Défense de Lady Chatterley
One of 50 review copies on alfa Lafuma-Navarre paper (no. 6).
A valuable copy belonging to Jacques Benoist-Méchin, the preface writer and translator: he extensively annotated, corrected and amended his introductory note, probably in preparation for later editions.
Lawrence himself had privately printed the first unexpurgated edition of his novel in Florence in 1928. The book immediately ran afoul of censorship and customs seizures, and its clandestine circulation led to a proliferation of pirated editions. But Lawrence was above all exasperated by the fundamental misunderstanding surrounding his book: he had meant to write against pornography, yet found himself accused of having written a pornographic novel. His Défense answers this paradox. Lawrence had deliberately used, in his novel, English words considered unspeakable in respectable literature, arguing that words become obscene only because society has made them so. The provocation of Lady Chatterley thus also lies in its attempt to restore innocence to words that society had soiled.
Jacques Benoist-Méchin substantially reworked his introductory note here, with numerous second thoughts and several major changes to his text.
André Malraux, who wrote the preface to the French edition of L’Amant de Lady Chatterley published a few months earlier, had likewise clearly identified Lawrence’s intentions: “Sex is a contact of which we are afraid. We are only half-conscious, half-knowing. We must become alive and knowing. Thus, far from being obscene or pornographic, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a refreshing and healthy book that thinks about sexual matters honestly and cleanly.”
The wrappers in very fine condition.