''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' is the final novel by English author
D. H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in
Florence, Italy, and in 1929, in
Paris, France
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
.
An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960, when it was the subject of a watershed
obscenity trial against the publisher
Penguin Books
Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
, which won the case and quickly sold three million copies.
The book was also banned for obscenity in the United States, Canada, Australia, India and Japan. The book soon became notorious for its story of the physical (and emotional) relationship between a working-class man and an upper-class woman, its explicit descriptions of sex and its use of then-unprintable profane words.
Background
Lawrence's life, including his wife, Frieda, and his childhood in
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...
, influenced the novel. According to some critics, the fling of
Lady Ottoline Morrell
Lady Ottoline Violet Anne Morrell (née Cavendish-Bentinck; 16 June 1873 – 21 April 1938) was an English Aristocracy (class), aristocrat and society hostess. Her patronage was influential in artistic and intellectual circles, where she befri ...
with "Tiger", a young stonemason who came to carve plinths for her garden statues, also influenced the story. Lawrence, who had once considered calling the novel ''John Thomas and Lady Jane'' in reference to the male and the female sex organs, made significant alterations to the text and story in the process of its composition.
Lawrence allegedly read the manuscript of ''
Maurice'' by
E. M. Forster, which was written in 1914 but published posthumously in 1971. That novel, although it is about a homosexual couple, also involves a
gamekeeper becoming the lover of a member of the upper classes and influenced ''Lady Chatterley's Lover''.
Plot
The story concerns a young married woman, the former Constance Reid (Lady Chatterley), whose upper-class
baronet
A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...
husband, Sir Clifford Chatterley, described as a handsome, well-built man, is paralysed from the waist down because of a
Great War injury. Constance has an affair with the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. The class difference between the couple highlights a major motif of the novel. The central theme is Constance's realisation that she cannot live with the mind alone. That realisation stems from a heightened sexual experience that Constance has felt only with Mellors, suggesting that love requires the elements of both body and mind.
Characters
Lady Constance Chatterley (Connie): The main character of the novel. Connie, who is an intellectual and socially progressive, distances herself from her cold and passionless husband after marrying Sir Clifford Chatterley. She falls in love with the gamekeeper Oliver Mellors and establishes a sexual bond with him. She matures as a sensual being and eventually leaves her husband.
Oliver Mellors: The gamekeeper at Clifford Chatterley's estate. Cold, intelligent, and noble in spirit, Mellors escapes a miserable marriage and lives a quiet life. His relationship with Connie rekindles his passion for life. At the end of the novel, he plans to marry Connie.
Sir Clifford Chatterley: Connie's wealthy, but paralyzed and impotent husband. Clifford, who is a successful writer and businessman, is emotionally cold and focused on material success. He is dependent on his nurse, Mrs. Bolton, and looks down on the lower classes.
Mrs. Bolton (Ivy Bolton): Clifford's nurse. She is a middle-aged, complex, and intelligent woman. Her husband died in an accident in the mines owned by Clifford's family. Mrs. Bolton both admires and despises Clifford, and their relationship is intricate.
Michaelis: A successful Irish playwright. He has a brief relationship with Connie and proposes to her, but Connie sees him as a slave to success and devoid of passion.
Hilda Reid: Connie's older sister by two years. Hilda shares the same intellectual upbringing as Connie, but she looks down on Connie's relationship with Mellors due to his lower-class status. However, she eventually supports Connie.
Sir Malcolm Reid: The father of Connie and Hilda. He is a renowned painter and a sensual aesthete. He finds Clifford weak and immediately warms to Mellors.
Tommy Dukes: Clifford's friend and a brigadier general in the British army. He talks about the importance of sensuality but is personally detached from sexuality, only engaging in intellectual discussions.
Charles May, Hammond, Berry: Clifford's young intellectual friends. They visit Wragby and participate in meaningless discussions about love and sex.
Duncan Forbes: Connie and Hilda's artist friend. He paints abstract art, and at one point was in love with Connie. Connie initially claims she is pregnant with his child.
Bertha Coutts: Mellors' wife. Although she doesn't appear in the novel, her presence is felt. Separated from Mellors due to sexual incompatibility, she spreads rumors about Mellors, leading to his dismissal from his job.
Squire Winter: A relative of Clifford. He strongly believes in the old privileges of the aristocracy.
