The Lovely Lady

by D.H. Lawrence

This volume of seven stories includes the last fiction that D. H. Lawrence wrote. It is in his most mellow vein, and several of the stories at least should rank among his shorter masterpieces. The Rocking-Horse Winner is an amazing and uncanny study of childhood, with a feverish psychological twist that leaves the reader gasping; Rawdon's Roof gives the character of a man afraid of women; the title story and Mother and Daughter pursue one of Lawrence's favorite themes, the sinister conflict between parent and child. The others are chiefly domestic dramas - sketches or character studies affording the author a new chance for his brilliant attack on the shortcomings of modern life.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

156 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English writer of the 20th century, whose prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism, and personal letters. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.H._Law...

Reviews

[♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I'll read it again. It's so good!

[Evie · Rating 3 out of 5]

If he wanted me to dislike Pauline he flopped

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pauline is an old woman known for her beauty. She lives with her son Robert and her niece Siss. The family dynamic is more accepted than strained, and Pauline is the one who is in charge.
The Lovely Lady is a weird, yet funny tale of an emotional vampire. Lawrence rips the mask off of this strangely parasitic relationship, which involves vanity and the desperate need for if not adoration then homage. Originally published in 1927 in The Black Cat.

[Vicky Montanari]

primer libro q leo en inglés very funny ah

[Cecily · Rating 3 out of 5]

A not very murderous murder story, with slight supernatural similarities to The Picture of Dorian Gray, and very literal eavesdropping, featuring a drain pipe!

Read as part of Selected Short Stories, which I've reviewed HERE.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The eight stories appeared some two years after Lawrence's death in 1930, but I felt he must have chosen them or set them in order himself. There's been a huge stylistic development since his early work, into something remarkably concise and forthright. Perhaps he felt he'd said what wanted to say on all those social and literary subjects he'd campaigned about. These are sharp character studies drawn within stories that verge on the ludicrous. I laughed out loud at the end of two. He knows just how far to take fantasy without making it wholly unrealistic. The last story is devastating. More I won't say.

[A.M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

review for titular story only: Pauline is an old woman known for her beauty who keeps a tight rein on her remaining son Robert; constantly reminding him that he is not a patch on his dead brother. She also makes life hellish for her niece Ciss. She just seems to suck the life out of them, until one day Ciss makes a discovery, and for once in her life, she speaks up.

888

Again vampires of the psychic kind. Her magic hold is broken, her beauty fades in days, and all the truths come out now.

2 drainpipe stars

[anod · Rating 3 out of 5]

i may think Lawrence wanted us to hate Pauline because of how she destroyed her sons but i think I understand she resembles half of the old rich ladies but i hated Cis the most i didn’t like how she did that and for what Pauline never hurt you at all!!

[McHess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not always glittering but still thought- and emotion-provoking 90 years later.

[Алтынай Токторова · Rating 3 out of 5]

Как можно прочитать?

[Lubana's life in between pages · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just okay, wasn't as good as my expectation.

[Lisa of Troy]

Unannotated Book in F. Scott Fitzgerald's College of One

[Urwa]

Actually ive forgotten this story.Can please someone remind me?

[Luana]

Will edit later.