Lady Chatterley

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The "Teversal Manor" in Teversal, Nottinghamshire, built in the 17th century, is the model for the country estate "Wragby Hall" depicted in the novel.

Lady Chatterley's Lover ( Lady Chatterley's Lover, often simply shortened to Lady Chatterley ) is the title of a novel by D. H. Lawrence from 1928. The adultery and romance novel is considered to be one of the first serious works in world literature in which human sexuality is detailed and explicit is pictured. The third and final version of the novel from 1928 is the best known. In particular, it became widely known in 1960 after a lawsuit was filed in a "profanity trial" in Great Britain that received much attention in the media . This banned the publication of the allegedly seditious, scandalous,vulgar and pornographic book.

The fictional character Constance Chatterley violated the morals and social norms of her time - the book is essentially her story of emancipation . In 1960, the paperback publisher Penguin provocatively defied new laws against “obscene publications without literary quality”. The very precisely formulated representation of sexual love, in conjunction with a plea for nature - as a metaphor for human meaning and naturalness used in the book - aroused just as much offense as the sexual liberation and sharp criticism of British society. The process led to the lifting of censorship and became part of the history of the " sexual revolution " that swept Great Britain and eventually all of Europe in the 1960s.

The book has been filmed repeatedly.

plot

Pheasant chicks. Mellors falls in love with Connie when he sees the animals move her to tears. The novel is a plea for empathy with things in nature.

The action takes place in Wragby Hall, a fictional mansion near Teversal in the poor coal-mining area of Nottinghamshire , England ; the time is the interwar period . Constance ("Connie") Reid and her sister Hilda come from an upper middle class family, were educated and liberal and were able to gain their first sexual experiences as teenagers. In 1917 Connie married Sir Clifford Chatterley, a young intellectual who, after a brief honeymoon, went to the First World War as an officer.

Clifford is wounded and returns to Wragby Hall paralyzed and impotent , where he begins a new life as a writer. Though he discusses his work with Connie at length, the latter begins to suffer from the intellectual narrowness of Wragby Hall. An affair with the visiting writer Michaelis brings no relief, but arouses her sexual appetite and fills her with increasing aversion to the wordy and impotent spiritual world of her husband. In order to have to spend less time with him, Connie hires the nurse Mrs. Bolton, who soon merges with Clifford into a symbiotic unit.

At the same time, Clifford's ranger, Oliver Mellors, returns to Wragby Hall. Mellors, a miner's son, was a war officer and stationed in India. Since he sometimes speaks the standard English language , sometimes the Derbyshire dialect, Connie doesn't know how to classify him socially. Because class differences are of the greatest importance in her world and Connie does not even know how to talk to him without knowing his status, this question plays a significant role for her. But she is not only fascinated by Mellor's ambivalent social position, but also by his self-sufficient life in a forest hut, his inaccessibility and his contempt for the gentry. In contrast to the pure head man Clifford, Mellors is a living man of flesh and blood who - as Connie observes - works, makes fire, eats, drinks and washes his body. After initial reserve and brittleness on both sides, the sexual tension finally breaks out, and Connie and Mellors begin a passionate love affair. Large parts of the novel are then devoted to Connie's spiritual development, which at first does not know what to do with the lover, behaves in a clumsy and even destructive manner, and only gradually learns to surrender and live entirely in the moment.

In order to fully understand what she wants and to be able to fake Clifford about a vacation affair that would explain her expected pregnancy, Connie travels to Venice with her sister for a few weeks. During this time, Mellors' estranged wife Bertha appears and demands to live with him again. When he refuses, she spreads rumors about Mellors that lead to his dismissal. Connie returns from Italy and confronts Clifford with news that she is requesting a divorce and is expecting a child from Mellors. But Clifford wants an heir at all costs, even if he is not the producer, and refuses.

Since Mellors doesn't want to live on Connie's fortune, he works on a farm. His plan is to earn the money for his own farm this way, on which he can live with Connie. In order not to endanger their two divorces, the lovers decide to avoid each other for a few months and hope to get married soon afterwards.

Historical background

Divorces were possible in Great Britain in the 1920s and affordable for the upper middle class. The law applicable at this time ( Matrimonial Causes Act 1923 ) only allowed divorce petitions if the partner could be proven to have had rape, anal intercourse, incest, sodomy, abandonment, polygamy or sexual infidelity.