Daniele and Giovanni: Venetian gondoliers who serve Hilda and Connie. Giovanni hopes the women will pay him to sleep with them, but he is disappointed. Daniele reminds Connie of Mellors, as he is seen as a "real man."
Themes
Mind and body
Richard Hoggart argues that the main subject of ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' is not the explicit sexuality, which was the subject of much debate, but the search for integrity and wholeness.
[.] Key to this integrity is cohesion between the mind and the body, for "body without mind is brutish; mind without body... is a running away from our double being". ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' focuses on the incoherence of living a life that is "all mind", which Lawrence found to be particularly true among the young members of the aristocratic classes, as in his description of Constance's and her sister Hilda's "tentative love-affairs" in their youth:
The contrast between mind and body can be seen in the dissatisfaction each character experiences in their previous relationships, such as Constance's lack of intimacy with her husband, who is "all mind", and Mellors's choice to live apart from his wife because of her "brutish" sexual nature. The dissatisfactions lead them into a relationship that develops very slowly and is based upon tenderness, physical passion, and mutual respect. As the relationship between Lady Chatterley and Mellors builds, they learn more about the interrelation of the mind and the body. She learns that sex is more than a shameful and disappointing act, and he learns about the spiritual challenges that come from physical love.
Jenny Turner maintained in ''The Sexual Imagination from Acker to Zola: A Feminist Companion'' (1993) that the publication of ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' broke "the taboo on explicit representations of sexual acts in British and North American literature". She described the novel as "a book of great libertarian energy and heteroerotic beauty".
Class
''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' also presents some views on the early-20th-century British social context. That is most evidently seen in the plot on the affair of an aristocratic woman (Connie) with a working-class man (Mellors). That is heightened when Mellors adopts the local broad Derbyshire dialect, something he can slip into and out of. The critic and writer
Mark Schorer writes of the forbidden love of a woman of relatively superior social situation who is drawn to an "outsider", a man of a lower social rank or a foreigner. He considers that to be a familiar construction in Lawrence's works in which the woman either resists her impulse or yields to it. Schorer believes that the two possibilities were embodied, respectively, in the situation into which Lawrence was born and that into which Lawrence married, which becomes a favourite topic in his work.
There is a clear class divide between the inhabitants of Wragby and Tevershall that is bridged by the nurse Mrs Bolton. Clifford is more self assured in his position, but Connie is often thrown when the villagers treat her as a Lady like when she has tea in the village. This is often made explicit in the narration such as here:
There are also signs of dissatisfaction and resentment from the Tevershall coal pit colliers, whose fortunes are in decline, against Clifford, who owns the mines. Involved with hard, dangerous and health-threatening employment, the unionised and self-supporting pit-village communities in Britain have been home to more pervasive class barriers than has been the case in other industries (for an example, see chapter 2 of ''
The Road to Wigan Pier'' by
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
.) They were also centres of widespread
Nonconformism (Non-Anglican Protestantism), which hold proscriptive views on sexual sins such as adultery. References to the concepts of
anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...
,
socialism
Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
,
communism
Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...
and
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
permeate the book.
Union strikes were also a constant preoccupation in Wragby Hall.
Coal mining is a recurrent and familiar theme in Lawrence's life and writing because of his background, and it is prominent also in ''
Sons and Lovers'' and ''
Women in Love'' and short stories such as ''
Odour of Chrysanthemums''.
Industrialisation and nature
As in much of the rest of Lawrence's fiction, a key theme is the contrast between the vitality of nature and the mechanised monotony of mining and industrialism. Clifford wants to reinvigorate the mines with new technology and is out of touch with the natural world. In contrast, Connie often appreciates the beauty of nature and sees the ugliness of the mines in Uthwaite. Her heightened sensual appreciation applies to both nature and her sexual relationship with Mellors.
Censorship
A publisher's note in the 2001
Random House Inc. edition of the novel states that Lawrence "was unable to secure a commercial publication
fthe novel in its unexpurgated form".
The author privately published the novel in 2000 copies to his subscribers in England, the United States and France in 1928. Later that same year, the second edition was privately published in 200 copies.
Then, pirated copies of the novel were made.
