Where to start with D. H. Lawrence

British novelist, 1885–1930.

Best D. H. Lawrence book to start with: The Rainbow (1915), on 4 of the 15 lists it could have made.

The lists put The Rainbow first, but Sons and Lovers is the better first Lawrence. It is the more direct of the two: a boy grows up in a Nottinghamshire mining family and is torn between his parents, and it draws on Lawrence’s own childhood. It is also the easier to follow.

The Rainbow follows three generations of a family, from farming into industry. It is slower, more poetic and more insistent, so it suits readers who already like him. Women in Love is its sequel, so read The Rainbow first.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover is the shortest of the four, and a good choice if you want to know why he became so famous. It was the subject of a notorious obscenity trial in Britain in 1960. It is more direct than the others in both language and plot.