Inspired by Lawrence's first novel

REGULAR followers of this site will know that I am a great fan of D.H.Lawrence, in my view the finest English writer of the 20th century.

I've even written a book about him.

A few years ago, I produced a print inspired by his wonderful poem, Snake.

Now comes a picture dedicated to his first novel, The White Peacock, an early indication of the greatness to follow.

When he died aged 44 in 1930, Lawrence was regarded by discerning critics as the most powerful literary voice of the age.

Thirty years later, his novel Lady Chatterley's Lover changed the literary landscape forever when Penguin Books successfully fought through the courts to publish the unexpurgated edition.

In a sense, Lawrence was in the forefront of the 1960s sexual revolution, even though he had by then been dead for three decades.

As a novelist, poet, essayist, critic and playwright, the miner's son from Nottinghamshire is among the all-time greats of English literature, a writer of sublime gifts who liberated his own generation and those to follow from the repressive attitudes of the Victorian era.