The Rainbow

The Rainbow is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence, first published by Methuen & Co. in 1915. It follows three generations of the Brangwen family living in Nottinghamshire, focusing particularly on the individual's struggle to growth and fulfilment within the confining strictures of English social life. Lawrence's 1920 novel Women in Love is a sequel to The Rainbow.

Lawrence's frank treatment of sexual desire, and the part it plays within relationships as a natural and even spiritual force of life, caused The Rainbow to be prosecuted in an obscenity trial at Bow Street Magistrates' Court on 13 November 1915, as a result of which 1,011 copies were seized and burnt. After this ban it was unavailable in Britain for 11 years, although editions were available in the United States.

The philosopher Roger Scruton argues in Sexual Desire (1986) that "because we live in a world structured by gender, the other sex is forever to some extent a mystery to us, with a dimension of experience that we can imagine but never inwardly know." Scruton believes that the prevailing theme of Lawrence's novels is that "In desiring to unite with [the other sex], we are desiring to mingle with something that is deeply - perhaps essentially - not ourselves, and which brings us to experience a character and inwardness that challenge us with their strangeness." Scruton believes that The Rainbow vindicates Lawrence's vision. The critic Harold Bloom listed The Rainbow in his The Western Canon (1994) as one of the books that have been important and influential in Western culture. In 1999, the Modern Library ranked The Rainbow forty-eighth on a list of the 100 best novels in English of the 20th century.

In 1988, the BBC produced a television adaptation directed by Stuart Burge, with Imogen Stubbs in the role of Ursula Brangwen. The following year, the novel was adapted into the UK film The Rainbow, directed by Ken Russell, who had also directed the 1969 film adaptation Women in Love.

In 2021, BBC produced a new 2-part radio adaptation of the novel, aired on Radio 4 and starring Cassie Bradley in the role of Ursula and Karl Collins as Tom. (wikipedia.org)