This selection of Lawrence's work underlines the intensity and innovation that made him one of the most distinctive and important of twentieth-century writers.

Sons and Lovers - semi-autobiographical, is a powerful exploration of family, class, sexuality and the suffocating relationships of a man with a demanding mother and two very different lovers.

Women in Love - perhaps Lawrence's most mature novel, was met with disgust by the critics, seeing only a sorry tale of sexual depravity in the love of the sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, for Rupert and Gerald.

Lady Chatterley's Lover - Lawrence's novel, written in poetic and sexually explicit language, deals with the passionate relationship between Lady Constance Chatterley and Oliver Mellors, her emotionally and physically crippled husband's forthright and powerfully masculine gamekeeper. A watershed in twentieth-century literary fiction, its sensational content has earned the novel an enduring readership and notoriety.

Other stories featured in this volume include The Captain's Doll, The Fox, The Ladybird, St Mawr, The Princess, The Virgin and the Gypsy and The Escaped Cock.