The Rainbow

David Herbert LAWRENCE (1885-1930), was born at Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, one of five children of a miner and an ex-schoolteacher. He was often ill as a child and grew up in considerable poverty. He attended Nottingham High School for three years, but at 15 was forced to give up his education and take a job for a short time as a clerk in a surgical goods factory and then became a pupil teacher. In 1906, having worked to save the necessary, he took up a scholarship at Nottingham University College to study for a teacher´s certificate. He was already writing poetry and short stories and he now began his first novel “The White Peacock” (1911), which was followed by “The Trespasser” (1912). He taught for two years at an elementary school in Croydon but after the death of his mother he became seriously ill and was advised to give up teaching. His first major novel, “Sons and Lovers” (1913) is a faithful autobiographical account of these early years. His next novel, “The Rainbow” (1915), was seized by the police and declared obscene. At the Villa Mirenda, near Florence, he finished “Lady Chatterley´s Lover” (1928), his last novel and the one that was to cause more furore than any other. He died in Vence on 2 March 1930.