The Boy in the Bush

by D H Lawrence

Published April 1963
This is the first critical edition of The Boy in the Bush, a novel whose unlikely genesis has been surrounded in mystery and the subject of claim and counter-claim. A systematic study of all the extant textual documents has revealed a process of composition and revision which qualifies the novel to be treated unequivocally as part of the Lawrence canon. At Lawrence's suggestion an Australian nurse and part-time author, Mollie Skinner (whom he had met in 1922), wrote a tale set in late nineteenth-century Western Australia about a newly-arrived young Englishman's reactions to Perth and the outback. Lawrence's complete rewriting converted her production into an ambitious, powerful novel. The reading text here established eliminates all such instances of censorship and strips away the thousands of regularisings and miscopyings introduced by typists and typesetters. Based on Lawrence's autograph manuscript the text meticulously incorporates his subsequent revisions in the typescripts and proofs.

Introductions and Reviews

by D H Lawrence

Published 16 December 2004
This volume collects together the introductions and reviews for which D. H. Lawrence was responsible over the whole duration of his writing career, from 1911 to 1930: it includes the book review which was the last thing he ever wrote, in the Ad Astra Sanatorium in Vence. The forty-nine separate items include some of his most compelling literary productions: for example, the fascinating Memoir of Maurice Magnus of 1921-2, his only extended piece of biographical writing. The volume's Introduction not only outlines the literary contacts of Lawrence's career which led him to doing such work, but gives a fresh account of the life of a literary professional who regularly wrote in support of work in which he personally believed, and who also (rather surprisingly) wrote reviews of nearly thirty books. All the texts, including a number previously unpublished in Britain, have been edited and are supplied with extensive explanatory notes.

The thirteen short stories in this volume were written between 1924 and 1928, and are set in Europe and America. Eleven were collected in The Woman Who Rode Away (1928), though 'The Man Who Loved Islands' appeared in the American edition only and the other two in The Lovely Lady (1933). An unpublished fragment 'A Pure Witch' is also included here. The stories reflect Lawrence's experiences in New Mexico, Mexico, Italy, Germany and England in the post-war period. Many were considerably revised by Lawrence after he first wrote them; some were completely rewritten and subsequently published in different versions. The editors give composition histories and discuss publication difficulties, including Compton Mackenzie's objections to 'The Man Who Loved Islands'. Appendices record manuscript revisions for three stories and give complete, unpublished early versions of four. Explanatory notes elucidate literary allusions and give topographical and biographical information.

St Mawr and Other Stories consists of the long novella St Mawr, two short stories 'The Overtone' and 'The Princess', and two unfinished stories 'The Wilful Woman' and 'The Flying Fish', all written during D. H. Lawrence's stay on the American continent between 1922 and 1925. The texts are newly edited from Lawrence's original manuscripts and typescripts, eliminating mistranscriptions and unauthorised alterations made by publishers and printers for reasons of housestyling, fear of prosecution or moral censoriousness. In some cases whole lines of text, which have been omitted in the first and subsequent editions, have been restored. The textual apparatus records all variants. The introduction uses unpublished material to trace the genesis and reception of each work. The notes give the translation of foreign words, the explanation of classical, biblical, literary and historical references and the reasoning behind some of the more involved textual cruces.

Lawrence began composing poems in 1905 and published eleven collections of his poetry between 1913 and 1932. This critical edition includes these collections as well as unpublished poetry preserved in his notebooks, freshly transcribed and annotated. A 1916 sequence of war poems, 'All of Us', is published for the first time. Poems and all versions of Lawrence's own prefaces to his collections of verse are in the first volume, while the second volume consists of explanatory notes, textual apparatus and a comprehensive study of the composition, publication and reception of the poetry. These two volumes complete the Cambridge Edition of the Works of D. H. Lawrence, making his complete works now available in authoritative scholarly editions.

The Plays

by D H Lawrence

Published 29 July 1999
This first complete edition of Lawrence's plays contains eight full-length plays and two fragments. Six of the plays - A Collier's Friday Night, The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd, The Merry-go-Round, The Married Man, The Fight for Barbara and The Daughter-in-Law - were written between 1909 and 1913, the period when Lawrence was establishing himself as a writer. They are arguably among his very best early work. Yet Lawrence never saw a play of his own on the stage. Only two were performed in his lifetime, and only three were published: the play often regarded as his best, The Daughter-in-Law, remaining unpublished until 1965. Up to now, the plays have existed only in faulty or incomplete texts; this edition, drawn from Lawrence's own surviving manuscripts and typescripts, makes it possible for the first time to read and to stage Lawrence's plays as he wrote them. Published in two volumes.

Written in D. H. Lawrence's most productive period, 'Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious' (1921) and 'Fantasia of the Unconscious' (1922) were undertaken initially in response to psychoanalytic criticism of his novel Sons and Lovers. They soon developed more generally to propose an alternative to what Lawrence perceived as the Freudian psychoanalytic theory of the unconscious and the incest motive. The essays also develop his ideas about the upbringing and education of children, about marriage, and about social and even political action. Lawrence described them as 'this pseudo-philosophy of mine which was deduced from the novels and poems, not the reverse. The absolute need one has for some sort of satisfactory mental attitude towards oneself and things in general makes one try to abstract some definite conclusions from one's experiences as a writer and as a man'. These conclusions form an illuminating guide to his works and therein lies their peculiar value.

