Sons and Lovers was D.H.Lawrence's first major novel. His only major novel, some would say; but even readers who are out of sympathy with him, or who feel that his gifts were not really those of a novelist, have usually been happy to make a wholehearted exception in this one case. Within a short while of its being published, in 1913, there was widespread agreement that the book was a masterpiece; by the 1920s, while controversy raged around Lawrence's later work, its place in the standard repertoire was secure. And indeed you only have to read a few lines to become aware that you are in the presence of a sense of authodty, of absolute confidence, which is one of the hallmarks of a classic.

Since its publication,in 1913,D.H.Lawrence"s powerful and passionate third novel stands as one of the greatest autobiographical novels of the twentieth century.Here is the story of artist Paul Morel as a young man, his powerful relationship with his possessive mother, his passionate love affair with Miriam Leivers, his intense liaison with married Clara Dawes. Here,too,England"s Derbyshire springs to life with both its sooty mining villages and deep green pastures, a setting as full of contrasts as the deep emotions which rule this remarkable book.

SONS AND LOVERS is rich with universal truths about relationships;moreover,it brims with what Alfred Kazin has called Lawrence"s "magic sympathy,between himself and life,"Continues Mr.Kazin;"No other writer of his imaginative standing has in our time written books that are so open to life Since for Lawrence the great subject of literature was not the writer"s own consciousness but consciousness between people, the living felt relationship between them, it was his very concern to represent the "shimmer" of life,the "wholeness"… that made possible his brilliance as a novelist."

PART ONE

Introduction by John Gross

1. The Early Married Life of the Morels

2. The Birth of Paul, and Another Battle

3. The Casting Off of Morel--The Taking on of William

4. The Young Life of Paul

5. Paul Launches into Life

6. Death in the Family

PART TWO

7. Lad-and-Girl Love

8. Strife in Love

9. Defeat of Miriam

10. Clara

11. The Test on Miriam

12. Passion

13. Baxter Dawes

14. The Release

15. Derelict