The Rainbow

First published in 1915, this novel traces the saga of the Brangwen family and their turbulent, scandalous fortunes.

David Herbert Lawrence (Author)

9781108057110, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 January 2013

478 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.7 cm, 0.6 kg

David Herbert Lawrence (1885–1930) expected The Rainbow to cause a stir. In a characteristically open exploration of sensual and explicit themes, the novel traces more than sixty years of pre-war life and three generations of the Brangwen family. Employing language infused with the rich imagery and repetition of biblical texts to treat all subjects - from the green fields and empty skies of the Brangwen farm through to Ursula's encounter with a female schoolteacher - Lawrence took an assuredly striking approach. However, he was unprepared for the vitriolic attacks of his reviewers. The novel was branded 'utter filth' and 'a mass of obscenity'; it was banned only a month after its publication in 1915, unsold copies being confiscated and destroyed. A second, abridged edition would not appear for another eleven years. Now a landmark in the early modernist canon, the original and unabridged text of 1915 is reissued here.

1. How Tom Brangwen married a Polish lady
2. They live at the marsh
3. Childhood of Anna Lensky
4. Girlhood of Anna Brangwen
5. Wedding at the marsh
6. Anna victrix
7. The cathedral
8. The child
9. The marsh and the flood
10. The widening circle
11. First love
12. Shame
13. The man's world
14. The widening circle
15. The bitterness of ecstasy
16. The rainbow.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]