Sons and Lovers

Torn between his passion for two women and his permanent attachment to his mother, young Paul Morel struggles with his desire to please everyone, especially himself. Lawrence's highly autobiographical novel is set against the backdrop of his native Nottinghamshire coal fields, amid a working-class family dominated by a brutal father and a loving but authoritarian mother.

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Fiction, England in Fiction, Working Class Families, Young Men in Fiction, Working Class Families in Fiction, Young Men, Facsimiles, Social Life and Customs, England, Manuscripts, English Manuscripts, Coal Mines and Mining, Domestic Fiction, Coal Mines and Mining in Fiction, Customs and Manners, Classical Literature, Mothers and Children, Married Women, Possessiveness, Coal Miners, open_syllabus_project, Working class families -- Fiction, Young people -- Fiction, England -- Fiction, British and Irish fiction (fictional works by one author), England, fiction, Fiction, family life, Fiction, coming of age, Biographical fiction, Large print books, Fiction, family life, general, Lawrence, d. h. (david herbert), 1885-1930, Families, Fiction, fantasy, general, Fiction, erotica, general, Autobiographical fiction, Bildungsromans, Long Now Manual for Civilization, Family, African American artsPeople

D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)Places

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Sons and Lovers, a story of working-class England, is the third novel by D. H. Lawrence. It went through several drafts and was titled “Paul Morel” until the final draft, before being published and receiving an indifferent reaction from contemporary critics. Modern critics now consider it D. H. Lawrence's masterpiece, and the Modern Library ranks it ninth among its “100 Greatest English Novels of the 20th Century.”

The novel follows the Morels, a family living in a coal town and headed by a passionate but rude miner. His wife, originally from a refined family, feels carried away by Morel's lack of classes and finds the joy of her life in her children. As children grow up and begin to lead lives of their own, they struggle with the emotional toll their mother exerts on them.

Children and Lovers was written during a period in Lawrence's life when his own mother was seriously ill. Its exploration of the Oedipal instinct, its frank depiction of unhappiness and violence in the working-class home, and its accurate and colorful depiction of the Nottinghamshire dialect, make it a fascinating window into the lives of people not often chronicled in the fiction of the period.