas and Lady Jane in reference to the male and the female sex organs, made significant alterations to the text and story in the process of its composition.[6]
Lawrence allegedly read the manuscript of Maurice by E. M. Forster, which was published posthumously in 1971. That novel, although it is about a homosexual couple, also involves a gamekeeper becoming the lover of a member of the upper classes and influenced Lady Chatterley's Lover.[7][8]
Plot
The story concerns a young married woman, the former Constance Reid (Lady Chatterley), whose upper-class
Themes
Mind and body
Richard Hoggart argues that the main subject of Lady Chatterley's Lover is not the explicit sexuality, which was the subject of much debate, but the search for integrity and wholeness.[9] Key to this integrity is cohesion between the mind and the body, for "body without mind is brutish; mind without body... is a running away from our double being".[10] Lady Chatterley's Lover focuses on the incoherence of living a life that is "all mind", which Lawrence found to be particularly true among the young members of the aristocratic classes, as in his description of Constance's and her sister Hilda's "tentative love-affairs" in their youth:
So they had given the gift of themselves, each to the youth with whom she had the most subtle and intimate arguments. The arguments, the discussions were the great thing: the love-making and connection were only sort of primitive reversion and a bit of an anti-climax.[11]
The contrast between mind and body can be seen in the dissatisfaction each character experiences in their previous relationships, such as Constance's lack of intimacy with her husband, who is "all mind", and Mellors's choice to live apart from his wife because of her "brutish" sexual nature.[12] The dissatisfactions lead them into a relationship that develops very slowly and is based upon tenderness, physical passion, and mutual respect. As the relationship between Lady Chatterley and Mellors builds, they learn more about the interrelation of the mind and the body. She learns that sex is more than a shameful and disappointing act, and he learns about the spiritual challenges that come from physical love.
Jenny Turner maintained in The Sexual Imagination from Acker to Zola: A Feminist Companion (1993) that the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover broke "the taboo on explicit representations of sexual acts in British and North American literature". She described the novel as "a book of great libertarian energy and heteroerotic beauty".[13]
Class
Lady Chatterley's Lover also presents some views on the early-20th-century British social context. That is most evidently seen in the plot on the affair of an aristocratic woman (Connie) with a working-class man (Mellors). That is heightened when Mellors adopts the local broad Derbyshire dialect, something he can slip into and out of. The critic and writer Mark Schorer writes of the forbidden love of a woman of relatively superior social situation who is drawn to an "outsider", a man of a lower social rank or a foreigner. He considers that to be a familiar construction in Lawrence's works in which the woman either resists her impulse or yields to it.[14] Schorer believes that the two possibilities were embodied, respectively, in the situation into which Lawrence was born and that into which Lawrence married, which becomes a favourite topic in his work.
There is a clear class divide between the inhabitants of Wragby and Tevershall that is bridged by the nurse Mrs Bolton. Clifford is more self assured in his position, but Connie is often thrown when the villagers treat her as a Lady like when she has tea in the village. This is often made explicit in the narration such as here:
Clifford Chatterley was more upper class than Connie. Connie was well-to-do intelligentsia, but he was aristocracy. Not the big sort, but still it. His father was a baronet, and his mother had been a viscount's daughter.[15]
There are also signs of dissatisfaction and resentment from the Tevershall coal pit colliers, whose fortunes are in decline, against Clifford, who owns the mines. Involved with hard, dangerous and health-threatening employment, the unionised and self-supporting pit-village communities in Britain have been home to more pervasive class barriers than has been the case in other industries (for an example, see chapter 2 of The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell.) They were also centres of widespread Nonconformism (Non-Anglican Protestantism), which hold proscriptive views on sexual sins such as adultery. References to the concepts of anarchism, socialism, communism and capitalism permeate the book. Union strikes were also a constant preoccupation in Wragby Hall.
Coal mining is a recurrent and familiar theme in Lawrence's life and writing because of his background, and it is prominent also in Sons and Lovers and Women in Love and short stories such as Odour of Chrysanthemums.
Industrialisation and nature
As in much of the rest of Lawrence's fiction, a key theme is the contrast between the vitality of nature and the mechanised monotony of mining and industrialism. Clifford wants to reinvigorate the mines with new technology and is out of touch with the natural world.[16] In contrast, Connie often appreciates the beauty of nature and sees the ugliness of the mines in Uthwaite. Her heightened sensual appreciation applies to both nature and her sexual relationship with Mellors.
