Sons and Lovers Mass market paperbound - 1985

Though it is the author’s third novel, Sons and Lovers is often regarded as D.H. Lawrence’s masterpiece. The autobiographical work, which was originally titled Paul Morel after its protagonist, was set in motion with the death of Lawrence’s mother, Lydia. The author used the opportunity to reexamine his childhood, his relationship with his mother, and her psychological effect on his sexuality.

Sons and Lovers had already been rejected by one publisher when Lawrence sent the manuscript to Edward Garnett of Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd. Garnett made extensive editing suggestions and still — after Lawrence rewrote the manuscript for the fourth time — cut 80 passages, about 10% of the work, before its 1913 publication.

At the time of publication, Sons and Lovers was criticized for being obscene. But the novel endured. It has been adapted for film multiple times, including the Academy Award winning 1960 film. The Modern Library placed it ninth on their list of the 100 best novels of the 20th century.

D.H. Lawrence's great autobiographical novel is a provocative portrait of an artist torn between love for his possessive mother and desire for two young beautiful women. Set in the Nottinghamshire coal fields of Lawrence's own boyhood, the story of young Paul Morel's growing into manhood in a British working-class family rife with conflict reveals both an inner and an outer world seething with intense emotions. Gertrude is Paul's puritanical mother who concentrates all her love and attention on her son Paul. She nurtures his talents as a painter - and when she broods that he might marry someday and desert her, he swears he will never leave her. Inevitably, Paul does fall in love, but with two women - and is unable to choose between them. Written early in Lawrence's literary career, Sons and Lovers possesses all the powers of description, insistent sensuality, and scathing social criticism that are the special hallmarks of his genius. "A work of striking originality," writes the critic F.R. Leavis, by "the greatest creative writer in English of our time."

Details

• Title Sons and Lovers
• Author D. H. Lawrence; Introduction by Benjamin DeMott
• Binding Mass Market Paperbound
• Edition [ Edition: Repri
• Pages 402
• Volumes 1
• Language ENG
• Publisher Signet Classics, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Date January 2, 1985
• ISBN 9780451518828 / 0451518829
• Weight 0.45 lbs (0.20 kg)
• Dimensions 7.6 x 3.42 x 1.16 in (19.30 x 8.69 x 2.95 cm)
• Library of Congress subjects Domestic fiction, England
• Library of Congress Catalog Number 98818473
• Dewey Decimal Code FIC