Showing results by author "D.H. Lawrence" in All Categories

The Escaped Cock is Lawrence’s take on resurrection, the life-force, and sexuality. The man who has been crucified wakes up in the garden wounded and weakened. Disillusioned with his old companions and inspired by the zest for life of the escaped cock of the title, he decides to live anew. Journeying to the sea, he stumbles on a temple of Isis, where its priestess, who mistakes him for the lost Egyptian god Osiris, introduces him to the pleasures of the flesh.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. The zenith of Empire is bookended by two catastrophic wars that slaughter vast swathes of humanity. And yet authors manage to record and create fragile libraries of humanity, its talents, its dreams and increasingly its nightmares.

The Trespasser, first published in 1912, was Lawrence's second novel and foreshadowed the passion of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Helena Verden, a young woman in her late 20s, and Siegmund MacNair, her violin teacher, are in love. But there is more than one obstacle to their happiness. Siegmund is a married man with children and Helena is full of inhibitions. They spend a week together on the Isle of Wight, their passion remaining unrequited. When they return to London, Siegmund faces a deadlock. Tormented by his family's bitter reproaches, he is nonetheless unable to desert them for Helena. His solution to his dilemma turns a woman's longing for love into tragedy. Lawrence based his novel on the true-life experiences of his friend Helen Corke, as revealed in her diaries.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of D. H. Lawrence's classic story about working class love, loss and hardship. Sensitive, intellectual Gertrude Coppard married miner Walter Morel for his rich, ringing laugh and colourful character. But now, years later, she finds there is little behind the bluster and their marriage has become riddled with disillusionment. Instead, Gertrude pours all her love and attention into her two sons, William and Paul.

Conversations happen everywhere. A few words to pass the time or a detailed examination of views. But on trains they seem to be different. Speaking whilst in motion gives the whole discussion a momentum that often takes us into uncharted territory.

Lawrence’s style is bold, intimate and inventive and he always has the capacity to shock. His great strength comes from the realism of the characters he portrays and the play on tension – first seen in the exchanges between Gertrude and Morel and continuing with Paul, his Mother and his two women – which never lets up. Then marvel at the depth and quality of the writing as the story moves relentlessly towards its conclusion.

Power, desire, and violence collide in The Prussian Officer, a haunting exploration of the human psyche by D.H. Lawrence. This novella peels back the façade of authority to reveal the seething passions and suppressed emotions lurking beneath. With prose that strikes like a thunderclap, Lawrence immerses the reader in a world where rigid discipline clashes with primal instincts, and the cost of obedience is measured in human suffering. In this gripping narrative, Lawrence examines the tension between the oppressor and the oppressed, unraveling the fragile balance between control and rebellion.

Women In Love studies the nature of relationships between men and women through four very different characters, each of whom seeks fulfilment in their own way. Gudrun seeks an intellectual equal, while for Ursula, overwhelming love is all that will suffice; Gerald attempts to fill his emotional void with success and physicality, whereas Birkin desires total commitment from both his lover and his friend.

Sadness can be about so many things from places to people, from thoughts to actions. Our classic authors including Arnold Bennett, James Joyce, Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, Ivan Turgenev and many others use their pens and stories to demonstrate the many ways this feeling can take a hold of lives and its consequences.

For centuries England has always had a leading and admired reputation for its poets and poetry. In this volume we explore those born in the East Midlands who created such revered, enduring and respected verse.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something.

"Mother and Daughter" can be understood as one of Lawrence's diatribes against women. Two women do their best to get along without men, but in the end, as Lawrence always proposed, a woman cannot be fulfilled without a dominant man, however unsuitable he may be.

"The Primrose Path" looks at what can be the ephemeral nature of man and woman, love, and the horror and certainty of death, which seems to hang over all the characters in this haunting short story.

Written in 1926... and published posthumously [without the authors customary revision] in 1930, The Virgin and the Gypsy is a minor masterpiece in short story writing. It provides an excellent introduction to Lawrence’s work, being a succinct distillation of his ideas about sexuality and its ability to transcend class barriers.

David Herbert Richards Lawrence (1885-1930) was one of England's greatest novelists, poets, playwrights, and writers of short stories. His works often explored emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. "The Lovely Lady" is a short story which tells of an unnervingly dysfunctional family, including the elderly mother and an aunt, the lovely lady who looks much younger than her 72 years. Her son, Robert, and niece, Ciss, are dominated by the charming but manipulative old lady.

Lawrence uses the story of a storm and the deaths it causes to revive the feelings for (if not an actual belief in) the old gods, in this case Mercury whose shrine is ignored by the tourists but who takes his revenge.

Lessford's Rabbits was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1908. It was the second of his 67 short stories, all of which will be published individually in audio format by the Blackthorn Press. The story is set in a local school and gives an insight into the poverty and spirit of working-class children, as well as a glimpse of Lawrence's time as a teacher.

Siegmund deserts his family in the London suburbs for a five day holiday on the Isle of Wight with his lover and violin pupil Helena. Despairing of both his marriage and his future with Helena, Siegmund returns home and takes his own life. Made of stronger stuff, Helena and Beatrice, his wife, move on.

"The Flying Fish" is unfinished, but tells the story of an Englishman, Gethin Day, returning home after years in South America. There is a hint of the homesickness Lawrence may have felt during his long exile. The bulk of the story is the time spent on the ship which is taking Day back to England. It is a ship of fools, a "plague ship", and the only positive note is the joy Day sees in the play of the flying fish and porpoises around the ship. It is tantalizing to speculate how Day would have adapted to English life again, confined to an old house in an old country.

‘A dime a dozen’ as known in America, is perhaps equal to the English ‘cheap as chips’ but whatever the lingua franca of your choice in this series we hereby submit ‘A Rhyme a Dozen’ as 12 poems on many given subjects that are a well-rounded gathering, maybe even an essential guide, from the knowing pens of classic poets and their beautifully spoken verse to the comfort of your ears.