Lawrence`s controversial novel was published in Florence in 1928 by one of his friends, and in Paris the next year. It was declared obscene and actually went to trial; the complete text did not appear in England until 1960. The novel tells the impassioned story of Lady Constance Chatterly, who is married to Sir Clifford, a wealthy man left a paraplegic after World War I--now an intellectual who ignores her. She finds love and sexual fulfillment--graphically and lyrically described--with her husband`s gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, by whom she becomes pregnant. She confesses everything to her husband, and the novel ends with the hope that Constance and her lover will be able to marry. This landmark novel epitomizes Lawrence`s belief in the overriding legitimacy of human relationships and sexual passion as an antidote to the cold and conventional values of a modern industrial society.
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