An edition of the novel was published in Britain in 1932 by Martin Secker, two years after Lawrence's death. Reviewing it in ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
'', the journalist
Gerald Gould noted that "passages are necessarily omitted to which the author undoubtedly attached supreme psychological importance—importance so great, that he was willing to face obloquy and misunderstanding and censorship because of them". An authorised and heavily censored abridgment was published in the United States by
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. also in 1932.
That edition was subsequently reissued in paperback in the United States by Signet Books in 1946.
British obscenity trial
In November 1960, the full unexpurgated edition, the last of three versions written by Lawrence,
was published by
Penguin Books
Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
in Britain, selling its first print run of 200,000 copies on the first day of publication.
The
trial of Penguin under the
Obscene Publications Act 1959 was a major public event and a test of the new obscenity law. The 1959 Act, introduced by
Roy Jenkins, had made it possible for publishers to escape conviction if they could show that a work was of literary merit. One of the objections was to the frequent use of the word "fuck" and its derivatives. Another objection related to the use of the word "cunt".
Various academic critics and experts of diverse kinds, including
E. M. Forster,
Helen Gardner,
Richard Hoggart,
Raymond Williams
Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was a Welsh socialist writer, academic, novelist and critic influential within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the media and literature contribu ...
and
Norman St John-Stevas, were called as witnesses. The verdict, delivered on 2 November 1960, was "not guilty" and resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit material in the United Kingdom. The prosecution was ridiculed for being out of touch with changing social norms when the chief prosecutor,
Mervyn Griffith-Jones, asked if it was the kind of book "you would wish your wife or servants to read".
The Penguin second edition, published in 1961, contains a publisher's dedication, which reads: "For having published this book, Penguin Books was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959 at the
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands, is a criminal court building in central London, one of several that house the Crown Court of England and Wales. The s ...
in London from 20 October to 2 November 1960. This edition is therefore dedicated to the twelve jurors, three women and nine men, who returned a verdict of 'not guilty' and thus made D. H. Lawrence's last novel available for the first time to the public in the United Kingdom".
In 2006, the trial was dramatized by
BBC Wales
BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcasting, public broadcaster in Wales.
It is one of the four BBC national regions, alongside the BBC English Regions, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Scotland. Established in 1964, ...
as ''
The Chatterley Affair''.
Australia
The book was banned in Australia, and a book describing the British trial, ''The Trial of Lady Chatterley'', was also banned. In 1965 a copy of the British edition was smuggled into the country by
Alexander William Sheppard, Leon Fink, and Ken Buckley, and then a run of 10,000 copies was printed and sold nationwide. The fallout from that event eventually led to the easing of
censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...
of books in the country. The ban by the
Department of Customs and Excise on ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'', along with three other books—''
Borstal Boy'', ''
Confessions of a Spent Youth'', and ''
Lolita''—was lifted in July 1965. The
Australian Classification Board, established in 1970, remains.
Canada
In 1962,
McGill University
McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...
Professor of Law and Canadian
modernist poet
F. R. Scott appeared before the
Supreme Court of Canada to defend ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' from censorship. Scott represented the appellants, who were booksellers who had been offering the book for sale.
The case arose when the police had seized their copies of the book and deposited them with a judge of the Court of Sessions of the Peace, who issued a notice to the booksellers to show cause why the books should not be confiscated as obscene, contrary to s 150A of the
Criminal Code
A criminal code or penal code is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...
. The trial judge eventually ruled that the book was obscene and ordered that the copies be confiscated. That decision was upheld by the Quebec Court of Queen's Bench, Appeal Side (now the
Quebec Court of Appeal).
Scott then appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Canada, which allowed the appeal on a 5–4 split and held that the book was not an obscene publication.
On 15 November 1960, an Ontario panel of experts, appointed by Attorney General Kelso Roberts, found that novel was not obscene according to the Canadian
Criminal Code
A criminal code or penal code is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...
.
United States
''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' was banned for obscenity in the United States in 1929. In 1930,
Senator
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...
Bronson Cutting proposed an amendment to the
Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, which was being debated, to end the practice of having
U.S. Customs censor allegedly obscene imported books. Senator
Reed Smoot vigorously opposed such an amendment and threatened to read indecent passages of imported books publicly in front of the Senate. Although he never followed through, he included ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' as an example of an obscene book that must not reach domestic audiences and declared, "I've not taken ten minutes on ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'', outside of looking at its opening pages. It is most damnable! It is written by a man with a diseased mind and a soul so black that he would obscure even the darkness of hell!"
