© Helen Croom 1996

Lady Chatterley's Author


There is much more to DH Lawrence than Lady Chatterley's Lover but it is nevertheless the book for which he is most widely known. Controversy among scholars as to the worth of this book has raged, but whatever the academic standing of the book, it is the one book of Lawrence's that has been read by people in all walks of life.

Indeed, there are people who don't realise that he wrote anything else! One friend of mine, when I encouraged her to read some of Lawrence's poetry said, "Oh! I didn't know he wrote poetry - I thought he was a sort of male Jackie Collins."

Lawrence, didn't revise his works in the way most writers do, but rather wrote and re-wrote the novel until he was satisfied. With Lady Chatterley, we are fortunate to be able to see this in practice.

Three versions

There are three published versions of Lady Chatterley books:

Whilst each has the same theme of the affair between the gamekeeper (named Parkin in the first two books, Mellors in the final version) and Constance Chatterley, the story is handled differently.

The first book has few of the "purple passages" that the final version is notorious for. The book deals with the social and political aspects of a mining community in the 1920s as well as with the affair.

The second version introduces the "sexual healing" aspect, which is carried over into Lady Chatterley's Lover. But, even so, there are important differences between the second and third versions. John Thomas and Lady Jane is a more tender (was this the version which Lawrence wanted to entitle "Tenderness"?) searching and sympathetic handling of the theme. Parkin has not become the rather hard and bitter gamekeeper of the final version and Lawrence's shows the couple as having more than a primarily sexual relationship.

The third and final published version, which can be downloaded from the Web, needs little explanation. But it is not, in my opinion, the best of the three. Lawrence's creation of Mellors shows signs of the author's own bitterness - and Lawrence's insistence on the liberal use of the "F" word becomes tedious.

Lawrence is superb when writing about relationships. He captures the mixed emotions and conflicting feelings as no other author seems able. The interest in these three books for me was to see how Lawrence dealt with themes, revised his views or opinions, coped with anomalies created, and so on. It is worth reading all three books - but if you only read ONE let it be John Thomas and Lady Jane.


Details of the Ken Russell production of "Lady Chatterley" at the Sean Bean web-site



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