Epilogue, 1912–1913

Lawrence's mentor Edward Garnett, who had brokered publication with Duckworth, cut the manuscript by about ten per cent. This weakened the role of Paul's brother William, which justifies the plural of the title and reinforces the thematic emphasis on Oedipal relationships. The complete text was eventually restored by Cambridge University Press in 1992. In March 1913 Lawrence sent Jessie the proofs with an accompanying letter. She returned the letter, the final act of their association. She had written an autobiographical novel of her own, The Rathe Primrose, which Lawrence read and admired, but which she subsequently destroyed, together with all his letters to her. Despite this she retained a detailed memory of what he had written, with the result that her remembered versions are printed in the Letters of D.H. Lawrence. After his death she wrote a vivid and deeply moving memoir, D.H. Lawrence, A Personal Record. We owe to her an unforgettable image of the delightful young genius she had loved, but she had little sympathy for the great and conflicted writer that he became. Sons and Lovers was published in May 1913 to largely favourable reviews.

‘The Saga of Siegmund’ and the Test on Lawrence, 1909–1910

At the end of 1909 Lawrence suddenly decided that he wanted a sexual relationship with Jessie Chambers, after having denied this for years. This chapter examines the background to the failed sexual relationship that forms the biographical basis for Chapter 11 of Sons and Lovers, ‘The Test on Miriam’. One of the factors that prejudiced this attempted consummation was Lawrence’s meeting with Helen Corke and his decision to write ‘The Saga of Siegmund’, the first draft of his second novel The Trespasser, based on her memoir of her tragic relationship. While writing the book Lawrence became sexually fascinated by Helen, and the novel’s theme, the undermining of a man’s will to live because of his lover’s sexual reluctance, chimed all too fatefully with his feelings about making love to Jessie. This is the first example of the close intertwining of writing and biography in this period of Lawrence’s career. The Trespasser is also a key document in Lawrence’s struggle to develop a prose style, being overblown and self-consciously literary, to some extent in imitation of Helen Corke’s own style.

Introduction

Lawrence wrote Sons and Lovers in four drafts over a period of two years. When he began it he was an elementary school teacher in London, contemplating his mother’s approaching death. When he finished it he was living in Italy with Frieda Weekley. This book focuses on the centrality of writing in Lawrence’s life during that period, and the ways in which Sons and Lovers was influenced by his life experiences while writing it, especially the responses of Jessie Chambers and Frieda to various drafts, as well as by his past.

‘Paul Morel I’ and the Death of Lydia Lawrence, August–December 1910

It was after breaking with Jessie in the summer of 1910 that Lawrence wrote the first draft of Sons and Lovers, which he initially called Paul Morel. All that survives of this attempt is a sketchy chapter plan. In August his mother fell ill and under the strain of her illness he abandoned work on the novel. In December his mother died, throwing him into emotional chaos. He saw Jessie at this time and confessed to her the Oedipal nature of his feelings for his mother. Remarkably, while attending her deathbed, he wrote a comedy about a dying mother and her excessively attached son, The Merry-go-Round, which reads like an attempt to exorcise his feelings, though it was probably in reality little more than a distraction. This play strikingly counterpoints the poems that Lawrence was writing at the time, such as 'The Virgin Mother', which are symptomatic of the emotional condition that he confessed to Jessie. He impulsively proposed to another old friend, Louie Burrows. Louie was also a teacher, whom Lawrence described as 'swarthy and passionate as a gypsy' but 'awfully good, churchy'. This last was the most irksome fly in the ointment during their year-long engagement.

From ‘Paul Morel’ to Sons and Lovers, July–November 1912

Jessie believed that Lawrence did not rewrite the novel after the version she saw, but he extensively rewrote it, responding to all her objections that have survived and incorporating her new scenarios with little change. Lawrence submitted the novel to Heinemann in June 1912, but it was rejected. With Edward Garnett’s encouragement he completely rewrote it between July and December. Frieda claimed that she wrote 'little female bits' those these have not survived. Her influence is unlikely to have been favourable to Jessie, but here is strong evidence that it strengthened the awareness of the destructive effect of a mother-son love substituting for a failed marriage. It was only in October 1912, during the final rewriting, that Lawrence gave the novel the thematically significant title 'Sons and Lovers'.

