David Herbert 'D. H.' Lawrence
81) St. Mawr
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Lou Witt-the future Lady Carrington if she behaved herself-was 24 and, in her mother's words, "beyond management." When Lou's family bought the splendid stallion named St. Mawr and moved to Arizona, Lou learned quite a lot about horses, men and herself.
82) The Old Adam
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The Old Adam' The story is set in lodgings in Croydon and the incident may again be autobiographical, but the story examines for the first time in Lawrence's writing, the different and conflicting loves between men and women.
83) Two Blue Birds
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Two Blue Birds' tells the tale of the classic triangle of the man, the wife and the secretary, who struggle to work out what their relationships are with each other. Neither of the women seem to want the man sexually but the secretary offers devotion while the parasitic wife has more insight into the man and his work. All the relationships seem unhealthy, all three seem to want something different but are incapable of expressing what they desire.
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The Man Who Loved Islands is a haunting story of a man who tries to control his life by making his world ever smaller by moving to increasingly smaller islands. Each one proves to be beyond his ability to control either other people or his sexual desire and finally the last island conquers him. The story can even be seen as a metaphor of man's inexorable march to death when we are all finally alone.
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The Woman Who Rode Away' is a dark, troubling story set in the wilderness of South America. What makes this story compelling is that the woman is at the end of her personal tether and the Indians are at the end of their cultural one, they seek one another out for terrible but perhaps predictable uses. Each of them looks to the other for "salvation" in a way that expresses the desperation and futility of their situation.
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New Eve and Old Adam' was written by D H Lawrence in 1912. The story is largely autobiographical, telling the simple tale of an argument between a husband and wife, reflecting the difficult time Lawrence and his new wife Frieda were having. What was the place of a woman to be in a modern marriage? Lawrence argued that it was the woman's place to submit, or unhappiness would ensue at it did in this story. The wife is unable to submit to her husband...
89) The Princess
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The Princess' of the story is a spoiled, sexless woman who is thrown in with a passionate man whom she takes into her bed and then rejects. This rejection leads to his ultimate death. Lawrence again pleads his case for the necessary domination of woman by man and shows the sterility of a life lead without sexual passion. Set against the bleak mountains of South America, it is one of Lawrence's most enduring tales.
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The Shadow in the Rose Garden'. Lawrence is often accused of misogyny and this story used as evidence against him. There is the simple but honest mine worker, who has taken on a wife who is 'above' him but who is struggling to understand her and her feelings for him. Slowly, the story unravels the woman's past. The reader cannot be entirely unsympathetic to her plight, Lawrence is too good a writer to let that happen, but her dishonesty has probably...
92) Glad Ghosts
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Glad Ghosts' is another of Lawrence's supernatural stories, set in the archetypical country house. He doesn't attempt to explain the supernatural happenings which occur but uses them to extol his own ideas of the power of the sex drive and the triumph of life over death.
93) The Undying Man
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The Undying Man' is a slight unfinished piece, drawing its inspiration from Shelley's 'Frankenstein' about the creation of life and the fear of death. It is interesting to speculate where Lawrence would have gone with the story but the sound of broken glass is the most likely ending.
94) The Border Line
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The Border Line' is unusual in that Lawrence dabbles in the supernatural (as he was to do again in 'The Rocking-Horse Winner' two years later) and that this is less a story in the traditional sense and more an exploration of the mind of a particular woman, based on his own wife, Frieda. Katherine, in the story, realises that her real love was her first husband whom she should, according to Lawrence, have submitted to to gain real happiness. As Lawrence...
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Daughters of the Vicar was written by D H Lawrence in 1911. It was the eleventh of his sixty-seven short stories, all of which will be published individually in audio book format by the Blackthorn Press. Lawrence is at his best in this story, taken from the scenes of his childhood and based on characters he knew intimately. The main themes of the story are the class system which dominated society at the time and the pressures put on the young lovers...
96) Wintry Peacock
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Wintry Peacock' is, on the surface, a tale of misdirected love or even irresponsible love, the relationship between the wife and the peacock being the most strange but it is the conspiracy of the two men in the story to prevent the truth coming out about the husband's love child that is most disturbing. The innocent are punished and the guilty get away with their sins and the author goes laughing down the hill at the end of the story.
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The Shades of Spring'. In this story the hero has moved on in the world and is married yet cannot forget his old love. He retraces the steps to her farm hoping for what? He finds his old love attached to a physical young man who can give the girl what he could not - pure physical love - and this she prefers to his more intellectual love.
98) Rawdon's Roof
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Rawdon's Roof', is a slight comic piece, relying for its humour on the folly of a man throwing away his chance of happiness because of an unexplained and unlikely vow.
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Odour of Chrysanthemums' was written by D H Lawrence in 1911. Lawrence is at his best in this story, taken from the scenes of his childhood and based on characters he knew intimately. He reworked the story in the play, 'The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd' but in this short story version, Lawrence sees the tragic episode through the eyes of the wife. The theme of a loveless marriage, redeemed by death is one which Lawrence was to come back to in other stories....
100) Once
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Once' was written by D H Lawrence in 1912. The story is largely autobiographical, written when Lawrence and Frieda (Anita in the Story) had fled England together to live in Austria and Italy. Frieda had had an affair while they were in Austria, and she told Lawrence about it. 'Once' explores Lawrence's reactions to being betrayed while still being in love and desiring the betrayer.