Who was D.H. Lawrence?
Novelist, critic, poet and painter.
Date and Place of Birth:
11th September 1885, 8a Victoria Street, Eastwood,
Nottinghamshire, England. Christened David Herbert Lawrence.
Family Background:
Fourth child of a coal miner father Arthur John
Lawrence who was a heavy drinker and his teacher mother Lydia. His
parents were intellectually ill matched and argued incessantly.
Education:
Beauvale Board School. Then won a scholarship
to Nottingham High School. University College, Nottingham.
Chronology/Biography of David Herbert Lawrence:
1898: Went to Nottingham
to attend High School.
1901: Left school
to become a junior clerk at Haywoods Surgical Appliance factory.
He was bullied by the factory girls and then contracted pneumonia
so had to leave. He went to Hagg's Farm whilst he was recovering
and was introduced to literature by the daughter Jessie Chambers.
1902: Became a teacher
at the British School in Eastwood.
1904: Wrote his first
poems at the age of nineteen many of which tried to follow the style
of Wordsworth.
1906: Went on to
University College Nottingham to become a student.
1907: Won a short
story competition organised by the Nottingham Guardian newspaper.
Started writing the novel that was to become "The White Peacock".
1908: Newly qualified
as a teacher he went to London and taught in the Davidson Road School
in Croydon.
1909: First publication
of some of Lawrence's poems in the Journal "The English Review".
1910: Publication
of his first novel "The White Peacock". Death of his mother
from cancer whom he had helped die by giving a large dose of sleeping
pills.
1911: Suffered his
second bout of pneumonia. He decided to stop being a teacher and
to give himself up full time to writing. He also broke of his engagement
from Louie Burrows whom he had known from his days at Eastwood.
He was introduced to a publisher's reader called Edward Garnett
who was to encourage him in writing.
1912: He met and
fell in love with Frieda von Richthofen who was the wife of his
former modern languages Professor at Nottingham Ernest Weekly. She
left her husband and three children and they eloped to her parent's
house in Metz, Germany. Here he was accused of being a British spy
but was saved from arrest by Frieda's father and then he moved on
to a small town south of Munich in Bavaria.They then walked across
the Alps to Italy.
1913: Returned to
Britain for a short time before returning to Italy.
1914: After his marriage
he toured many countries in Europe with his new Wife.
1915: The Novel "The
Rainbow" was suppressed after being alleged to be obscene.
1916: Lawrence became
friendly with a Cornish farmer named William Henry Hocking. Frieda
later believed that this may have been a homosexual relationship.
At the time he was writing "Women in Love".
1917: Lawrence and
Frieda were expelled from Zennor in Cornwall where they were living
accused of being German spies and signaling to German submarines.
1919: Had a severe
attack of influenza. They both emigrated from Britain firstly to
Capri in Italy and began several years of moving around.
1922: Lawrence and
Frieda left Europe with the intention of emigrating to the United
States but sailed eastwards to begin with to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka)
and then on to Thirroul, New South Wales, Australia.They finally
reached America in September. Here they wanted to set up a Utopian
community on a ranch near Taos, New Mexico.
1923: They made a
brief trip back to Britain but the journey was not a success and
they soon returned to Taos convinced that America was the place
to be.
1925: Lawrence suffered
a severe attack of tuberculosis and malaria on a trip to Mexico
which nearly killed him. His ill health meant that he had to go
back to Europe and his traveling days were over. They left for Italy
and took a home in a villa near Florence. Here he wrote "The
Virgin and the Gipsy" and "Lady Chatterley's Lover".
It was at this period that he renewed his friendship with Aldous
Huxley who was to edit much of his material after his death.
1927: Visited Etruscan
archaeological sites in Tuscany with Earl Brewster.
1928: Private publication
of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" It was not until it was published
long after his death by Penguin that the well publicised obscenity
trial concerning the book was held.
1929: Lawrence had
begun painting seriously again and several of his pictures were
confiscated by the police in London from an exhibition at the Warren
Gallery for being too explicit. Some of his paintings can now be
seen in the La Fonda Hotel in Taos.
Written Works:
- 1911:
"The White Peacock"
- 1912:
"The Trespasser"
- 1913: "Sons
and Lovers", "Love Poems and Others"
- 1914: "The
Prussian Officer and Other Stories, "The Widowing of Mrs
Holroyd (Play), "Study of Thomas Hardy and other essays"
- 1915: "The
Rainbow"
- 1916: "Amores"
(Poetry), "Twilight in Italy and Other Essays"
- 1917: "Look!
We have come through!" (poetry)
- 1918: "New
Poems"
- 1919: "Bay:
a book of poems"
- 1920: "Women
in Love", "The Lost Girl", "Touch and Go"
"Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious and Fantasia of
the Unconscious"
- 1921: "Sea
and Sardinia"
- 1922:
"Aaron's Rod". "England My England and Other Stories".
"Fantasia of the Unconscious".
- 1923: "Kangaroo".
"Studies in Classic American Literature", "The
Fox", "The Captain's Doll","The Ladybird",
"Birds, Beasts and Flowers (Poetry), "Studies in Classic
American Literature"
- 1924: "The
Boy in the Bush"
- 1925: St Mawr
and other stories (1925),"Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine
and other essays"
- 1926: "The
Plumed Serpent", "David" (Play)
- 1927:
"Mornings in Mexico".
- 1928:
"Lady Chatterley's Lover". "The Woman who Rode
Away and other stories"
- 1929:
"Pansies" (Poetry), "The Escaped Cock"
- 1930: "The
Virgin and the Gypsy and Other Stories". "Love Among
the Haystacks and Other Stories", "Nettles" (Poetry)
- 1931:
"The Man who Died", "Apocalypse and the writings
on Revelation"
- 1932:
"Letters", "Last Poems", "Sketches of
Etruscan Places and other Italian essays"
- 1933:
"Last Poems". "The Ship of Death", "The
Fight for Barbara" (Play)
- 1934: "A
Collier's Friday Night (Play)
- 1940: "Fire
and Other Poems", "The Married Man" (Play)
- 1941: "The
Merry-go-round (Play)
- (1960):
"Lady Chatterley's Lover" in Penguin Paperback unexpurgated
version.
Marriage:
13 July 1914: Frieda Weekley, aristocratic former
wife of the Professor who had taught Lawrence at Nottingham. She
was a member of the Von Richtofen family, famous for the Red Baron
flying Ace in World War One.
Date and Place of Death:
2nd March 1930, Vence, Near Antibes, France due
to complications from tuberculosis.
Age at Death:
44.
Site of Grave:
Originally buried in old Vence cemetery,
France. His body was exhumed in 1935 at the request of his wife,
cremated at Marseilles and taken back by seat to Taos, in New Mexico
by Frieda's third husband Angelo Ravagli. One story has it that
they were scattered over the surrounding hills of New Mexico however
it is not certain whether the ashes ever arrived because Ravagli
admitted once to throwing the original ashes away in France and
substituting them when he got to New York.
On the Lawrence family grave in
Eastwood Cemetery, Nottinghamshire containing his mother and father
there is an inscription mentioning David Herbert which some have
erroneously taken to mean that he was buried with them.
Places of Interest:
Nottinghamshire:
Birthplace Museum at 8a Victoria Street, Eastwood.
This now holds the original headstone from his grave in Vence with
a design by Frieda.
Durban House Heritage Centre, Mansfield Road, Eastwood.
Nottingham.
Further Information:
D H Lawrence Society
c /o Ron Faulks
24 Brianwal Avenue
Nottingham
NG3 6JB
