Sons and Lovers

As the sensitive and delicate Gertrude begins to shrink from her drunken and violent husband, their marriage becomes a battleground. Gertrude turns increasingly towards her two eldest sons, William and Paul, and determines that they will not grow up to be coalminers living in poverty like their father. Yet soon William falls ill, and Paul seeks to escape his mother's suffocating influence through a series of relationships.

Closely autobiographical, and widely considered to be the first English novel with a truly working-class background, Sons and Lovers is the affecting portrait of a mining family torn apart by class divisions and the conflict between filial love and the urge to follow one's own desires.

About the Author

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) was one of the most important and controversial novelists of the 20th century. His graphic writing about sex and class lead to bans of many of his most famous works, including Lady Chatterley's Lover, the subject of bans in both American and Britain until 1960.