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Lawrence, D. H. (1885-1930) By Nally, Claire
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David Herbert Lawrence (1885–1930) was born in Eastwood, near Nottingham, England. He composed poetry, several travel books, expressionist paintings, short novels and stories, literary criticism and plays. However, he is best known for his novels: Sons and Lovers (1913), The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920), and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928). His non-fiction works include Movements in European History (1921), Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious (1922) and Studies in Classic American Literature (1923). His fictional writing focuses on social class, the tensions between the rural and the industrialized landscape, issues of Englishness and nationhood, and gender and sexuality. In representing sexuality and a stern critique of war and imperialism, Lawrence endured the censorship and prohibition of some of his key texts. Unlike other writers, such as Virginia Woolf or James Joyce, Lawrence is often portrayed as being on the periphery of literary Modernism. However, his marginalized social position and relationship with other writers of the time also make him central to modernist criticism.