Lady Chatterley's Lover Unknown - 2009

D.H. Lawrence's 1928 novel Lady Chatterley's Lover holds the distinguished title of being one the most banned books in history. Infamous for its explicit descriptions of sex and other vulgarities, it was only published openly in the United Kingdom in 1960. The book focused on the illicit affair between an upper-class woman and her lower-class gamekeeper, and it was received with outrage and intrigue, resulting in numerous abridged versions being published throughout the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.

Because the first edition was so quickly banned from public consumption, there are many abridged and censored versions available, though few are as valuable as the original.

The first printings were bound with brown boards with an insignia of a phoenix gracing its front cover. The phoenix has remained a potent symbol for the book, in large part because of the book's victory in the infamous British Obscenity Trial in 1960.

D.H. Lawrence was a well-known English author who wrote many novels, short stories, and books of poetry. Not just an author, Lawrence was also a well-respected literary critic who wrote several essays regarding other famous writers, including Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman.