"I don't mind if Duckworth crosses out a hundred shady pages of Sons & Lovers. It's got to sell, I've got to live."
So wrote D.H. Lawrence, in a letter written in 1915 to Edward Garnett, an English critic and literary editor. "Duckworth" was Lawrence's publisher and the author wasn't too sanguine about his book's possibilities. "I'm a damned curse unto myself," Lawrence goes on. "I've written more than half of a most fascinating (to me) novel. But nobody will ever dare to publish it. I feel I could knock my head against the wall. Yet I love and adore this new book."
If only I could reach back in time and tell Lawrence not to worry - that they will still be reading his novel almost a century later, and that it would be considered a classic of modern literature. Lawrence believed it was great - "so new, really a stratum deeper than I think anybody has ever gone in a novel." He is disheartened - to say the least - but committed to carrying on. "I wish I had never been born. But I'm going to stick at it, get it done, and then write another, shorter, absolutely impeccable - as far as morals go - novel."
Ah, the writing life. Why does anyone think it's romantic?
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