Product Description

This title includes Introduction and Notes by Dr Jeff Wallace, University of Glamorgan. Lawrence's finest, most mature novel initially met with disgust and incomprehension. In the love affairs of two sisters, Ursula with Rupert, and Gudrun with Gerald, critics could only see a sorry tale of sexual depravity and philosophical obscurity. "Women in Love" is, however, a profound response to a whole cultural crisis. The 'progress' of the modern industrialised world had led to the carnage of the First World War. What, then, did it mean to call ourselves 'human'? On what grounds could we place ourselves above and beyond the animal world? What are the definitive forms of our relationships - love, marriage, family, friendship - really worth? And how might they be otherwise?Without directly referring to the war, "Women in Love" explores these questions with restless energy. As a sequel to "The Rainbow", the novel develops experimental techniques which made Lawrence one of the most important writers of the Modernist movement.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22223 in Books
• Published on: 1992-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

About the Author
David Bradshaw is Fellow and Tutor in English at Worcester College, Oxford.

Customer Reviews

Lawrence's Best
This is regarded as Lawrence's greatest work of literature and I find it difficult to disagree. The book is insightful, superbly written and delves deep into the familiar Lawrence areas of sex, sexuality, love, social class, & materialism. It is also written before Lawrence became embittered with society, which shows in his later works. Although the book is best (as it always is), there is also a great film of the book directed by Ken Russell and starring Oliver Reed. If you're new to Lawrence I would suggest going for `The Rainbow', `Selected Short Stories' or `Sons and Lovers' before tackling this.

I like writing reviews it makes me fell intelligent!
I seriously loved this book! It wasn't the typical romance novel i assumed it to be when i first piked it up. I don't at all agree with my fellow reviewer that it was at times sexist! The women in it were completely independent making their own decisions and moulding their own careers although writing this i do see that they were portrayed as more scheming an in worse light than the men.

It is a great reflection of the time it was written and shocking for a modern reader to see how far socially since ww1 we've moved on in terms of openness about sex and sexuality as well as the relevance of the traditional home and family, i also feel many of the questions brought up in the novel are as relevant today as they were when it was written.

It's a book well worth a read, brilliantly written and at times the tension between characters is excruciating.

Major novel, major introduction
This is a serious edition of a very serious novel. It's harder to take Women in Love as seriously now as people did in the 1960s -- some of it seems objectionably sexist, some just bizarre -- but it's still an absorbing read, and David Bradshaw's introduction really helps to make sense of it all. He writes like a duck on elastic, which is terrific.