Lady Chatterly's Lover

Privately Printed, 1928. Near Fine. 8vo, 8 7/8 x 6 1/4 in. (225 x 158 mm); half title + Limitation page + title + 365 pp. 3/4 red crushed morocco binding with marbled boards and matching endpapers; 5 raised bands, gilt title and date, spine and top of boards sunned, t.e.g., rest uncut. First published privately in 1928, in Italy, and in France in 1929, Lady Chatterly's Lover became notorious for its story of the physical (and emotional) relationship between a working-class man and an upper-class woman, its explicit descriptions of sex and its use of then-unprintable four-letter words. An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960 when it was the subject of a watershed obscenity trial against the publisher Penguin Books, which won the case and quickly sold three million copies. The book was also banned for obscenity in the United States, Canada, Australia, India and Japan.
Several pirated copies of the book were issued and their editorial history is difficult to trace. Edward D. McDonald, in his Bibliography of the Writings of D. H. Lawrence, 1925-1930. A bibliographical Supplement (Philadelphia, The Centaur Book Shop, 1931) lists only the Florentine edition limited to 1000 copies and printed privately by Lawrence [McDonald 38] and the "Paris Popular Edition," with a Lawrence preface [McDonald 42] and had very stern words for the pirated editions that proliferated as soon as the book was published in Florence. "Book pirates are just about as stupid as they are shady... Chicanery.... canaille... scum of the book trade".
Our copy is one of these pirated editions and has a limitation page that states there are 1500 copies privately printed and this is copy 221, ink stamped. The original private edition of the book, printed in Florence only counted 1000 copies and they were numbered in pen and signed by the author. But the text and pagination is the same as the Florentine version.