Women in Love is a book written in 1920 by the English author D. H. Lawrence. It is a follow-up to his earlier book, The Rainbow, published in 1915. The story continues to follow the lives and relationships of two sisters, Gudrun and Ursula Brangwen. Gudrun, who is an artist, has a harmful relationship with Gerald Crich, a wealthy businessman. Lawrence contrasts this relationship with the growing love between Ursula and Rupert Birkin, a man who feels disconnected from society and shares many of Lawrence’s ideas. The characters’ emotions become more complex because Gerald and Rupert are strongly attracted to each other in both emotional and physical ways.

The book explores different parts of British society before World War I and ends in the snowy mountains of the Tyrolean Alps. Ursula’s character is inspired by Lawrence’s wife, Frieda, and Gudrun’s character is based on the writer Katherine Mansfield. Rupert Birkin has traits similar to Lawrence himself, and Gerald Crich is partly modeled after Mansfield’s husband, John Middleton Murry.

Synopsis

Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are sisters who live in The Midlands during the 1910s. Ursula works as a schoolteacher, and Gudrun is a painter. They meet two men who live nearby: Rupert Birkin, a school inspector, and Gerald Crich, who owns a coal mine. The four become friends, and romantic relationships develop as the story continues.

All four characters are deeply interested in questions about society, politics, and the roles of men and women. At a party held at Shortlands, the Crich family’s country home, Gerald’s sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes the teacher and guide for Gerald’s youngest sister. Later, Gerald’s father, who owns the coal mine, dies after a long illness. After the funeral, Gerald visits Gudrun’s home and spends the night with her while her parents sleep elsewhere.

Rupert Birkin asks Ursula to marry him, and she agrees. However, Gerald and Gudrun’s relationship becomes troubled.

The two couples take a vacation together in the Austrian Alps. Gudrun forms a close friendship with Loerke, an artist from Dresden who is small in size but has strong emotional influence. Gerald becomes angry with Loerke and, especially, with Gudrun’s harsh words and rejection of his sense of manhood. Driven by inner anger, Gerald tries to choke Gudrun. He suddenly feels ashamed of his actions and stops. He leaves Gudrun and Loerke, climbs a mountain, and eventually falls into a snowy valley, where he freezes to death.

Gerald’s death deeply affects Birkin. The story ends a few weeks later, with Birkin trying to explain to Ursula that, although he needed no one but her, he will always miss the relationship he had with Gerald, which is now gone forever.

Publication history

After many years of confusion, disagreements, and rushed letters, Thomas Seltzer finally published the first edition of Women in Love in New York City on November 9, 1920. This happened after three years of delays and changes to the book. The first limited edition, which included 1,250 copies, was only sold to people who had signed up in advance because of the controversy surrounding Lawrence’s earlier book, The Rainbow (1915).

At first, Women in Love and its companion book were meant to be part of a single novel. However, the publisher chose to release them separately and quickly. The first book included honest descriptions of relationships and sexuality that were unusual for the time. After a legal case over inappropriate content, the book was banned in the United Kingdom for 11 years, though it remained available in the United States. Because of this, the publisher stopped publishing the second book in the UK, so Women in Love was first released in the US. Later, Martin Secker published the first widely available edition of Women in Love in London on June 10, 1921.

Reception

The book Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence caused controversy because of its discussion of sexual topics. For example, a reviewer named W. Charles Pilley wrote in John Bull that the book contained "dirt in heaps—festering, putrid heaps which smell to high Heaven." Lawrence was sued for libel by Lady Ottoline Morrell and others, who said their characters were unfairly portrayed in The Rainbow. The book also faced criticism for how it described love and was called chauvinistic and focused on the male sex organ by philosopher Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1949).

In contrast, critic Camille Paglia praised Women in Love in Vamps and Tramps (1994). She said the book had a strong influence on her while writing Sexual Personae (1990). Paglia compared Lawrence's novel to the poet Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590). She noted that the book has "bisexual implications" but doubted Lawrence would have supported full sexual relationships between men. Critic Harold Bloom included Women in Love in his book The Western Canon (1994), calling it one of the important and influential works in Western culture. Frances Spalding suggested that Lawrence's interest in the theme of homosexuality is shown in Women in Love and may be connected to Lawrence's own sexual orientation. In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Women in Love as the 49th best novel in English of the 20th century.