Mr. Noon

by D H Lawrence

Published 13 September 1984
Mr Noon is a sardonic tale about the amorous adventures of Gilbert Noon, a young schoolmaster in Lawrence's home county of Nottinghamshire who gets entangled with a girl, loses his job, and decides to leave the country to escape the narrow provincial middle-class morality. It was first known as a long story posthumously published in A Modern Lover (1934) and collected in the volume called Phoenix II (1968). Lawrence in fact wrote a long continuation of the novel, but the manuscript disappeared for many years. The Cambridge edition brought the two parts together for the first time. It is like a sequel to Sons and Lovers, but much more straightforwardly autobiographical. The publication of the complete work added a new work of major importance to the canon of a great writer, and was widely hailed as a major literary event.

D. H. Lawrence's 'Study of Thomas Hardy', written in the early months of World War I, was originally intended to be a short critical work on Hardy's characters, but developed into a major statement of Lawrence's philosophy of art. The introduction to this work shows its relation to Lawrence's final rewriting of The Rainbow and its place among his continual attempts to express his philosophy in a definitive form. Previously published posthumously from a corrupt typescript, the 'Study' is now more firmly based on Koteliansky's typescript - Lawrence having destroyed the manuscript. The other essays in this volume span virtually the whole of Lawrence's writing career, from 'Art and the Individual' (1908) to his last essay 'John Galsworthy', written in 1927. The introduction sets these essays in the context of Lawrence's life and work. The textual apparatus gives variant readings, and explanatory notes identify references and quotations, and offer background information.

Apocalypse

by D H Lawrence and Richard Aldington

Published 7 January 1966
"Apocalypse", Lawrence's polemic against intellectualism and materialism, was his last work. It contains a fierce protest against Christianity, holding it responsible for both the dehumanizing of men and women and the self-glorification of the weak that has brought about "the reign of the pseudo-humble". He also argues against the importance given to all things scientific that places formulae above feelings and reduces the spirit of mankind.

The Rainbow Part 2

by D H Lawrence

Published 25 October 2003

The Rainbow Part 1

by D H Lawrence

Published 25 October 2003



In his last years D. H. Lawrence often wrote for newspapers; he needed the money, and clearly enjoyed the work. He also wrote several substantial essays during the same period. This meticulously-edited collection brings together major essays such as Pornography and Obscenity and Lawrence's spirited Introduction to the volume of his Paintings; a group of autobiographical pieces, two of which are published here for the first time; and the articles Lawrence wrote at the invitation of newspaper and magazine editors. There are thirty-nine items in total, thirty-five of them deriving from original manuscripts; all were written between 1926 and Lawrence's death in March 1930. They are ordered chronologically according to the date of composition; each is preceded by an account of the circumstances in which it came to be published. The volume is introduced by a substantial survey of Lawrence's career as a writer responding directly to public interests and concerns.

This volume collects together manuscript and other early versions of thirteen of D. H. Lawrence's short stories, including some of the best-known ('Odour of Chrysanthemums', 'The Blind Man'), as well as many which have never been published before. It includes the earliest stories Lawrence wrote, dating from the autumn of 1907, and stories written between 1911 and 1919. With this volume, all Lawrence's extant short fiction is now published in the Cambridge edition of his works. All the texts are newly edited, with detailed explanatory notes and a full textual apparatus showing the variants between the manuscripts and later versions, and the Introduction gives an account of their compositional history. This edition thus enables readers, scholars and students to trace Lawrence's extraordinary and rapid development as a writer and to compare the original forms of these stories with what he subsequently went on to make of them.

This book is a critical edition of D. H. Lawrence's complete essays about Mexican and Southwestern Indians, both those published in 1927 as Mornings in Mexico, and the other essays Lawrence wrote about them during his American years. The number of essays, therefore, is more than double that of all previous editions. The early version of 'Pan in America' appears here for the first time, as do previously unpublished passages in other essays. The texts are informed by all extant manuscripts, typescripts, and early publications, with a full textual apparatus revealing Lawrence's revisions. The volume includes extensive notes and appendices with information on Mesoamerican mythology and history. Lawrence's interest in and real affection for the region and its peoples went beyond the travel writing genre and these essays hold significance not only for those interested in Lawrence but also in the wider context of the cultures of Mexico and the Southwest.

Paul Morel

by D H Lawrence

Published 25 September 2003
This is the first ever edition of the early version of Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence's highly popular autobiographical novel. Amongst all the surviving early drafts of Lawrence's works this is the most different from the final version; as he rewrote, Lawrence discarded many episodes, some of them stories from his childhood not recorded anywhere else. It is less polished than Sons and Lovers, but it is full of powerful, spontaneous, dramatic writing: there is more humour and charm, more raw violence and nervous energy. This volume also contains remarkable documents written by Lawrence's girlfriend Jessie Chambers, the model for Miriam in Paul Morel and in Sons and Lovers, in which she gives Lawrence some hostile criticisms and writes out for him her own versions of some of his episodes. In addition there is a fragment of a novel about his mother's childhood, facsimiles of manuscript pages, maps, and scholarly notes and apparatus.

Sons and Lovers Part 2

by D H Lawrence

Published 12 September 2005

Sons and Lovers Part 1

by D H Lawrence

Published 12 September 2005