Censorship
A publisher's note in the 2001
An edition of the novel was published in Britain in 1932 by Martin Secker, two years after Lawrence's death. Reviewing it in
British obscenity trial
In November 1960, the full unexpurgated edition, the last of three versions written by Lawrence,[20] was published by Penguin Books in Britain, selling its first print run of 200,000 copies on the first day of publication.[21][22]
The
Various academic critics and experts of diverse kinds, including E. M. Forster, Helen Gardner, Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams and Norman St John-Stevas, were called as witnesses. The verdict, delivered on 2 November 1960, was "not guilty" and resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the United Kingdom. The prosecution was ridiculed for being out of touch with changing social norms when the chief prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, asked if it was the kind of book "you would wish your wife or servants to read".
The Penguin second edition, published in 1961, contains a publisher's dedication, which reads: "For having published this book, Penguin Books was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959 at the Old Bailey in London from 20 October to 2 November 1960. This edition is therefore dedicated to the twelve jurors, three women and nine men, who returned a verdict of 'not guilty' and thus made D. H. Lawrence's last novel available for the first time to the public in the United Kingdom".
In 2006, the trial was dramatized by
Australia
The book was banned in Australia,[23][24] and a book describing the British trial, The Trial of Lady Chatterley, was also banned.[25] In 1965 a copy of the British edition was smuggled into the country by Alexander William Sheppard, Leon Fink, and Ken Buckley, and then a run of 10,000 copies was printed and sold nationwide.[26][27] The fallout from that event eventually led to the easing of censorship of books in the country. The ban by the Department of Customs and Excise on Lady Chatterley's Lover, along with three other books—Borstal Boy, Confessions of a Spent Youth, and Lolita—was lifted in July 1965.[28] The Australian Classification Board, established in 1970, remains.
Canada
In 1962,
The case arose when the police had seized their copies of the book and deposited them with a judge of the Court of Sessions of the Peace, who issued a notice to the booksellers to show cause why the books should not be confiscated as obscene, contrary to s 150A of the Criminal Code.[29] The trial judge eventually ruled that the book was obscene and ordered that the copies be confiscated. That decision was upheld by the Quebec Court of Queen's Bench, Appeal Side (now the Quebec Court of Appeal).[30]
Scott then appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Canada, which allowed the appeal on a 5–4 split and held that the book was not an obscene publication.[31]
On 15 November 1960, an Ontario panel of experts, appointed by Attorney General Kelso Roberts, found that novel was not obscene according to the Canadian Criminal Code.[32]
United States
Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned for obscenity in the United States in 1929. In 1930,
A
The ban on Lady Chatterley's Lover,
Susan Sontag, in a 1961 essay in The Supplement to the Columbia Spectator that was republished in Against Interpretation (1966), dismissed Lady Chatterley's Lover as a "sexually reactionary" book and suggested that the importance given to vindicating it showed that the US was "plainly at a very elementary stage of sexual maturity".[38]
Japan
The publication of a full translation of Lady Chatterley's Lover by Sei Itō in 1950 led to a famous obscenity trial in Japan that extended from 8 May 1951 to 18 January 1952, with appeals lasting to 13 March 1957. Several notable literary figures testified for the defence. The trial ultimately ended in a guilty verdict with a ¥100,000 fine for Ito and a ¥250,000 fine for his publisher.
India
In 1964, the bookseller Ranjit Udeshi in
Ranjit D. Udeshi v. State of Maharashtra (AIR 1965 SC 881) was eventually laid before a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India. Chief Justice Hidayatullah declared the law on the subject of when a book can be regarded as obscene and established important tests of obscenity such as the Hicklin test.[40]
The court upheld the conviction:
When everything said in its favour we find that in treating with sex the impugned portions viewed separately and also in the setting of the whole book pass the permissible limits judged of from our community standards and as there is no social gain to us which can be said to preponderate, we must hold the book to satisfy the test we have indicated above.
Cultural influence
In the United States, the full publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover was a significant event in the "sexual revolution". The book was then a topic of widespread discussion and a byword of sorts. In 1965, Tom Lehrer recorded a satirical song, "Smut", in which the speaker in the song lyrics cheerfully acknowledges his enjoyment of such material; "Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?/I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley".
The British poet Philip Larkin's poem "Annus Mirabilis" begins with a reference to the trial:
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) –
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.
