Trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover

'One of Britain's most stylish and accomplished writers.' -- Telegraph

When Penguin released a new, unexpurgated edition of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960 they were charged with the crime of publishing obscene material and made to defend the book's literary merit in a court of law. Thus began one of the most famous trials of the 20th century.

There to take it all in was Sybille Bedford – who, with her trademark wit and flair, presents us with a play-by-play of the trial: from the prosecution's questioning of the novel's thirteen 'unvarying' sex scenes and its 66 swear words, to the dozens of witnesses who testified – including the Bishop of Woolwich and E. M. Forster.

Bedford gives us a timeless and dramatic account that captures one of the most fascinating and absurd moments in both legal and publishing history, when attitudes and morals shifted forever.

'Bedford's mind is radiant. Her alarming economy of style burns.' -- V.S. Pitchett

'An excellent stylist and a splendid narrator.' -- The New Yorker

'When the history of modern prose in English comes to be written, Sybille Bedford will have to appear in any list of its most dazzling practitioners.' -- Bruce Chatwin



Sybille Bedford was born in 1911 in Charlottenburg, Germany, the daughter of a German father and an English mother. She grew up in Italy, France and England. The account of her travels in Mexico A Visit to Don Otavio was her first published book in 1953, and she followed it with three novels, A Legacy (1956), A Favourite of the Gods (1963) and A Compass Error (1968). Her semi-autobiographical novel, Jigsaw, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989. Her memoir, Quicksands, was published in 2005. Sybille Bedford died in 2006.