The Selected Letters of D.H. Lawrence

D.H. Lawrence's renowned creativity is conspicuous in his letters. He wrote to aristocrats, fellow authors, painters, publishers, and others from the intelligentsia--but with equal concern to his sisters, a childhood friend suffering from tuberculosis, a post office clerk or an Italian servant-girl. Lawrence reveled in the act of communication, using a direct, unvarnished but invariably vivid style appropriate to each correspondent. In this book, over 330 of Lawrence's letters, carefully chosen from the authoritative seven-volume Cambridge Edition exemplify Lawrence's artistry and humanness. In his introductory essay James T. Boulton provides a rare critical assessment of Lawrence's epistolary achievement. There are annotations to the letters, a biographical list of correspondents, brief chronological and descriptive introductions to each section and a full general index. This selection will appeal to Lawrence aficionados and will make good companion reading to his works.

This is another good book to have at your desk for those between-chapter breaks: flip it open and read from this distillation of over 300 letters written by D. H. Lawrence. There are letters to lords and ladies, culture barons, chambermaids and pals, discoursing widely on Whitman, wilderness ("the big old pagan cosmos"), German gingerbread, and Mexican railways--the selections are fun and lively, and they illuminate an era. Plus, his political predictions tend to be right on the money: "Chaos," Lawrence writes, "is necessary for Russia." For the peripatetic author, too: Lawrence never stayed in one place too long. The better to keep up the letters.