In 1976, the story was parodied by Morecambe and Wise on their BBC sketch show. A "play what Ernie wrote", The Handyman and M'Lady, was obviously based on it, with Michele Dotrice as the Lady Chatterley figure. Introducing it, Ernie explained that his play "concerns a rich, titled young lady who is deprived of love, caused by her husband falling into a combine harvester, which unfortunately makes him impudent".[41]
In the 1998 film Pleasantville, a film that narrativizes conservative cultural nostalgia for the 1950s as a response to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, Jennifer (played by Reese Witherspoon) reads Lady Chatterley's Lover as a principal part of her character development, causing her to become "colored", the film's metaphor for personal growth and transformation.
A 2020 episode of
Bibliography
Editions
- First published privately in 1928 in Pino Orioli, and in France in 1929. A private edition was issued in Australia by Inky Stephensen's Mandrake Press in 1929.[42]
- Michael Squires, ed. (1928). Lady Chatterley's Lover. ISBN 0-521-22266-4.
- Soon after the 1928 publication and suppression, an unexpurgated King George V.[43]
- In 1946, Victor Pettersons Bokindustriaktiebolag Stockholm, Sweden published an English hardcover edition, copyright Jan Förlag. It is marked "Unexpurgated authorized edition". A paperback edition followed in 1950.[citation needed]
- Dieter Mehl & ISBN 0-521-47116-8. These two books, The First Lady Chatterley and John Thomas and Lady Jane, were earlier drafts of Lawrence's last novel.
- The Second Lady Chatterley's Lover. Oneworld Classics. 2007. ISBN 978-1-84749-019-3. Lawrence's 1927 version, first issued in English in 1972.
- Lawrence, D. H. (2002). Squires, Michael (ed.). Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of D. H. Lawrence. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. ISBN 0-521-00717-8.
Edited with an introduction, explanatory notes, glossary, textual apparatus and various appendices by Michael Squire. The standard and definitive text.
- Lawrence, D. H. (1961) [1928], Lady Chatterley's Lover (2nd ed.).
- ——— (2003) [1928], Lady Chatterley's Lover, New York: Signet.
- Hoggart, R. (1973). "Introduction". Lady Chatterley's Lover (2nd ed.). Harmondsworth: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-001484-5.
- ——— (1961), "Introduction", Lady Chatterley's Lover (2nd ed.).
Further reading
- Sybille Bedford (2016), The Trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover, with an introduction by Thomas Grant, London: Daunt Books, ISBN 978-1-907970-97-9
- Rolph, C. H. (1961). The Trial of Lady Chatterley. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-013381-X.
- Augustine, Ivyanne Marie (Winter 2018). Regeneration and Social Spaces in "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (PDF) (Thesis). University of Michigan.
A thesis presented for the B. A. degree with Honors in The Department of English
Adaptations
Books
Lady Chatterley's Lover was re-imagined as a love triangle set in contemporary Silicon Valley, California in the novel Miss Chatterley by Logan Belle (the pseudonym for American author Jamie Brenner) published by Pocket Star/Simon & Schuster, May 2013.[44]
Film and television
Lady Chatterley's Lover has been adapted for film and television several times:
- L'Amant de lady Chatterley (1955), French drama film starring Danielle Darrieux, was banned in the United States because it "promoted adultery", but was released in 1959 after the Supreme Court reversed that decision.[45]
- Kannada language film starring Jayanthi and directed by Puttanna Kanagal, was loosely based on the Kannada novel of the same name which was inspired by Lady Chatterley's Lover.
- , was loosely based on Lady Chatterley's Lover.
- Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981), French film directed by Just Jaeckin and produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, starred Sylvia Kristel and Nicholas Clay. (Jaeckin had previously directed Kristel in Emmanuelle, which was released in 1974.)
- Lady Chatterley (1993), is a BBC Television serial which was directed by Ken Russell for BBC Television; it starred Joely Richardson and Sean Beanand incorporated some material from the longer second version John Thomas and Lady Jane.
- Milenec lady Chatterleyové (1998) is a Czech television version directed by Viktor Polesný and starring Zdena Studenková (Constance), Marek Vašut (Clifford), and Boris Rösner (Mellors).[46]
- Ang Kabit ni Mrs Montero (Mrs. Montero's Paramour, 1998) is a Filipino soft-core film adapted by director Peque Gallaga.
- The French director Pascale FerranTribeca Film Festival.[48]The film was based on John Thomas and Lady Jane, Lawrence's second version of the story. It was broadcast on the French television channel Arte on 22 June 2007 as Lady Chatterley et l'homme des bois (Lady Chatterley and the Man of the Woods).