A
1955 French film version, based on the novel and released by Kingsley Pictures, was the subject of attempted censorship in New York in 1959 on the grounds that it promoted adultery. The
US Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...
held on 29 June 1959 that the law prohibiting its showing was a violation of the
First Amendment's protection of free speech.
The ban on ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'', ''
Tropic of Cancer
The Tropic of Cancer, also known as the Northern Tropic, is the Earth's northernmost circle of latitude where the Sun can be seen directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun ...
'' and ''
Fanny Hill
''Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure'' – popularly known as ''Fanny Hill'' – is an erotic novel by the English novelist John Cleland first published in London in 1748 and 1749. Written while the author was in debtors' prison in London,Wagne ...
'' was fought and overturned in court with assistance by publisher
Barney Rosset and lawyer
Charles Rembar in 1959. It was then published by Rosset's
Grove Press, with the complete opinion by United States Court of Appeals Judge
Frederick van Pelt Bryan, which first established the standard of "redeeming social or literary value" as a defence against obscenity charges. Fred Kaplan of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' stated the overturning of the obscenity laws "set off an explosion of
free speech".
Susan Sontag
Susan Lee Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on "Camp", Notes on 'Ca ...
, in a 1961 essay in ''The Supplement'' to the ''
Columbia Spectator'' that was republished in ''
Against Interpretation'' (1966), dismissed ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' as a "sexually reactionary" book and suggested that the importance given to vindicating it showed that the US was "plainly at a very elementary stage of sexual maturity".
Japan

The publication of a full translation of ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' by
Sei Itō in 1950 led to a famous obscenity trial in Japan that extended from 8 May 1951 to 18 January 1952, with appeals lasting to 13 March 1957. Several notable literary figures testified for the defence. The trial ultimately ended in a guilty verdict with a ¥100,000 fine for Ito and a ¥250,000 fine for his publisher.
India
In 1964, the bookseller Ranjit Udeshi in
Bombay
Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...
was prosecuted under Section 292 of the
Indian Penal Code (sale of obscene books) for selling an unexpurgated copy of ''Lady Chatterley's Lover''.
''Ranjit D. Udeshi v. State of Maharashtra'' (AIR 1965 SC 881) was eventually laid before a three-judge bench of the
Supreme Court of India
The Supreme Court of India is the supreme judiciary of India, judicial authority and the supreme court, highest court of the Republic of India. It is the final Appellate court, court of appeal for all civil and criminal cases in India. It also ...
. Chief Justice Hidayatullah declared the law on the subject of when a book can be regarded as obscene and established important tests of obscenity such as the
Hicklin test.
The court upheld the conviction:
Cultural influence
In the United States, the full publication of ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' was a significant event in the "sexual revolution". The book was then a topic of widespread discussion and a byword of sorts. In 1965,
Tom Lehrer recorded a satirical song, "Smut", in which the speaker in the song lyrics cheerfully acknowledges his enjoyment of such material; "Who needs a hobby like tennis or
philately?/I've got a hobby: rereading ''Lady Chatterley''".
The British poet
Philip Larkin's poem "Annus Mirabilis" begins with a reference to the trial:
In 1976, the story was parodied by
Morecambe and Wise on their
BBC sketch show. A "play what Ernie wrote", ''The Handyman and M'Lady'', was obviously based on it, with
Michele Dotrice as the Lady Chatterley figure. Introducing it, Ernie explained that his play "concerns a rich, titled young lady who is deprived of love, caused by her husband falling into a combine harvester, which unfortunately makes him impudent".
In the 1998 film ''
Pleasantville'', a film that narrativizes conservative cultural nostalgia for the 1950s as a response to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, Jennifer (played by
Reese Witherspoon
Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon (born March 22, 1976) is an American actress and producer. She is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Reese Witherspoon, various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Aw ...
) reads ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' as a principal part of her character development, causing her to become "colored", the film's metaphor for personal growth and transformation.
A
2007 episode of
Mad Men saw
Joan,
Peggy, and other women in the office discuss ''Lady Chatterley's Lover''. It is spoken of in scandalous tones and Joan remarks that the pages 'just fall open' to presumably the most salacious portions of the book.