The author Lawrence was the son of a miner and a former teacher. The mother came from a middle-class family and had a decisive influence on the upbringing of her children.

people

Connie

Lady Chatterley, b. Constance (Connie) Reid comes from an educated and socially progressive family and enjoyed great freedom and the joys of intellectual conversation in her youth. Marrying Clifford Chatterley - four years before the onset of the plot - made sense because, like her, he is a member of the intelligentsia . After being seriously injured in the war, inheriting the family title and setting up a household in Wragby, Connie matures and moves away from her husband. His intellectuality seems to her increasingly insubstantial, revolving around the unimportant and born only out of vanity and the addiction to social success (the "bitch goddess"). Connie is 27 years old and longs for personal fulfillment, which for her certainly does not lie in discussing his literary work with her husband or listening to the debates he is having with his "Cronies". When she meets Mellors and realizes that it is above all the natural, sensual experience that she misses so much in her life, she doesn't shy away from anything - not even small intrigues - to be with Mellors. As a lover she is of course a beginner and first has to learn that talking about love can get in the way of love.

Clifford

Sir Clifford Chatterley is a baronet . Before he married, he had studied in Cambridge and was in Bonn to study coal mining as an engineer . He was attracted to Connie because he was deeply insecure inwardly despite all the scorn with which he showered his surroundings, while she had always possessed a natural self-confidence. As the novel progresses, his interests shift from greed for fame as a writer to a desire to do more of what is expected of him as a member of the gentry : namely, to be a social leader; he then goes back to mining. Connie still holds him together emotionally, and later Mrs. Bolton - more efficiently - takes on the same role. Connie begins to hate him; his impotence associated with paraplegia is only the symbolic expression of his personal weakness:

"She was not even free, for Clifford must have her there. He seemed to have a nervous terror that she should leave him. The curious pulpy part of him, the emotional and humanly-individual part, depended on her with terror, like a child, almost like an idiot. She must be there, there at Wragby, a Lady Chatterley, his wife. Otherwise he would be lost like an idiot on a moor. "

- DH Lawrence : Lady Chatterley's Lover, chapter 10

Clifford is someone who manipulates with words, enjoys the lowest gossip, but knows no passion and is empty inside. He can't let Connie go because his title is hereditary and even having a child conceived out of wedlock would ensure the Chatterley name survives.

Mellors

Oliver Mellors is the son of a blacksmith, but had a good education and was therefore an officer during the war. He is the most ambiguous character in this novel, a very affectionate man who, however, has the features of a Byronic Hero , a bitter, cynical man who has withdrawn from his fellow men out of disappointment. The most obvious reason for his bitterness was the failed marriage with Bertha Coutts, which also resulted in a child. Since his discharge from the military, Mellors has worked as a game warden for Clifford Chatterley and lives in seclusion in the forest. The affair with Connie - he is 12 years older than her - fills him with contradicting feelings; his beloved gives him pleasure, but he also fears the pain and inconvenience that will inevitably follow when the relationship becomes public. The prospect of becoming a father again is particularly difficult for him; While Connie sees her pregnancy as the fruit of love and welcomes it wholeheartedly, he initially only expects pain and further complications from it.

Mrs. Bolton

Ivy Bolton is an attractive middle-aged woman who was widowed at a young age (her husband was buried as a miner in a mining accident) and then had to endure herself and her daughters as a nurse. Connie and her sister Hilda hire her so that Connie is relieved of her husband's nursing duties. The relationship that develops between her and Clifford is intense and complex. Mrs. Bolton has a deep resentment towards the gentlemen who deprived her of an adequate widow's pension after the mine accident. The more intimately she gets to know Clifford in all his mercy, triviality and ridiculousness, the better she understands that he is not a man a woman can love. As a young widow she was once in love with Mellors herself, and when she discovers her mistress' relationship with the gamekeeper, she protects the lovers. At the same time she adores the gentry that Clifford represents and feels so flattered to be able to be of service to him down to the most personal things that she even puts up with his bullying. On the one hand, Clifford herself regresses under her resolute care to become a child who happily lets her soap and kiss him; on the other hand, with her admiration and servitude, she gives him the inflated ego he needs to become efficient as a businessman in the mining industry.

Origin, versions, publication and reception

The novel, like the story The Virgin and the Gypsy, was written in Scandicci , Italy, where Frieda and D. H. Lawrence had owned a villa since May 1926.

First version

Lawrence began work on the novel on October 22, 1926; At the end of November he completed a first draft. This version, now known as The First Lady Chatterley , focused on the social and political situation of the mining region; the explicit description of sexual scenes, for which the third version later became so infamous, is still missing. The lover is named Oliver Parkin . It was first published on April 10, 1944 in the United States by Dial Press. On May 29, an American court ruled the book obscene ; in the second instance this judgment was overturned on November 1, 1944. The first version appeared in Great Britain in August 1972.