Adaptations

The film Women in Love (1969) was created by screenwriter and producer Larry Kramer and director Ken Russell. It was based on a novel and won Glenda Jackson an Academy Award for Best Actress. This film was one of the first American movies to show male nudity in scenes where Gerald Crich (Oliver Reed) and Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates) wrestle without clothing near a fireplace, in scenes of swimming without clothes, and in a moment where Birkin runs naked in a forest after being struck by his former lover, Hermione Roddice (Eleanor Bron).

In 2011, William Ivory combined Women in Love with D.H. Lawrence’s earlier novel, The Rainbow (1915), for a two-part BBC Four television series titled Women in Love. The series was directed by Miranda Bowen. The main cast includes Saskia Reeves as Anna Brangwen, the mother, and Rachael Stirling and Rosamund Pike as her daughters, Ursula and Gudrun. Other actors include Rory Kinnear as Rupert Birkin, Joseph Mawle as Gerald Crich, and Ben Daniels as Will Brangwen. In this version, the ending and Gerald’s death take place in South African diamond mines and desert areas, not in the Tyrolean Alps, where Gerald walks into the dunes and dies.

In 1996, BBC Radio 4 broadcast Women in Love as a four-part radio series. Elaine Feinstein wrote the adaptation, and the cast included Stella Gonet as Gudrun, Clare Holman as Ursula, Douglas Hodge as Gerald, and Nicholas Farrell as Rupert. The series has been rebroadcast multiple times on BBC Radio 4 Extra, with the most recent airing in July 2022.

Editions

• Lawrence, D.H. (1920). Women in Love (Private print edition). New York: Thomas Seltzer.
• Lawrence, D.H. (1921). Women in Love (Trade edition). London: Martin Secker.
• Lawrence, D.H. (1982). Ross, Charles L. (ed.). Women in Love. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin.
• Lawrence, D.H.; Farmer, David; Vasey, Lindeth; Worthen, John (1987). Women in Love (Cambridge Edition of the Letters and Works of D. H. Lawrence). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Lawrence, D.H.; Farmer, David; Vasey, Lindeth; Worthen, John; Kinkead-Weekes, M. (1995). Women in Love. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-062161-7.
• Lawrence, D.H. (1998). Bradshaw, David (ed.). Women in Love. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-37326-5.
• Lawrence, D.H. (1998) [1916–17]. Worthen, John & Vasey, Lindeth (eds.). The First Women in Love (Cambridge Edition of the Letters and Works of D. H. Lawrence). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37326-3. (This edition has major differences from the final published version.)
• Lawrence, D.H. "Prologue." The Cambridge Edition of the Letters and Works of D. H. Lawrence. Cambridge University Press. pp. 489–506. (This section, removed from the final version of the novel, was published as an appendix and is set four years after Gerald and Birkin return from a skiing trip.)
• Lawrence, D.H. (2007). The First Women in Love. Oneworld Classics. ISBN 978-1-84749-005-6.

Literary criticism

• Beynon, Richard, editor (1997). D. H. Lawrence: The Rainbow and Women in Love. Published in Cambridge by Icon Books.
• Black, Michael (2001). Lawrence's England: The Major Fiction, 1913–1920. Published by Palgrave-MacMillan.
• Chaudhuri, A.; Paulin, Tim, editors (2003). D.H. Lawrence and 'Difference': Postcoloniality and the Poetry of the Present. Published by Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926052-4.
• Delany, Paul (1978). D. H. Lawrence's Nightmare: The Writer and his Circle in the Years of the Great War. Published in Hassocks by Harvester Press.
• Leavis, F.R. (1955). D. H. Lawrence: Novelist. Published in London by Chatto and Windus.
• Leavis, F.R. (1976). Thought, Words and Creativity: Art and Thought in D. H. Lawrence. Published in London by Chatto and Windus. ISBN 978-0-7011-2182-2.
• Oates, Joyce Carol (Spring 1978). "Lawrence's Götterdämmerung: The Apocalyptic Vision of Women in Love." Published in Critical Inquiry.
• Ross, Charles L. (1991). Women in Love: A Novel of Mythic Realism. Published in Boston, MA by Twayne.
• Worthen, John (1989). "The Restoration of Women in Love." In D. H. Lawrence in the Modern World, edited by Peter Preston and Peter Hoare. Published in London by Macmillan. Pages 7–26.