THE CLASSICS: LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER

Lawrence’s frank portrayal of an extramarital affair and the explicit sexual explorations of its main characters caused this controversial book, which is now considered a masterpiece, to be banned as pornography until 1960. Lady Chatterley’s Lover is the final novel by English author D.H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in Florence, Italy, and then in 1929, in Paris, France. The original edition was not published in the United Kingdom until 1960. It became the subject of an obscenity trial against the publisher which was Penguin Books; they won the case and quickly sold three million copies of the title. Lady Chatterley’s Lover was also banned for obscenity in the United States, Canada, Australia, India and Japan. The book soon became notorious for its story of the intense physical and emotional relationship between a working – class man and an upper – class woman, its presentation on some views on the early-20th-century British social context and its explicit descriptions of sex and its use of then-unprintable profane words.