Second version

In early December 1926, Lawrence began a second draft. In this, too, the relationship between Constance Chatterley and Oliver Parkin is presented mildly. She later became known under the title John Thomas and Lady Jane ; as an alternative title, Lawrence had also suggested Tenderness ("tenderness"). He completed work on this version on February 25, 1927; two days later he decided not to publish it for the time being. It was first published in an Italian translation in 1954. It was first published in Great Britain and the USA in August 1972.

Third version

From November 16, 1927 to January 8, 1928, Lawrence wrote a third version; from January 20 to March 5, he corrected the manuscript and cleared it of the most objectionable parts, but also retained an uncensored version. Since the British and American publishers to whom he offered the book initially all turned it down, he published the uncensored manuscript of the third version in July 1928 as a private print with the Florence-based bookseller Giuseppe Orioli. This first edition, printed in an edition of 1000 copies, was numbered and signed by the author.

A short time after the uncensored edition of the novel in Florence, Lawrence succeeded in getting an uncensored version to print in France. The printed copies were mailed to England and the United States. Although a large number of the sent copies were confiscated and destroyed by customs, a sufficient number of copies ended up in the hands of English readers, so that an initial discussion about the work was triggered, although this was limited to small literary circles.

Lawrence died on March 2, 1930 during a recreational stay in Vence, France . Only then did the novel begin to appear outside of Italy and France.

Publication and reception in Great Britain

In Great Britain, Lady Chatterley's Lover appeared - in a small edition and little noticed - for the first time in mid-1930. The London publishing team PR Stephenson and Charles Lahr had been commissioned by Lawrence in April 1929 with the publication. The publication was based on the uncensored manuscript of the 3rd version. The publishers also published Lawrence's essay A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover at the same time , in which the author made it clear that he had written the novel not as pornography but as a plea for a balance between mind and body; Lawrence turned in particular against the hyper-intellectualism and the hostility of many modernist authors.

The version of the 3rd version, which Lawrence himself corrected, appeared after Frieda Lawrence had agreed to the publication, for the first time in February 1932 by Martin Secker's publishing house. This version was missing about 10 percent of the original text. In 1935 William Heineman acquired the rights to the revised 3rd version and began to publish it in his own publishing house.

The uncensored 3rd version did not appear again in Great Britain until 1960. The starting point was an initiative by the paperback publisher Penguin Books , which wanted to challenge the Obscene Publications Act that had come into force the previous year . Penguin had eleven copies of the book delivered to a train station bookstore and at the same time filed a voluntary disclosure in order to force a lawsuit . The trial, which was held before a London jury, began on October 20 and ended with an acquittal on November 2, 1960. The specimen used by judge Sir Lawrence Byrne in the trial achieved the auction record for a penguin paperback at Sotheby’s in London in 2018 . The paperback went to a private collector for 56,250 pounds (45,000 pounds plus buyer's premium, the equivalent of 63,000 euros). The tattered book was kept in a damask pouch that the judge's wife had sewn. She had marked places that she found particularly offensive.

The initial circulation of 200,000 copies appeared on November 10, 1960 and was completely sold out on the same day. Further editions were reprinted immediately; Penguin sold 2 million copies in the first year.

Publication and reception in the United States

The first pirated copies of the novel appeared in the United States as early as 1928. Some copies sent by Orioli to the United States were intercepted and destroyed by American customs. In September 1932, Alfred A. Knopf published the revised version of the 3rd version authorized by Lawrence. A paperback edition was published by Signet Books in 1946.

The uncensored version of the 3rd version was first released in the USA on May 4, 1959. When the Postal Administration confiscated some copies sent by post, the publisher, Grove Press, took the agency to court and was able to distribute the book unmolested.

In 1931, Samuel Roth had published a sequel, Lady Chatterley's Husbands .

Publication and reception in German-speaking countries

The first German-language edition published in 1930 a resident of Vienna and Leipzig Publisher publisher EP Tal & Co . The translation was provided by Herberth E. Herlitschka , and in order to avoid confiscation, the publication took place via subscription . Several more editions followed by 1935. Erich Kästner discussed this issue almost hymnically.

