Books

Florence, Privately Printed, by the Tipografia Giuntina, directed by L. Franceschini, 1928. . First edition, limited issue, number 302 of 1000 copies, signed by the author; large 8vo (23 x 17 cm); one or two minor marginal spots, else unmarked internally; publisher's mulberry coloured boards, Lawrence's phoenix device to upper board in black, white paper title label to spine printed in black, untrimmed, slight chipping to corners and foot of spine, spine ends slightly bumped, minor split to lower front joint but sound; preserved in brown cloth chemise within brown morocco gilt slip-case. This novel shines as an example of Lawrence's finite skill in conveying the nature of relationships and his use of characters to communicate his personal philosophy. His depiction of love-making (seen as shocking at the time) and the intimacy and sense of touch derives from his wish to restore an emphasis on the body and balance it with what he perceived to be Western civilisation's over-emphasis…

Lady Chatterley's Lover is a novel by D. H. Lawrence, first published privately in 1928 in Italy and in 1929 in France. It portrays a young married woman, Constance Reid (Lady Chatterley), whose upper-class barrister husband has been paralyzed and rendered impotent. Her sexual frustration leads her into an affair with the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. The class difference between the couple highlights a major motif of the novel which is the unfair dominance of intellectuals over the working class. The book is a meditation on the necessity for a balance between the body and the mind and the destructive effects that industrialization and modernization can have on both.