A bibliography of the writings of D. H. Lawrence

by Edward D. McDonald

This book, a record of the published writings of Mr. D. H. Lawrence, follows the general plan of the Centaur Bibliographies which have preceded it. The opening section contains collations of the first issues of Mr. Lawrence’s books, twenty-seven in all. Among these collations is that of Movements in European History, a book written by Mr. Lawrence, published under the nom de plume Lawrence H. Davison, and never heretofore openly attributed to him. Many of the collations are accompanied by notes. Some of these discuss bibliographical points which could not be adequately covered in the more technical descriptions of the books; others estimate the relative scarcity of the various items, or give information about interesting editions after the first; a few are critical.

Since ten of Mr. Lawrence’s books were first published in America, some consistent method had to be found for ranking the American “firsts” of an English author. The plan adopted for this work was to list the first publication of each book, regardless of place of publication, as the real first edition of that book. It was difficult to escape the logic and common-sense of this solution of a vexing problem. But because the whimseys, prejudices, and sentiments of book-collectors are often notoriously free from logical or sensible restraints, all of the first English editions of Mr. Lawrence are fully described, even though some of them appeared months after the corresponding American editions.

Preceding each collation, the year, the month, and, in important instances, the day of publication are given. This information, for the American books, was supplied especially by Mr. B. W. Huebsch and Mr. Thomas Seltzer. Similar information about the English books was received from Mr. Lawrence’s London publishers, but only in part; in the main, the year and the month of publication were taken from the English Catalogue of Books. Information from this source does not always agree absolutely with publishers’ records; but it was usually accepted as sufficiently accurate, since the month of publication at least is oftener a nice refinement in a bibliography than a significant fact. So much for the first section of this study.

The other sections are: Translation; Contributions to Books; Contributions to Periodicals; Studies and Reviews. All but the first of these require some special comment.

In cataloguing Mr. Lawrence’s writings every reasonable effort was made (with what success cannot now be told) to insure a complete record of his numerous and varied contributions to books. In this business it is plainly impossible to be sure that some items have not been overlooked. Without in the least attempting to disarm criticism, one may properly call attention to the great difficulty of running down anthologies of modern poetry and prose, to the making of which there seems, indeed, to be no end. Added to this is the even greater difficulty of ascertaining what these anthologies contain, without examining each one separately. There simply isn’t an index of modern collections of poetry. And indices of the short story leave much to be discovered elsewhere.

Nevertheless, under Contributions to Books are listed some thirty volumes with Lawrence material. They are treated in two ways: the books which contain Lawrence “first printings between boards” are fully described and annotated; those which include reprintings only are not described, but the extent and the source of Mr. Lawrence’s contributions to them are noted. The former are genuine Lawrence items and should be in a comprehensive collection of his writings.

In the fourth section of this study will be found an approximately complete record of Mr. Lawrence’s contributions to periodicals. These contributions are not, everything considered, numerous. There are reasons for this. It has not been Mr. Lawrence’s custom to publish novels serially. He is not a voluminous writer of short stories, contenting himself, evidently, with being a great one. He has never been much given to reviewing, or to any other sort of hack-writing. Plainly, these are not Mr. Lawrence’s ways of keeping the pot boiling.

But numerous or not, the contributions to periodicals are often of great interest—even for reasons unrelated to technical bibliography. For example, many American reviewers of Studies in Classic American Literature, published August, 1923, were bewildered by what they considered a surprise attack along our Parnassian front. Others, less alarmed but scarcely more informed, found a direct connection between the book and Mr. Lawrence’s visits to our shores in 1922 and 1923. “Obviously,” they seemed to reason, “the author of this volume came to These States for a first-hand view of our literary shrines, and here is the critical account of his pilgrimage.” All very interesting, if true. In point of fact, long before 1923 many of the studies, in their first forms, lay quietly inurned, but recoverable, in the files of the English Review. The earliest study goes back to November, 1918, and most of the others followed hard upon the first.

There is, too, something for the collector among the contributions to periodicals. Items of particular interest to him are commented upon. In this connection, a special effort was made to list the Lawrence material in out-of-the-way magazines. Some of this sort to which Mr. Lawrence contributed were, alas, not long for this hard world. The Blue Review, The Signature, and The Seven Arts are typical examples of such ephemera.

Although perhaps a majority of Mr. Lawrence’s contributions to periodicals were subsequently used in certain of his works, many remain uncollected. The notes which follow the separate items will usually enable the curious to distinguish the collected from the uncollected. They will also show that Mr. Lawrence often altered the titles of poems and stories before including them in his books. But there the notes stop. No consistent effort was made to deal with the larger phase of Mr. Lawrence’s textual revisions. That lies outside the scope of this volume. However, a comparison, say, of the stories in The Prussian Officer with their first published forms will show that Mr. Lawrence’s revisions go much beyond titles.