The lives of two friends are contrasted in Edwardian London. Katharine Hillbery is the bored, frustrated granddaughter of an eminent English poet. She lives at her parents' home and is engaged to a prig who exemplifies the stultifying life from which she wishes to be free, until she meets a possible avenue of escape in the person of Ralph Denham. Mary Dathcet, on the other hand, represents an alternative to marriage -- she has been to college, lives...

Perhaps the most famous of Lawrence's novels, it is no longer distinguished for the once-shockingly explicit treatment of its subject matter--the adulterous affair between a sexually unfulfilled upper-class married woman and the game keeper who works for the estate owned by her wheelchair bound husband. Now that we're used to reading about sex, and seeing it in the movies, it's apparent that the novel is memorable for better reasons: namely, that...

Combining detailed physical description with perceptive psychological insight, Leo Tolstoy realistically sweeps aside the sham of surface appearances to lay bare man's intimates gestures, acts, and thoughts.