Women in Love

New York: Privately Printed for Subscribers Only, 1920. First edition. Very Good +. One of 1,250 numbered copies, of which this is 349. Large octavo (9 5/8 x 6 1/4 inches; 245 x 160 mm). [4], [1]- 536, [4, blank] pp. Publisher's dark blue buckram, spine with four shallow raised bands, lettered in gilt in second compartment. Slight edgewear. Bookplate and small numerical sticker to upper pastedown. Upper inner hinge expertly and subtly repaired. A bit of toning to edges and a small dusty finger-mark to margin of title page. A clean, Very Good+ copy.

This New York edition preceded the London edition by seven months. Despite significant delays, Women in Love was published as a limited edition in 1920 in the US due to obscenity concerns in the UK, where D. H. Lawrence's earlier work was banned. Women in Love acts as sequel to The Rainbow (1915) although the two were originally envisioned as a two-part novel. Fears of litigation led Lawrence to work with the publisher Thomas Seltzer, who despite his own legal battles against vice censorship, would eventually also publish Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). Women in Love follows the romantic dramas of the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and Ursulam, leading to tragedy in the Tyrolian Alps.

Although the author David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) was best known for his controversial novels, he was also a prolific poet and essayist. "Lawrence was a rebellious and profoundly polemical writer with radical views, who regarded sex, the primitive subconscious, and nature as cures to what he considered the evils of modern industrialized society" (Poets.org). Lawrence's compelling narratives have been adapted into numerous film and TV productions.

Roberts & Poplowski A15a. Very Good +.