Sons and Lovers tells the story of Paul Morel, the son of a rough coal miner father and a genteel mother who has married beneath her class. As the marriage deteriorates Mrs. Morel shifts her affections to her two sons, who love and admire their mother but experience conflicts as they come of age and try to establish relationships with women.  Lawrence himself summarized the plot in a letter to editor Edward Garnett in November 1912: “It follows this idea: a woman of character and refinement goes into the lower class, and has no satisfaction in her own life. She has had a passion for her husband, so her children are born of passion, and have heaps of vitality. But as her sons grow up she selects them as lovers — first the eldest, then the second. These sons are urged into life by their reciprocal love of their mother — urged on and on. But when they come to manhood, they can't love, because their mother is the strongest power in their lives, and holds them.” The book met with a lukewarm reception and insinuations of obscenity when it was initially published in 1913. Lawrence went through four drafts, and yet Garnett removed about 10% of the text in the first edition to make it more palatable to the market.  Over time it has come to be seen as an important work in Western culture. The Modern Library ranked Sons and Lovers ninth on its 1999 list of the 100 best novels in English of the 20th century.

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