^Lot 601 D. H. Lawrence

Signed book: Pansies. Limited edition of 500 copies (This being No. 389). London: P. R. Stephenson, 1929. Softcover, 6 x 9, 125 pages. Signed on the limitations page in blue ink, “D. H. Lawrence.” Pencil notations to first free end page, small separation to front joint, and a bit of trivial toning and soiling to covers, otherwise fine condition.

In the wake of his controversial 1928 masterpiece, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Lawrence responded to those critics who flouted the work by writing a series of satirical poems—some of which published under the title ‘Pansies.’ Once again, British censors sought to silence his prose, viewing it as obscene. When authorities temporarily seized his manuscript, Lawrence proclaimed, ‘How sickening this dirty hypocrisy!’ Eventually published in 1929, it became Lawrence's best known collection of poems. The title does not refer to flowers, but is derived from the French ‘pensees’ meaning ‘thoughts’—thoughts that, according to Lawrence in his introduction, come ‘as much from the heart and the genitals as from the head.’