The First ‘Women in Love’

Published here for the first time is the earliest completed version of the novel regarded as Lawrence’s greatest: Women in Love. Lawrence wrote it in 1916 and did his best to have it published then; but his previous novel had been banned and The First Women in Love was rejected. It shares much of its material with the final version of the novel but its central relationships are dissimilar and the ending radically different. Arguably one of Lawrence’s greatest works in its own right, it is a novel searingly addressed to the world of the First World War.