- Lady Chatterley's Daughter (Lady Chatterley's Ghost) (2011)[49] an American film. Director/Fred Olen Ray. Actress/Cassandra Cruz.
- Lady Chatterley's Lover (2015) is a BBC television film starring Holliday Grainger, Richard Madden and James Norton.[50] Produced by Hartswood Films and Serena Cullen Productions, it was first broadcast on BBC One on 6 September 2015.[51] It was released by Netflix as a drama series and stars Madden as the eponymous lover, Oliver Mellors; Grainger as Lady Chatterley; and Norton as Lady Chatterley’s disabled husband, Sir Clifford Chatterley.[52]
- Lady Chatterley's Lover (2022) is a film directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre and starring Emma Corrin and Jack O’Connell as Constance Reid and Mellors, respectively. It also featured Matthew Duckett as Sir Clifford Chatterley. It was released on 25 November 2022 in UK cinemas and on 2 December 2022 on Netflix.[53]
- Use of character
The character of Lady Chatterley appears in Fanny Hill Meets Lady Chatterly (1967),
Radio
Lady Chatterley's Lover has been adapted for BBC Radio 4 by Michelene Wandor and was first broadcast in September 2006.[56]
Theatre
Lawrence's novel was successfully dramatised for the stage in a three-act play by British playwright John Harte. Although produced at the
Only the
A new stage version, adapted and directed by Philip Breen and produced by the English Touring Theatre and Sheffield Theatres, opened at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, between 21 September and 15 October 2016, before touring the UK until November 2016.[57][58][59]
Parody
MAD Magazine published in 1963 a spoof called Lady Chatterley's Chopped Liver And Other Recipes.[60][61]
Comedian
See also
References
- ^ "Lawrence, D. H. (1885–1830). Lady Chatterley's Lover. [Florence: Printed by the Tipografia Giuntina, directed by L. Franceschini]". www.christies.com. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
- ^ ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
- ^ Jenkins, Jennifer. "January 1, 2024 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1928 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1923!". Center for the Study of the Public Domain. Duke University. Retrieved 1 January 2024.
- ^ "Who was the real Lady Chatterley?". www.hachette.com.au. Retrieved 23 April 2023.
- ^ Kennedy, Maev (10 October 2006), "The real Lady Chatterley: society hostess loved and parodied by Bloomsbury group", The Guardian, London, retrieved 19 June 2008.
- ^ Moore, Harry T. (27 August 1972). "Lady Chatterley's predecessor". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 August 2020.
- ^ King, Dixie (1982). "The Influence of Forster's Maurice on Lady Chatterley's Lover" Contemporary Literature Vol. 23, No. 1 (Winter, 1982), pp. 65–82
- ISBN 978-0800821807
- ^ Hoggart 1961, p. viii.
- ^ Hoggart 1961, p. viii.
- ^ Lawrence 1961, p. 7.
- ^ Hoggart 1961, p. x.
- ^ Turner, Jenny (1993). Gilbert, Harriett (ed.). The Sexual Imagination from Acker to Zola: A Feminist Companion. Jonathan Cape. p. 149.
- ^ Schorer, Mark (1993), "Introduction", Lady Chatterley's Lover, New York: Grover Press, p. 17.
- ^ Lawrence 2003, p. 5.
- ^ Ebbatson, Roger (1980). Lawrence and the Nature Tradition: A Theme in English Fiction 1859–1914. Harvester. p. 44.
- ^ ISBN 9780375758003.
- ^ "New Novels", The Observer, 28 February 1932, p. 6.
- ISBN 978-0-7735-5127-5.
- ^ Kent, Winona. "Lady Chatterley". CompleatSeanBean.com. Vancouver: Winona Kent. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
- ^ "How well do you know Lady Chatterley?". the Guardian. 6 September 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
- ^ "10 November 1960: Lady Chatterley's Lover sold out". ON THIS DAY. BBC. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
- ^ "Penguin Books May Contest Ban on 'Lady Chatterly'". The Age. Melbourne. 24 February 1961. p. 13. Retrieved 28 March 2021 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ Lamell, Sophie (2011). Censorship in Australia – The Case of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
{{cite book}}
:|website=
ignored (help) - ^ Kippax, H. G. (17 April 1965). "Publishing Action to Test The Law". The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 12. Retrieved 28 March 2021 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ Patrick Mullins, The Trials of Portnoy: How Penguin Brought down Australia's Censorship System, Brunswick, Victoria: Scribe Publications, 2020, chapter 4.