A 2020 episode of ''
Ghosts
In folklore, a ghost is the soul or Spirit (supernatural entity), spirit of a dead Human, person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from a ...
'' had Fanny (a ghost and the former
lady of the manor from the
Edwardian era) reading the book, and then developing feelings for Mike (the alive husband of her descendant, whom she otherwise thinks of as uncouth and uncultured) while he does garden work. Any pretenses of a full relationship are dashed, however, when she sees him slovenly eating a plate of nachos.
''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' is also mentioned by characters in
Meyer Levin's novel ''
Compulsion''.
Bibliography
Editions
* First published privately in 1928 in
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
, with assistance from
Pino Orioli, and in France in 1929. A private edition was issued in Australia by
Inky Stephensen's Mandrake Press in 1929.
*
*Soon after the 1928 publication and suppression, an unexpurgated
Tauchnitz edition appeared in Europe.
Jock Colville, then 18, purchased a copy in Germany in 1933 and lent it to his mother
Lady Cynthia, who passed it on to
Queen Mary, only for it to be confiscated by
King George V.
*In 1946, Victor Pettersons Bokindustriaktiebolag
Stockholm
Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...
, Sweden published an English hardcover edition, copyright Jan Förlag. It is marked "Unexpurgated authorized edition". A paperback edition followed in 1950.
* These two books, ''The First Lady Chatterley'' and ''
John Thomas and Lady Jane'', were earlier drafts of Lawrence's last novel.
* Lawrence's 1927 version, first issued in English in 1972.
*
* .
* .
*
* .
*.
**.
Further reading
* Sybille Bedford (2016), ''The Trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover'', with an introduction by Thomas Grant, London: Daunt Books,
*
*
Adaptations
Books
''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' was re-imagined as a love triangle set in contemporary Silicon Valley, California in the novel ''Miss Chatterley'' by Logan Belle (the pseudonym for American author Jamie Brenner) published by Pocket Star/Simon & Schuster, May 2013.
Film and television
''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' has been adapted for film and television several times:
* ''
L'Amant de lady Chatterley'' (1955), French drama film starring
Danielle Darrieux, was banned in the United States because it "promoted adultery", but was released in 1959 after the Supreme Court reversed that decision.
* ''
Edakallu Guddada Mele'' (''On top of Edakallu Hill'') (1973), an
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
n
Kannada language
Kannada () is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, an ...
film starring
Jayanthi and directed by
Puttanna Kanagal, was loosely based on the Kannada novel of the same name which was inspired by ''Lady Chatterley's Lover''.
* ''
Sharapancharam'' (''Bed of Arrows'') (1979), an Indian
Malayalam language
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
film starring
Jayan
Krishnan Madhavan Nair (25 July 1939 – 16 November 1980), better known by his stage name Jayan, born as the son of Madhavan Pillai (Kerala title), Pillai and Bharathiyamma in Kollam district, Kollam, was an Indian actor, Officer (armed forc ...
and
Sheela and directed by
Hariharan, was loosely based on ''Lady Chatterley's Lover''.
*
''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' (1981), a British/French film directed by French director
Just Jaeckin in the English language and produced by
Menahem Golan and
Yoram Globus, starred
Sylvia Kristel and
Nicholas Clay. (Jaeckin had previously directed Kristel in ''
Emmanuelle,'' which was released in 1974.)
* ''
Lady Chatterley'' (1993), is a
BBC Television serial which was directed by
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell (3 July 1927 – 27 November 2011) was a British film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. His films were mainly liberal adaptations of ...
for
BBC Television; it starred
Joely Richardson and
Sean Bean and incorporated some material from the longer second version ''John Thomas and Lady Jane.''
* ''Milenec lady Chatterleyové'' (1998) is a Czech television version directed by Viktor Polesný and starring Zdena Studenková (Constance),
Marek Vašut (Clifford), and
Boris Rösner (Mellors).
*''Ang Kabit ni Mrs Montero'' (''Mrs. Montero's Paramour,'' 1998) is a Filipino soft-core film adapted by director
Peque Gallaga.
*The French director Pascale Ferran filmed a
French-Language version (2006) with
Marina Hands as Constance and Jean-Louis Coulloc'h as the gamekeeper, which won the
Cesar Award for Best Film in 2007. Marina Hands was awarded best actress at the 2007
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Enterprises. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. The festival ...
