Sons and Lovers
Complete textThe Morel family lives within a mining community marked by hard work and domestic conflict. Paul Morel develops artistic interests while remaining deeply attached to his mother. His relationships with Miriam and Clara bring desires for intimacy and independence into conflict with loyalties formed at home.
Continue readingAbout Sons and Lovers
Industrial surroundings and close attention to bodily feeling keep family tensions grounded in everyday life. Affection can provide support while also becoming a force that limits other attachments. Read conversations for the demands that remain unspoken, and compare what Paul wants from each relationship with what the women involved understand themselves to be offering or giving up.
Reading focus
Explore the difficult boundary between sustaining affection and emotional dependence as Paul seeks a life beyond the family household.
This reading edition contains 160,844 words in 15 original sections. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.
Author: DH Lawrence. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.
Opening excerpt
“The Bottoms” succeeded to “Hell Row”. Hell Row was a block of thatched, bulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill Lane. There lived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away. The brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these small mines, whose coal was drawn to the surface by donkeys that plodded wearily in a circle round a gin. And all over the countryside were these same pits, some of which had been worked in the time of Charles II., the few colliers and the donkeys burrowing down like ants into the earth, making queer mounds and little black places among the corn-fields and the meadows. And the cottages of these coal-miners, in blocks and…
Contents
All sections- PART ONE — CHAPTER I THE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF THE MORELS48 min
- PART ONE — CHAPTER II THE BIRTH OF PAUL, AND ANOTHER BATTLE35 min
- PART ONE — CHAPTER III THE CASTING OFF OF MOREL—THE TAKING ON OF WILLIAM22 min
- PART ONE — CHAPTER IV THE YOUNG LIFE OF PAUL46 min
- PART ONE — CHAPTER V PAUL LAUNCHES INTO LIFE55 min
- PART ONE — CHAPTER VI DEATH IN THE FAMILY48 min
- PART TWO — CHAPTER VII LAD-AND-GIRL LOVE68 min
- PART TWO — CHAPTER VIII STRIFE IN LOVE60 min
- PART TWO — CHAPTER IX DEFEAT OF MIRIAM65 min
- PART TWO — CHAPTER X CLARA44 min
- PART TWO — CHAPTER XI THE TEST ON MIRIAM41 min
- PART TWO — CHAPTER XII PASSION70 min
- PART TWO — CHAPTER XIII BAXTER DAWES65 min
- PART TWO — CHAPTER XIV THE RELEASE51 min
- PART TWO — CHAPTER XV DERELICT20 min
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This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 15 sections and 160,844 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.
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