In 1960 - following the sensational London trial - Rowohlt Verlag published the novel as a paperback in Germany, but without naming the translator Maria Carlsson and the members of the team behind her. A good year earlier, in September 1959, the publishing house Georg Goyert had asked to send the manuscript of the translation that had already been made for the publishing house Kurt Desch to Hamburg. The publisher Heinrich Maria Ledig-Rowohlt rejected this work at the beginning of December 1959 because he was too free to use the original. The Goyert translation remained unpublished, it was only published as an e-book in 2016. After the Rowohlt translation appeared, the Catholic Volkswartbund filed charges against the publisher in 1961 for distributing indecent writings , which was punishable under Section 184 of the Criminal Code. The Hamburg public prosecutor's office rejected the criminal complaint.

Further reception

The book was also banned in Ireland (1932), Poland (1932), Australia (1959), India (1959), Japan (1959), Canada (1960–1962) and the People's Republic of China (1987).

In 1999 the French daily Le Monde published a list of the “ 100 books of the century ” based on an opinion poll . Lady Chatterley's Lover appears here at number 39.

Amartya Sen used the book as an example of demonstrating the paradox of liberalism , in which he endowed a prude and a lustful reader with the right to choose whether or not to read the book.

Critics have later compared Lady Chatterley's Lover to Benoîte Groult's thematically similar novel Les vaisseaux du coeur (1988).

expenditure

For the editions of the first version, see: The First Lady Chatterley
English original editions
  • 2nd version
    • John Thomas and Lady Jane . William Heineman, London 1972.
    • John Thomas and Lady Jane . Viking Press, New York 1972.
  • 3rd version
    • Lady Chatterley's lover . Giuseppe Orioli / Tipografia Giuntina, Florence 1928. (uncensored)
    • Lady Chatterley's lover . Stephenson / Lahr, London 1930. (uncensored)
    • Lady Chatterley's lover . Martin Secker, London 1932. (Censored version authorized by the author)
    • Lady Chatterley's lover . Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1932. (Censored version authorized by the author)
    • Lady Chatterley's lover . Grove Press, New York 1959. (uncensored)
    • Lady Chatterley's lover . 1st edition. Penguin, Harmondsworth 1960. (uncensored)

Editions in other languages ​​(selection)

  • Le tre lady Chatterley . Mondadori, Milan 1954. (Collective edition with all three versions; in Italian, translated by Carlo Izzo)

German editions

  • 3rd version
    • Lady Chatterley and her lover . EP Tal & Co., Vienna, Leipzig 1930. (Translation: Herberth E. Herlitschka)
    • Lady Chatterley . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1960. (uncensored 3rd version; translation: Maria Carlsson)
    • Lady Chatterley's lover . Artemis & Winkler, 2004, ISBN 978-3-538-06983-1 . (Hardback edition)
    • Lady Chatterley's lover . Artemis & Winkler, 2004, ISBN 978-3-538-05436-3 . (Hardback edition)
    • Lady Chatterley's lover . dtv, 2008, ISBN 978-3-423-13636-5 . (Translation: Axel Monte; paperback)
    • Lady Chatterley . Rowohlt Paperback, 2010, ISBN 978-3-499-11638-4 . (Paperback)
    • Lady Chatterley . red.sign media, 2016, ISBN 978-3-944561-52-3 . (Translation Georg Goyert; e-book)

Audio book editions

  • Lady Chatterley . O.Skar, 2006. (audio book / MP3 / download, abridged version, 2 hours, 38 minutes, read by Hannes Jaenicke ) (German)
  • Lady Chatterley's lover . Naxos, 2011, ISBN 1-84379-479-9 . (Audio book / 11 CDs, complete version, 13 hours, 21 minutes, read by Maxine Peake ; uncensored 3rd version) (English)

Online editions

Adaptations

Film adaptations

radio play

The BBC produced a radio adaptation and first broadcast it in September 2006. MDR produced a German-language version in 2011, directed by Claudia Johanna Leist .

literature

  • Sybille Bedford : The trial of Lady Chatterley's lover. Introduction by Thomas Grant. Daunt Books, London [2016], ISBN 978-1-907970-97-9 .
  • Dieter Mehl : Three Lady Chatterleys: on the genesis of a novel. Presented in the plenary session on November 5, 1999. Treatises of the humanities and social sciences class / Academy of Sciences and Literature. Steiner, Stuttgart 2000.
  • Ulrike Aschermann: DH Lawrence: Reception in the German-speaking area: a descriptive translation analysis of "Lady Chatterley's lover". Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1995 Zugl .: Diss., Univ. Mainz 1994, ISBN 3-631-48554-9 .
  • Jay A. Gertzman: A descriptive bibliography of "Lady Chatterley's lover": with essays toward a publishing history of the novel. Greenwood Press, New York 1989, ISBN 0-313-26125-3 .
  • Derek Britton: Lady Chatterley: the making of the novel. Unwin Hyman, London 1988, ISBN 0-04-800075-2 .
  • Michael Squires (Ed.): DH Lawrence's "Lady": a new look at Lady Chatterley's lover. Univ. of Georgia Press, Athens 1985, ISBN 0-8203-0724-6 .

