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Selected Letters
This unique edition of D. H. Lawrence€™s Selected Letters includes correspondence spanning his whole adult life—from early letters as a 16-year-old to his final years in France. The language remains effusive and dynamic throughout as he corresponds with friends, lovers, fellow authors, editors, postmen, and nuns discussing topics such as art, literature, love, life, and the weather. The scrupulous and innovative work by James Boulton provides a rare critical assessment of Lawrence€™s epistolary achievement, comprehensive biographical and bibliographical details, brief chronological and descriptive introductions to each section, and a full general index.
188 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1932
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About the author
D.H. Lawrence
2,084 books4,197 followersDavid 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...
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...
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 25, 2022
Just gorgeous. What a fantastic person, who for all his maddening idiosyncracies, was passionately honest and deeply in love with the natural world. He’s the perfect letter writer, being keenly aware of the strange, joyful new moments everyday and deeply interested in people and other creatures…
His searing sarcasm and strong opinions are very refreshing, especially if you're used to the whitewashed, please-don't- sue-me style of contemporary writers. It's oddly satisfying to read someone who hates as sincerely as he loves. When he's angry, bitter, joyful, sad, amused he expresses it completely, either good and mad, poisonously vitriolic or entranced with tiny natural details.
I regret the smallminded nastiness he endured in his search to show sexual meaning in art. At times he was portrayed as some sort of monster for daring to write about the reality of the human body without coyness, hypocrisy or grossness, and it's evident that this hurt him at times. If that interests you his epilogue ' a propos Lady Chatterley's Lover' is great.
His searing sarcasm and strong opinions are very refreshing, especially if you're used to the whitewashed, please-don't- sue-me style of contemporary writers. It's oddly satisfying to read someone who hates as sincerely as he loves. When he's angry, bitter, joyful, sad, amused he expresses it completely, either good and mad, poisonously vitriolic or entranced with tiny natural details.
I regret the smallminded nastiness he endured in his search to show sexual meaning in art. At times he was portrayed as some sort of monster for daring to write about the reality of the human body without coyness, hypocrisy or grossness, and it's evident that this hurt him at times. If that interests you his epilogue ' a propos Lady Chatterley's Lover' is great.
October 27, 2012
I did follow the advice of Geoff Dyer and I read these Selected letters. D.H. Lawrence was not only a fine letter-writer, he was timely and persistent. Reading these letters in conjunction with a couple biographies and a personal triptych memoir regarding his travels in Italy, a reliable bullshit meter is installed, equipped, and in good operating condition. Even if the person of Lawrence was a beast at times, he remained charming until the end, and what impressed me the most about his life-long battle with lung disease was how he somehow remained in amazing, unparalleled denial throughout the duration, even within a couple days before he finally succumbed. Two snippets below can act for you as teasers:
To Ernest Collins,
17 January 1913
"...My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.
... We have got so ridiculously mindful, that we never know that we ourselves are anything — we think there are only the objects we shine upon.
... A flame isn't a flame because it lights up two, or twenty objects on a table. It's a flame because it is itself. And we have forgotten ourselves.
... The real way of living is to answer to one's wants. Not 'I want to light up with my intelligence as many things as possible' — but 'For the living of my full flame — I want that liberty, I want that woman, I want that pound of peaches, I want to go to sleep, I want to go to the pub and have a good time, I want to look a beastly swell today, I want to kiss that girl, I want to insult that man.' — Instead of that, all these wants, which are there whether-or-not, are utterly ignored, and we talk about some sort of ideas."
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Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan
9 Aug 1928
re: Lady Chatterly's Lover
"...makes one hate hypocrisy and prudery more than ever — and people as a bulk."
To Ernest Collins,
17 January 1913
"...My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.
... We have got so ridiculously mindful, that we never know that we ourselves are anything — we think there are only the objects we shine upon.
... A flame isn't a flame because it lights up two, or twenty objects on a table. It's a flame because it is itself. And we have forgotten ourselves.
... The real way of living is to answer to one's wants. Not 'I want to light up with my intelligence as many things as possible' — but 'For the living of my full flame — I want that liberty, I want that woman, I want that pound of peaches, I want to go to sleep, I want to go to the pub and have a good time, I want to look a beastly swell today, I want to kiss that girl, I want to insult that man.' — Instead of that, all these wants, which are there whether-or-not, are utterly ignored, and we talk about some sort of ideas."
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Letter to Mabel Dodge Luhan
9 Aug 1928
re: Lady Chatterly's Lover
"...makes one hate hypocrisy and prudery more than ever — and people as a bulk."
October 12, 2012
I'm a big Lawrence fan, and so this correspondence is fascinating to read as we follow him through England and out to New Mexico. Lawrence's fictional characters were very close to people he knew, and what's especially interesting is his attempts to soothe the ruffled feathers of people who were hurt by his portrayal of them.
January 4, 2021
I am sure he'd be canceled today, but the letters bring out his decency, and the fact that his more extreme statements are to challenge people into change. I would expect there's a move to remove his works from many colleges with the way things are going.
The other interest is how important income (the amounts seem piddling), was to Lawrence. He was such a artistic intuitive soul, who had no need for fine living, but he still needed to eat. I am also fascinated as he was doing better, he was able to rent fully furnished places in Italy, France, and Spain, in nice areas for so little!
The other interest is how important income (the amounts seem piddling), was to Lawrence. He was such a artistic intuitive soul, who had no need for fine living, but he still needed to eat. I am also fascinated as he was doing better, he was able to rent fully furnished places in Italy, France, and Spain, in nice areas for so little!
April 23, 2023
The LETTERS OF D.H. Lawrence show us a keen and empathetic mind operating at peak capacity. Whether he is describing for English friends the calmness and vibrancy of the Italian countryside or the painful yet productive solitude that is de riguer for writing his novels, this correspondence can stand alone as a masterpiece of twentieth century English language prose. If you are not familiar with D.H.'s novels, short stories of poetry here you will find the finely-crafted prose that serves as an introduction to all three. A delight for sipping coffee while imbibing the words of a genius.
May 3, 2022
Huxley's introduction was enlightening about D.H. Lawrence. It seems to ponder what makes Lawrence unique, what this uniqueness means, and why it matters. I loved the introduction!
I also enjoyed the slow-paced letters, for Lawrence's beauty of writing style and expression. And for his point-of-view on world affairs. What a gift the man was. Maybe not to those who knew him well, but to us, who can gain from his insight without having to personally deal with his insensitivity.
I also enjoyed the slow-paced letters, for Lawrence's beauty of writing style and expression. And for his point-of-view on world affairs. What a gift the man was. Maybe not to those who knew him well, but to us, who can gain from his insight without having to personally deal with his insensitivity.
July 6, 2019
Wonderful lyrical reading.
Disappointed by his remarks on Native Americans.
Disappointed by his remarks on Native Americans.
Want to read
April 10, 20252P
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews