The author traces Lawrence's pilgrimage from a working-class childhood through his years of hard-won recognition to his death in France after the scandalous publication of "Lady Chatterley's Lover", at the age of 44. Describing his tempestuous marriage to Frieda ven Richthofen and his intense friendships, it also illuminates Lawrence's complex method of intermingling autobiography and fiction, and shows us the perfect congruence of the defiant artist and the courageous man. The author reveals the true circumstances of Lawrence's mother's death, his physical sterility, the reasons for the suppression of "The Rainbow" and his homosexual relationship with the Cornish farmer, William Henry Hocking.