Product Description

D. H. Lawrence’s second novel The Trespasser is based on the tragic love affair of his friend Helen Corke and her violin teacher. After reading Miss Corke’s diary, Lawrence first urged her to write her story and then received her permission to do it himself. Between his rapid composition of the first draft in the spring and summer of 1910 and his final revisions in early 1912, Lawrence’s view of Helen Corke, and consequently of her story, changed. The manuscript survives, and this edition presents the text for the first time as Lawrence wrote it, restoring his sentence-structure and punctuation and correcting numerous typesetters’ errors. In her substantial introduction Elizabeth Mansfield explores the background of the novel, presents the complications of the publishing history and the novel’s reception. A full textual apparatus records the history of the text and the editor annotates topical and other references.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #391395 in Books
• Published on: 1982-02-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 344 pages

Customer Reviews

Red-Hot But Ill-Fated
This is Lawrence's second novel, sexier and more courageous in every way than his first, The White Peacock. It would appear to have been suggested by a brief news article about an inquest into the hanging death of a professor of music. Siegmund is a violinist who is married to Beatrice and has numerous kids. They live in Wimbledon, but he takes off with Helena, a fellow musician, for a week of red-hot but ill-fated love-making on the Isle of Wight. He is not portrayed very sympathetically, though he is definitely a Lawrentian figure. When he returns the family is not pleased. Helena and some girlfriends go down to Tintagel for a holiday, and when Helena's letters to Siegmund are not answered she decides to investigate. The writing is very evocative of the locales, and great bursts of mythological imagery enter his writing for the first time. This is a first-rate psychological study; Siegmund is a man of great potential but he suffers from myriad mysterious psychological flaws. Nothing in this novel is simple; nothing is obvious. Everything is subtle and understated, even the lovely natural descriptions that abound on every page.