This is the first critical study of Sons and Lovers to engage with the new Cambridge edition, which prints for the first time the whole text that Lawrence wrote, restoring the sustantial cuts made by the first editor. Michael Black gives special attention to the genesis of the book--the writing and editing processes, where Jessie Chambers and then Edward Garnett made decisive interventions. He analyzes Sons and Lovers in detail, relates it to Lawrence's other works, and traces the history of its reception. Historical context and a guide to further reading are also provided.

Written during and immediately after the 1914-18 War, Lawrence's major fictions - notably The Rainbow and Women in Love - trace the growth and contemplate the state of industrial England in the twentieth century. Michael Black's introductory chapters show the theoretical interest of Lawrence's writing-method, and how in discarded draft material he was seeking the narrative modes of the great novels which followed. The analysis of these finds Lawrence seeking a modern form of spirituality as well as rediscovered sexual relationships.

This second volume of Michael Black's commentary on Lawrence's prose-works concentrates on the extraordinary sequence of non-fictional texts written between 1913 and 1917: the 'Foreword' to Sons and Lovers, Study of Thomas Hardy, Twilight in Italy, 'The Crown', 'The Reality of Peace'. In all of them Lawrence was compulsively rewriting what he called 'my philosophy'. This extended commentary makes sense of them, treating them as a succession of experimental writings which support each other, develop non-discursive modes of writing, and are linked by shared metaphors which reveal shared...

Based on the Cambridge Edition of Lawrence's letters and works, this is a systematic study of his neglected early novels and short stories. Michael Black considers that these should be taken seriously as a representative part of Lawrence's entire output and demonstrates how they show originality. He places Lawrence in a new light as an artist, especially considering the relationship between his art and thought.