Women in Love, 1 of 2
2026
First Published
1
Number of Pages
The novel here called The First 'Women in Love' is the first completed version of the novel regarded by many as Lawrence's Women in Love. Lawrence worked on The First 'Women in Love' between April and November 1916 and, that winter, did his very best to have it published. Publishers were alarmed by the fate of his previous novel The Rainbow (which had been banned in 1915) and The First 'Women in Love' was rejected by every publisher who saw it. As a result it is a novel whose very existence as an independent text has been ignored, and which has not been published until now. The First 'Women in Love' shares much of its material with Women in Love, but its central relationships are dissimilar, the ending radically different, and - above all - its tone is more positive, the final version being influenced by Lawrence's own isolation in an England which he increasingly wished to see changed and different and also by which he felt completely abandoned.
