D. H. Lawrence Online

While I'm mentioning the BBC iPlayer, they've also got a reading of a D. H. Lawrence short story, "Rawdon's Roof" - it's only 20 minutes long, so give it a try. Those on the Modernism and British Poetry course have read a Lawrence poem already ("Hummingbird"); the story might also be interesting for any of you doing the Modernism and the British Novel course. Ok, so it's not a novel, but D. H. Lawrence is an important writer of both fiction and poetry in the early twentieth century.

While on the subject of Lawrence, it is fifty years since the trial of Penguin Books for the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover. The Lady Chatterley case was a defining moment in the history of censorship and of sexual attitudes in Britain. As Philip Larkin later wrote in his poem 'Annus Mirabilis':

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.*

You can read more about the trial here.

(*LP - Long-playing record, or album.)