Publisher's Synopsis
Novel is largely autobiographical and reflects Lawrence's life at Nottinghamshire coalfields before he left home. This is perhaps the first English novel with a truly working-class background. It is a provocative portrait of an artist torn between love for his possessive mother and desire for two young beautiful women. Gertrude is Paul's puritanical mother who concentrates all her love and attention on her son Paul. She nurtures his talents as a painter. When she ponders that he might marry some day and desert her, he swears that he will never leave her. Paul falls in love with two women and is unable to choose between them. The novel begins like a nineteenth century realistic novel but ends as a twentieth century novel exploring a new field of psychic relationships.
