Lawrence and the Women: The Intimate Life of D.H. Lawrence

To understate, women--and the emotional, sexual, and love relationships with and between them--are central to Lawrence's world, his fiction, and his complicated, conflicted sexual self. Feinstein's book easily finds a place for itself, offering a depth of treatment surpassing that in the strong recent biographies by Jeffrey Meyers ( D.H. Lawrence: A Biography , LJ 5/15/90) and John Worthen ( D.H. Lawrence: The Early Years, 1885-1912 , LJ 7/91) and in the spate of lit crit essays about women in Lawrence's work. His mother is the first woman introduced, followed by his problematic "first love," Jessie Chambers, but this book is anchored in his long, tempestuous relationship with Frieda von Richthofen--as was his life. Novelist/poet Feinstein writes sensitively and colorfully and makes good use of primary sources. Owing to the precise focus, however, this will appeal primarily to extensive collections on Lawrence or to women's studies