- ^ The trial of Lady Chatterley : Regins v. Penguin Books Limited, worldcat.org. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
- ^ "Police to Decide on Book Prosecutions". The Age. Melbourne. 28 July 1965. p. 3. Retrieved 28 March 2021 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ Criminal Code, SC 1953–54, c 51, s. 150A, as enacted by SC 1959, c 41, s 12.
- ^ Brodie v The Queen (1961), 36 CR 200 (Que QB (App Side)).
- ^ "Brody, Dansky, Rubin v. The Queen, [1962] S.C.R. 681". scc-csc.lexum.com. 1962. Archived from the original on 4 January 2016. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
- ^ "News". Sympatico.ca. Archived from the original on 10 December 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
- ^ "Decency Squabble" Archived 27 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Time magazine, 31 March 1930
- ^ Crowther, Bosley (11 July 1959). "Controversial Movie has Première Here". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
- ^ Kingsley Pictures Corp. v. Regents, 360 U.S. 684, Find law, 29 June 1959.
- ^ Grove Press, Inc. v. Christenberry, 175 F. Supp. 488 (SDNY 1959), 21 July 1959.
- ^ Kaplan, Fred (21 July 2009). "The Day Obscenity Became Art". The New York Times. The New York Times. Retrieved 17 February 2018.
- ISBN 0-385-26708-8.
- ^ "Laws – IPC – Section 292". Indian penal code. Vakilno 1. Archived from the original on 18 May 2011. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
- ^ "Ranjit D. Udeshi v. State of Maharashtra (1964)". Worldlii. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
- ^ “The Morecambe & Wise Show (1968–1977). Episode #9.2”. IMDb.
- ISBN 1-876819-91-X.
- ^ Footprints in Time. John Colville. 1976. Chapter 6, Lady Chatterley's Lover.
- ^ Belle, Logan (May 2013). Miss Chatterley. Pocket Star/Simon & Schuster.
- ^ Edelstein, David (17 June 2007). "Mariane's Labyrinth: A Mighty Heart is a powerful journey down terror's rat holes. Plus: French erotics and Hollywood piety".
- IMDb.
- IMDb
- ^ Soares, André (5 May 2007), "Tribeca Film Festival Awards – 2007 Winners", Alternative Film Guide, retrieved 19 June 2008.
- ^ "Lady Chatterley's Daughter". IMDb. 15 February 2011. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
- ^ "BBC - Stellar cast announced for Jed Mercurio's adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover - Media Centre". www.bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 18 November 2015.
- ^ "BBC One: Lady Chatterley's Lover". BBC Online. 6 September 2015. Retrieved 6 September 2015.
- ^ "Emma Corrin's Next Period Drama Role Would Make Diana, Princess Of Wales Blush". British Vogue. 12 March 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
- ^ Bradshaw, Peter (24 November 2022). "Lady Chatterley's Lover review – sensuality as an almost religious revelation". The Guardian.
- ^ "Fanny Hill Meets Lady Chatterley (1963)". Archived from the original on 18 August 2021.
- ^ "Games That Lovers Play (1971)". Archived from the original on 12 November 2017.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4: Open Book". BBC Online. 17 September 2006. Retrieved 6 September 2015.
- ^ "Theatre review: Lady Chatterley's Lover at The Crucible". British Theatre Guide. 21 September 2016. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
- ^ Treneman, Ann. "Theatre: Lady Chatterley's Lover at the Crucible, Sheffield". Retrieved 17 February 2021 – via www.thetimes.co.uk.
- ^ "Lady Chatterley's Lover". English Touring Theatre. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
- ^ Mad Follies #1 (1963)
- ^ Lady Chatterley's Chopped Liver And Other Recipes [1]
External links
- The full text of Lady Chatterley's Lover at Wikisource
- Free e-text of Lady Chatterley's Lover on Project Gutenberg Australia.
- Lady Chatterley's Lover at Grove Press, the American publisher of the book
- Lady Chatterley's Lover (D.H. Lawrence) study guide, SparkNotes
- Lady Chatterley's Lover trial papers University of Bristol Library Special Collections
- Robertson, Geoffrey (22 October 2010). "The trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover". the Guardian.
- Clements, Toby (19 February 2009). "History of Penguin archive". The Daily Telegraph.
The archive contains all the legal papers from the trial
- Gertz, Stephen J. (12 December 2011). "The Most Pirated Novel of the 20th Century". BOOKTRYST.