Inspired by the long-standing affair between Frieda, Lawrence’s German wife, and an Italian peasant who eventually became her third husband, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is the story of Constance Chatterley, who, while trapped in an unhappy marriage to an aristocratic mine owner whose war wounds have left him paralyzed and impotent, has an affair with Mellors, the gamekeeper. Frank Kermode calls the book Lawrence’s "great achievement" and Anaïs Nin describes it as "artistically . . . his best novel."
This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes the transcript of the judge's decision in the famous 1959 obscenity trial that allowed the novel to be published in the United States.