Web links

Wikisource: en: Lady Chatterley's Lover  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Inside Lady Chatterley's Home. In: Daily Mail, May 15, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b c d Lady Chatterley's Lover - A Study Guide ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mantex.co.uk
  3. ↑ https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/085404-000-A/der-prozess-der-lady-chatterley/
  4. ↑ The figure of Michaelis is inspired by the Armenian-British writer Michael Arlen . MC Rintoul: Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction . Routledge, London, New York 1993, ISBN 0-415-05999-2 , pp. 158 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ a b Oliver Mellors www.shmoop.com
  6. ^ Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 - Summary. Retrieved March 20, 2018 . Rebecca Probert: The controversy of equality and the Matrimonial Causes Act 1923. Retrieved March 20, 2018 .
  7. ^ Bernhard Fabian : The English literature. Volume 2: Authors. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 3rd edition, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-04495-0 , p. 251 f.
  8. ^ DH Lawrence: The First and Second Lady Chatterley Novels . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001, ISBN 0-521-00715-1 , pp. 5-220 . ( limited online version in Google Book Search - USA )
  9. ^ The Cambridge Edition of the Works of DH Lawrence . Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of “Lady Chatterley's Lover”. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-00717-8 , pp. xiv .
  10. ^ DH Lawrence: The First and Second Lady Chatterley Novels . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001, ISBN 0-521-00715-1 , pp. xii . (Introduction)
  11. ↑ Michael Squires (Ed.): The Cambridge Edition of the Works of DH Lawrence . Lady Chatterley's lover. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-00717-8 , pp. xxviii . ( limited online version in Google Book Search - USA )
  12. ^ Franz K. Stanzel : Otto Gross Redivivus - Lady Chatterley Revisited. In: Journal of English and American Studies. Volume 52, Issue 2, April 2004, pages 141–151, here p. 146 f. Available online for a fee from Verlag Walter de Gruyter [1] .
  13. ↑ Lady Chatterley's Lover ; Nicole Moore: The Censor's Library . Uncovering the Lost History of Australia's Banned Books. University of Queensland Press, 2012, ISBN 0-7022-3916-X . ( limited online version in Google Book Search - USA )
  14. ^ The Cambridge Edition of the Works of DH Lawrence . Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of “Lady Chatterley's Lover”. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-00717-8 , pp. 305 ff . ( limited online version in Google Book Search - USA )
  15. ^ The Cambridge Edition of the Works of DH Lawrence . Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of “Lady Chatterley's Lover”. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-00717-8 , pp. xiv, xxxv .
  16. ^ The Cambridge Edition of the Works of DH Lawrence . Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of “Lady Chatterley's Lover”. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-00717-8 , pp. xxxv .
  17. ^ The Cambridge Edition of the Works of DH Lawrence . Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of “Lady Chatterley's Lover”. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-00717-8 , pp. xxxviiif . ; Lady Chatterley's lover. Penguin; Lady Chatterley Trial 50 Years On. In: The Telegraph , October 16, 2010; Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial ends. This Day in History ; German Chatterley Trial? In: Die Zeit , No. 7/1961; The Lady Chatterley Trial. Nightlounge love reading.
  18. ↑ 63,000 euros. For Lady Chatterley's lover. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. November 1, 2018, p. 9.
  19. ↑ 1960: Lady Chatterley's Lover sold out. BBC . On this day.
  20. ^ The Cambridge Edition of the Works of DH Lawrence . Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of “Lady Chatterley's Lover”. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-00717-8 , pp. xiii, xxx .
  21. ^ The Day Obscenity Became Art. In: New York Times , July 20, 2009
  22. ^ EP Tal & Co. Austrian publishing history.
  23. ↑ To be read in the volume of the complete edition by Hanser, dedicated to Kästner's features publications
  24. ↑ German Chatterley Trial? In: Die Zeit, February 10, 1961.
  25. ↑ Time mosaic
  26. ↑ Classic Banned Books: Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)
  27. ↑ Martin Halter: Angry to the power of men. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. June 21, 2016, accessed December 13, 2019 .