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670

D. H. Lawrence

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:8,000.00 - 10,000.00 USD
D. H. Lawrence

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Auction Date:2010 Jun 16 @ 10:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Bid online at www.rrauction.com. Auction closes June 16.

ALS, one page both sides, 7 x 8.5, February 4, 1928. Letter to his friend Mason. In full: “Many thanks for your letter, which came on here—rather gloomy! Poor old Rabelais, after all these years! It’s too damned stupid.

I’m going over my novel here–the typescript–and I’m going to try to expurgate and substitute sufficiently to produce a properish public version for Alf. Knopf, presumably to publish. But I want to publish the unmutilated version myself in Florence–1000 copies in all–half for England. I shall send out no review copies. I shall make no advertisement–just circulate a few little slips announcing the publication. Then, perhaps if I post direct from Florence to all private individuals before I send any copies to England, so that there can be no talk beforehand–perhaps that would be safest. I’m terribly afraid a crate might arouse suspicion, and the whole thing be lost. We might crate 50 copies to you–or more even, you needn’t look on them as ordered: perhaps to the other bookshops you mention too. But I daren’t crate the whole damn thing. What do you think? I’ll be glad if you’ll help me. But I’ll send a set of proofs. Write to the Villa Mirenda, we shall be back there in early March, I suppose. We are here for the time in the snow to see if it’ll do my chest any good. I think it does.

Will you please send by book post a copy of that porcupine to Aldous Huxley, The Athenaeum Club…And also please send a copy to me at the Mirenda. It’s a shame it’s still on your hands. I’ll sell one day–too late for all of us probably. And thanks for the money.

I shall send the MS to the printer as soon as I get it revised–but I don’t want to bring out the unexpurgated edition long before the public one–perhaps I’ll have to wait till June.” In very good condition, with a couple small separations along central interecting folds, vertical fold affecting second initial of signature, scattered mild toning and soiling, small chips to edges, and some areas of creasing, heaviest at corners (small separation at one corner).

As Lawrence put the finishing touches on this novel in 1928, he knew that getting the work published in the United Kingdom was going to be impossible, thanks to censorship laws of the era. Furthermore, the work itself was going to face never-before-seen criticism on multiple fronts for its blunt sexual content. But Lawrence had a plan—clearly and concisely detailed here—that involved having his erotic novel published privately in Florence. There would be no advance copies for reviewers (but one was intended for fellow author Aldous Huxley); there’s be no media blitz. The plan was going to be covert. “Just circulate a few little slips announcing the publication...there can be no talk beforehand,” he notes here. It was a brilliant idea as those hundreds of sales leaflets sent to the United States and Britain recouped him £1,000 within the year. Remarkably, the author was correct in his concerns over Lady Chatterley’s Lover in the UK. When the banned book was eventually released in Britain in 1960, the publisher was charged under British obscenity laws—with Lawrence ultimately cleared. Unbelievable content as Lawrence devises a master plan to get his famous work to the public!
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