Central Skagit Library District

The Last Laugh' is another of Lawrence's supernatural stories, set in a dreamlike snowy London. The question left open is who the three people in the story saw on the snowy evening. Perhaps Pan, returned to destroy the Christian God, as the church is destroyed in the story and to bring love to the frigid young woman in the form of a policeman who is prevented from leaving the house. But why the other quite harmless, and Platonic lover, had to die...

Lawrence wrote three drafts of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' between 1926 and 1928: 'The First Lady Chatterley's Lover', this audio book, 'John Thomas and Lady Jane' and the final version, 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. All three books are published as ebooks and paperbacks by the Blackthorn Press. Although all three books have the same story line of an aristocratic woman falling in love with a working-class man, there are differences in their tone and sensibilities....

Rex' is a riotous story of the turmoil caused in a household by the arrival of a puppy. The setting is similar to the one found in 'Sons and Lovers’, but Lawrence thought this scene deserved the fuller treatment of a short story. The question of the destructive force of unconditional love is left open.

A Sick Collier'. Lawrence returns in this story to the scenes of his childhood and the colliers he was brought up with. The wife in the story is probably based on his mother although the husband is unlike the drinking, brutal father portrayed in 'Sons and Lovers', Lawrence's autobiographical novel. The story is a vivid portrayal of the life of a young couple when an accident strikes the husband down but does not succeed as a short story, lacking any...

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.

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.

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.

Adolf' is a charming story of a wild rabbit introduced by the father into a miner's home to the delight of the children and the despair of the mother. Larger questions of life and death and nature and civilisation are touched on with a light hand.

Monkey Nuts' was written by D H Lawrence in 1922. 'Monkey Nuts' turns the traditional love story on its head. It is the woman (the new liberated woman Lawrence had little time for) who does the chasing and the boy who is reluctant. Lawrence seems to be saying it is the unspoken love between the two men in the story which is more satisfying than the possible love between the man and the woman which the boy rejects. Although the older man goes through...

The Rocking Horse Winner' is one of Lawrence's more popular short stories with its mixture of the supernatural and it moral lesson of the corrupting nature of the love of money. But it has nothing new to say on the subject and without the central core of Lawrence's passion for what he is writing, seems somewhat trite.