When the obscenity trial of D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover made headlines in the UK in 1960, the press dubbed it the ‘Lady C’ scandal. As Guy Cuthbertson says in his new book about the novel — Lady C: The Long, Sensational Life of Lady Chatterley’s Lover — the nickname “suggests the controversy regarding Lawrence’s use of ‘the c-word’ in his book,” and Cuthbertson’s first chapter is titled The C-Word.
Cuthbertson discusses the novel’s publication history, and gives an exhaustive account of its cultural impact. He also describes the obscenity trial, previously covered by C.H. Rolph in The Trial of Lady Chatterley. Prosecutor Mervyn Griffith-Jones asked the jury: “Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?”, an absurdly outdated remark that Cuthbertson calls one of “the most famous quotations of the century, and of legal history,” and which Rolph described as “the first nail in the prosecution’s coffin”.
Cuthbertson discusses the novel’s publication history, and gives an exhaustive account of its cultural impact. He also describes the obscenity trial, previously covered by C.H. Rolph in The Trial of Lady Chatterley. Prosecutor Mervyn Griffith-Jones asked the jury: “Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?”, an absurdly outdated remark that Cuthbertson calls one of “the most famous quotations of the century, and of legal history,” and which Rolph described as “the first nail in the prosecution’s coffin”.