D.H.Lawrence: A Literary Life (Macmillan Literary Lives)

"These damned books...they are the crumpled wings of my soul. They get me free before I get myself free."Adored, despised, censored, and ignored, D. H. Lawrence has for years been a profoundly troubling figure in the literary canon. Now, from the distinguished Lawrence scholar John Worthen, comes the definitive biography of the controversial novelist, sexual adventurer, and deeply conflicted man.Drawing on a wealth of original research and qouting extensively from rarely seen letters, Worthen reveals Lawrence's role as the perennial outsider. From his awkward and intense youth in an impoverished coal-mining town; through his troubled and turbulent relationship with Frieda Weekley and his equally fiery friendships with figures such as Katherine Mansfield, Ottoline Morrell, and Aldous Huxley; and through the years of exile abroad in Europe and New Mexico during which he produced his most vital and provocative writing, Lawrence paid the price of a life lived in constant struggle against convention.He was a man who, throughout his life, was horribly uncomfortable in his own skin. His fascination with the body and his determination to articulate its every experience brought about his notorious reputation, his difficulties with publishers, friends, and lovers, and ultimately his place in literary history. Through it all, his one unbroken commitment was to his writing, which resulted in some of the most ambitious and influential novels of the twentieth century, including Women in Love and Lady Chatterley's Lover.Sympathetic yet balanced, John Worthen's narrative yields the most rounded and engaging picture yet of this complex and contradictory man, who continues to both provoke and fascinate today.