Lawrence, D. H.

Lady Chatterley's Lover [Third of the Pirate Editions]

Privately Printed, 1928. This edition is often referred to as the ‘third of the pirate editions’ described by Lawrence in My Skirmish with Jolly Roger.

Smooth leather with stamped spine titles in red; red endpages; 9 inches tall; [4] 1-365 pages.

The bindings are tight and square. Text is clean; light, even age-toning. Moderate shelf handling wear with minor upper corner bumps; a stain on the lower spine. The boards are lightly soiled; repair to the bottom 5 inches of the front hinge with 1 inch masking tape; the rear hinge is starting but still firm. The limitation page states 500 copies and is un-numbered. This copy does not have a frontispiece.

Lady Chatterley's Lover was first completed by D.H. Lawrence in 1928. The novel explores the intimate and romantic relationship between Constance Reid, a young woman married to Sir Clifford Chatterley, and the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, on the Chatterley estate. The novel delves into themes of class, sexuality, and the tensions between the intellectual, artistic world and the physical, natural world. Lawrence's portrayal of explicit sexual content and the frankness of his language was seen as scandalous at the time.

When Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterley’s Lover, its frank depiction of sex and class divisions created a moral uproar. At the time, British and American publishers, as well as the broader public, were deeply conservative about literature that dealt with sexual matters openly. The novel’s exploration of an adulterous affair between a woman of the upper class and a working-class man was considered particularly controversial.

This context of censorship and the legal battles surrounding Lady Chatterley’s Lover marks the book as not only a work of art but a milestone in the fight for freedom of expression in literature.

A privately printed even pirated text – as the case with this copy - were key in preserving the text and bringing the book to the public during times of legal and moral suppression.

Ref: Connolly 100; Open Edition Journals 54/2022

Item #20242

Price: $185.00