‘The death-blow to our friendship’, ‘Paul Morel III’, February–June 1912

Lawrence wrote the third draft between November 1911 and April 1912. Jessie was initially delighted by the realism with which Lawrence rendered working-class family life. Lawrence made use of her reminiscences for some of the most powerful episodes in the novel. For Jessie, the problems began with the portrayal of Miriam. She protested that Lawrence had omitted her devotion to the development of his literary genius, which effectively tore the heart out of their relationship. Her second objection was that Lawrence pre-dated the tensions in their relationship. It was crucial to her understanding of her early life that the difficulties with Lawrence had been imposed from without. Her third complaint is that their attempt at a sexual relationship, which to her represented a sacred bond, is portrayed as a 'test' which Miriam failed. Jessie made detailed annotations to Chapter Seven, which have survived. and wrote three further scenarios which, unlike her earlier ones, have also survived. The breach between Lawrence and Jessie, already severe because of her reaction to the third draft, was made final by his falling in love, during this period, with Frieda Weekley. He and Frieda left England in May. He and Jessie never saw each other again.

Betrothal and ‘Paul Morel II’, January–October 1911

Throughout 1911 Lawrence was living in Croydon, still working as a teacher, and separated from his fiancée Louie Burrows, towards whom he felt increasing frustration because of her conventional sexual morality. During this period he made a second more sustained attempt at the novel, ‘Paul Morel II’, which has been published as Paul Morel. Although Louie was intelligent and literary she did not have the insight or deep commitment to Lawrence’s development as a writer that Jessie had shown during the composition of The White Peacock, and was to show again. There are signs of strain and reluctance in Lawrence’s writing at this time. Paul’s relationship with his mother is more sentimentalised than in the final text, and his father is melodramatically demonised—the story includes his murder of one of his sons, which actually happened in the family of Lawrence’s uncle After having abandoned the novel again, in October he sent it to Jessie, which turned out to be critical to its development.

Bert and Jessie, 1901–1909

This chapter traces Lawrence’s family history and relationship with Jessie Chambers over the period 1901-1909, focussing on key episodes in the autobiographical background to the novel, especially the crisis in 1906 when he told Jessie that he did not love her as a man should love his wife, as well as Jessie’s importance as the first reader of Lawrence’s youthful writing. The chapter also traces Lawrence’s early writing career, focussing on his mentoring by Ford Madox Hueffer and early texts such as The White Peacock, ‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’ and the play A Collier’s Friday Night. The play, written before Lawrence began work on Sons and Lovers, dramatises a scene that was to be central to every surviving draft of the novel and can be considered the first draft of the ‘Strife in Love’ chapter. Lawrence’s struggle between notions of bourgeois literary taste and the expectation that he would be a writer of working-class fiction is also an important theme.

Re-enter Jessie, 1911–1912

Jessie’s criticism was crucial to Paul Morel’s transformation into one of the great novels of the twentieth century. She advised Lawrence to stay much closer to actuality, and in particular to include the death of his elder brother Ernest (William in the novel) which had been omitted from the second draft. This plot element is subtle, poignant and thematically resonant, since William's death is imbricated with his inability to choose a suitable sexual partner and by extension with his relationship to his mother. Jessie showed acute critical judgement about the potential of the biographical material and the appropriate style for tackling it. She also had a more personal motive: she hoped that by writing this story 'Lawrence might free himself from his strange obsession with his mother.’ Lawrence agreed to her plan and asked her to write some reminiscences of their times together. But he had barely begun rewriting the novel before he fell seriously ill with pneumonia. He did not continue work on the novel while ill, but he did write a short story, the first version of 'The Shades of Spring', in which he re-imagined his relationship with Jessie.