. The film was based on ''John Thomas and Lady Jane'', Lawrence's second version of the story. It was broadcast on the French television channel Arte on 22 June 2007 as ''Lady Chatterley et l'homme des bois'' (''Lady Chatterley and the Man of the Woods'').
*''Lady Chatterley's Daughter'' (Lady Chatterley's Ghost) (2011) an American film. Director/
Fred Olen Ray. Actress/Cassandra Cruz.
*''
Lady Chatterley's Lover'' (2015) is a
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
television film starring
Holliday Grainger,
Richard Madden and
James Norton. Produced by
Hartswood Films and Serena Cullen Productions, it was first broadcast on
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...
on 6 September 2015.
It was released by
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
as a drama series and stars Madden as the eponymous lover, Oliver Mellors; Grainger as Lady Chatterley; and Norton as Lady Chatterley's disabled husband, Sir Clifford Chatterley.
*''
Lady Chatterley's Lover'' (2022) is an American film directed by French director
Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre and starring
Emma Corrin and
Jack O’Connell as Constance Reid and Mellors, respectively. It also featured Matthew Duckett as Sir Clifford Chatterley. It was released on 25 November 2022 in UK cinemas and on 2 December 2022 on
Netflix
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...
.
;
;Use of character
The character of Lady Chatterley appears in ''Fanny Hill Meets Lady Chatterley'' (1967), ''Lady Chatterly''
'sic''''Versus Fanny Hill'' (1974) and ''
Young Lady Chatterley'' (1977).
Bartholomew Bandy meets her shortly after her 1917 marriage in the novel ''Three Cheers for Me'' (1962, revised 1973) by
Donald Jack.
Radio
''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' has been adapted for
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...
by Michelene Wandor and was first broadcast in September 2006.
Theatre
Lawrence's novel was successfully dramatised for the stage in a three-act play by British playwright John Harte. Although produced at the
Arts Theatre in London in 1961 (and elsewhere later on), his play was written in 1953. It was the only D.H. Lawrence novel ever to be staged, and his dramatisation was the only one to be read and approved by Lawrence's widow,
Frieda. Despite her attempts to obtain the copyright for Harte to have his play staged in the 1950s,
Baron Philippe de Rothschild did not relinquish the dramatic rights until
his film version was released in France.
Only the
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands, is a criminal court building in central London, one of several that house the Crown Court of England and Wales. The s ...
trial against
Penguin Books
Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
for alleged obscenity in publishing the unexpurgated paperback edition of the novel prevented the play's transfer to the much bigger
Wyndham's Theatre, for which it had already been licensed by the
Lord Chamberlain's Office on 12 August 1960 with
passages censored. It was fully booked out for its limited run at the Arts Theatre and well reviewed by
Harold Hobson, the prevailing
West End theatre critic of the time.
A new stage version, adapted and directed by Philip Breen and produced by the
English Touring Theatre and
Sheffield Theatres
Sheffield Theatres is a theatre complex in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It comprises four theatres: the Crucible, the Lyceum, the Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse, and (as of January 2025) the Montgomery Theatre. These theatres make up ...
, opened at the
Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, between 21 September and 15 October 2016, before touring the UK until November 2016.
Parody
''MAD Magazine'' published in 1963 a spoof called ''Lady Chatterley's Chopped Liver And Other Recipes''.
''Lady Chatterley's Chopped Liver And Other Recipes''
/ref>
Comedian Spike Milligan
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Raj, British India, where he spent his ...
parodied the story in his '' According to Spike Milligan'' series, under the title of ''D. H. Lawrence's John Thomas and Lady Jane – Part II of Lady Chatterley's Lover''.
See also
* ''Le Monde'' 100 Books of the Century
References
External links
*
*
* Free e-text of
Lady Chatterley's Lover
' on Project Gutenberg Australia.
*
University of Bristol Library Special Collections
**
**
*
{{Authority control
1928 British novels
Novels about infidelity
British erotic novels
Novels by D. H. Lawrence
British novels adapted into films
Obscenity controversies in literature
Modernist novels
Novels set in Nottinghamshire
United States pornography law
British novels adapted into television shows
Works subject to expurgation
Controversies in the United Kingdom
Counterculture of the 1920s
Interclass romance in fiction
Works subject to a lawsuit
Book censorship in India
Novels about disability