Sons and Lovers is a semi-autobiographical novel by D. H. Lawrence. It follows Paul Morel as he grows up in a Nottinghamshire mining village, shaped by his parents' troubled marriage and his intense bond with his mother. The novel explores love, class, and artistic aspiration.
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Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence Contents PART ONE I. The Early Married Life of the Morels II. The Birth of Paul, and Another Battle III. The Casting Off of Morel—The Taking on of William IV. The Young Life of Paul V. Paul Launches into Life VI. Death in the Family PART TWO VII. Lad-and-Girl Love VIII. Strife in Love
IX. Defeat of Miriam X. Clara XI. The Test on Miriam XII. Passion XIII. Baxter Dawes XIV. The Release XV. Derelict
PART ONE
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF THE MORELS
“The Bottoms” succeeded to “Hell Row”. Hell Row was a block of thatched, bulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill
Lane. There lived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away. The brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these small mines, whose coal was drawn to the surface by donkeys that plodded wearily in a circle round a gin. And all over the countryside were these same pits, some of which had been worked in the time of Charles II., the few colliers and the donkeys burrowing down like ants into the earth, making queer mounds and little black places among the corn-fields and the meadows. And the cottages of these coal-miners, in blocks and pairs here and there, together with odd farms and homes of the stockingers, straying over the parish, formed the village of Bestwood.
Then, some sixty years ago, a sudden change took place, gin-pits were elbowed aside by the large mines of the financiers. The coal and iron field of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire was discovered. Carston,
Waite and Co. appeared. Amid tremendous excitement, Lord
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