1930 A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover

Description

Early Edition, Publishers' Original Binding

The second expanded trade edition of this work, previously published as 'My Skirmish With Jolly Roger'.

'A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover' was written as Lawrence's response to the pirated editions of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' being published in the States and in Europe. The piracy was rampant for this novel after it was banned for obscenity in many countries, including in the U.K. 

In this work, Lawrence defends the contents of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' was a controversial novel when first published in a private edition in Italy in 1928 and France in 1929. An unexpurgated edition was not openly published in the U.K. until 1960, when it was the subject of an important obscenity trial against Penguin Books. The book had been banned due to its obscenity in being sexually explicitly, and for its use of the then-unprintable four-letter words. The romance in the novel was also notorious at the time as it took place between an upper-class woman and a working-class man.

This was an important novel of the twentieth century, ushering in the sexual revolution that happened post-World War Two into the 60s and 70s.

Published by the Mandrake Press, a small British press that was founded by Edward Goldston and P. R. Stephensen in 1929. The company ran into financial issues in 1930, leading to a consortium led by the occultist Aleister Crowley formed Mandrake Press LTD. The consortium was also unsuccessful and the press was dissolved in 1930. During their short publishing run the press published over thirty items, including works by D. H. Lawrence, Giovanni Boccaccio Cecil Roth, and more.

Prior owner's ink inscription to the recto to the front endpaper, 'Fenton Braithwaite, Mill Lane, Lr Manton, N Blackpool'. Braithwaite was a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, working at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.