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Lawrence, Garnett, and Sons and
Lovers: An Exploration of Author-Editor
Relationship
by
Mark S. Sexton
On 8 February 1913, D. H. Lawrence wrote to his friend and former teaching colleague Arthur McLeod, "I am correcting proofs of Sons and Lovers —it gives me the blues" (Letters 573). The cause for Lawrence's gloom is easy to grasp. The publication of Sons and Lovers (1913), Lawrence's first major novel, followed a lengthy and arduous series of rewritings and revisions. Lawrence began his "Colliery novel" in 1910. In June 1912, after having rewritten the novel three times, he submitted a manuscript entitled Paul Morel to his publisher, William Heinemann, where it was rejected. Undaunted, Lawrence arranged for Edward Garnett, a friend and editor at the Duckworth publishing house, to read the work. Garnett responded with a list of editorial suggestions for yet another reworking of the book. Again Lawrence rewrote the novel, this time changing its title to Sons and Lovers.[1]
Lawrence sent the rewritten book to Garnett on 13 November 1912. This version of the novel met with Garnett's approval, although the editor insisted that substantial deletions must be made from the lengthy manuscript before it could be published. Despite consternation at Garnett's proposed deletions, Lawrence was so eager to see his novel in print that he agreed to
A perusal of the Sons and Lovers facsimile manuscript graphically demonstrates why Lawrence experienced "the blues" when seeing these proofs. Although Lawrence himself had deleted considerable portions of Sons and Lovers while preparing the manuscript for Garnett,[3] the young novelist must have been shocked to behold the sweeping nature of Garnett's actual extractions. Indicated in the manuscript by huge X's drawn through the passages to be removed, Garnett's deletions comprise whole paragraphs and sometimes entire scenes.[4] Even though he suffered from "the blues," Lawrence immediately began to "correct" these galley proofs of Sons and Lovers, and by 18 February he felt so much better about the work that he wrote to Garnett: "You did the pruning job really well, and I am grateful" (Letters 517). On 5 March, writing again to McLeod, Lawrence's mood had totally changed: "I've sent in the proofs of Sons and Lovers. It is quite a great novel" (Letters 524).[5]
Lawrence's reversal of attitude concerning his work with the galley proofs may represent little more than an exuberant young author acceding to his editor's more objective and seasoned literary judgment.[6] But a more convincing explanation for his change of mind is suggested by further examination of the Sons and Lovers facsimile manuscript. In addition to Garnett's deletions, the facsimile reveals a multitude of variations between Lawrence's manuscript and the printed text of the novel. Some of these variations represent simple and uneventful deletions of words or phrases from the manuscript. Others, however, consist of word and phrase emendations that delicately, but sometimes significantly, affect the novel's artistic merit. In fact, these emendations occasionally cluster so frequently within passages of the novel as to represent essential revisions of these passages.
Since Lawrence's holograph manuscript, bearing Garnett's editorial markings, served as the printer's copy of the novel, we can conclude that these alterations must have been introduced while the book existed in galley or page proofs. We can also identify with confidence the sources of many of these emendations, even though neither the galley nor page proofs survive.[7] For instance, Mark Schorer asserts that among these variants occur "a few deletions that should probably be attributed to Duckworth's cautious blue pencil" (MS 4). As an illustration of the printer's editorial conservatism, Schorer cites the substitution of the phrase "as if he were in contact with her" (264) for the manuscript's "as if he were pressed against her, and was full of her warmth" (MS 330). Perhaps the most famous censorial deletion is from chapter 12 of the manuscript, where Paul, alone in Clara Dawes' bedroom, dons a pair of her stockings. Such alterations as these conform to a pattern: they aim at removing or neutralizing material that risks impropriety. They suggest that Duckworth, or someone at his behest, essentially suppressed material that was considered risqué, even when such textual manipulation jeopardized the novel's artistic excellence and integrity.
Other emendations to the manuscript can be attributed to Lawrence's "corrections" of the galley and page proofs. For instance, when an emendation does not relate to matters of propriety, but serves clearly to enhance the novel's artistic merit and thematic meaning, Lawrence would seem the logical source. That he should be credited with many of these emendations is further attested by evidence within the novel itself. A careful comparison of the manuscript with the novel's printed text reveals subtle but unmistakable links between the passages deleted by Garnett and many of the proof emendations. In suggesting that Lawrence took an active hand in correcting the proofs that he returned to the printer, these links offer a logical explanation for Lawrence's change of mind concerning his work with the Sons and Lovers proofs. They also illuminate a dimension of the Lawrence-Garnett editorial relationship that has gone unremarked by commentators on the manuscript facsimile. In order to delineate in limited space the editorial dynamics that informed the preparation of Sons and Lovers for publication, I will present an extended comparison of a portion of the manuscript facsimile and the novel's printed text. Textual analysis, therefore, will be focused on a single chapter of the novel, chapter 7, "Lad-And-Girl Love."[8]
Lawrence centers his narrative concern in "Lad-And-Girl Love" on the emotional ambivalence of Paul Morel as his life moves outward toward emotional and physical attachment to a female other than his mother. In its presentation of Paul and Miriam Leivers' adolescent love, the chapter establishes a significant feature in Paul's developing sexuality—an inability or unwillingness to relinquish a close bond with his mother. As portrayed in chapter 7, Paul exists suspended between Mrs. Morel and Miriam, not only in regard to his physical and emotional needs, but also in relation to each woman's fierce efforts to possess him. Indeed, throughout Sons and Lovers, Paul's ties to his mother powerfully affect his romantic relationships. Chapter 7's depiction of "Lad-And-Girl Love" reveals for the first time in the novel (1) the extent to which this maternal bond influences Paul's romantic affairs and (2) the subtlety with which this bond manifests itself.
Against this background of thematic concerns appears the chapter's most conspicuous category of editorial changes—those passages cancelled by Garnett.[9] These passages include several scenes, or parts of scenes, which either serve no primary function in the chapter or only amplify thematic concerns taken up elsewhere in the chapter.[10] For instance, immediately following the moment when Paul compels Miriam to jump from a fence stile (154), an excised passage appears in the manuscript in which Paul, "naturally agile and very active, . . . danc[es] from one thing to another" during a country walk with Miriam. In stark contrast to Paul, Miriam "kept her regular course, almost unmovable." Paul cannot coax Miriam into altering her pace, "And gradually he fell in beside her, took her pace [my emphasis], and walked head down with her" (MS 220). The couple comes to a lake and stops, at which point Paul skims stones across the water. He asks Miriam why she does not "do ducks and drakes as well," adding, in mild criticism, "you never want to do
In itself, the scene is interesting. The contrast between Paul's active physical movement and Miriam's inactive "almost unmovable" course draws attention to the basic distinctions of personality between them. Further, Paul's gradual acquiescence to the pace and demeanor demanded by Miriam exemplifies the pattern of their relationship that is developed in chapter 7: though perhaps reluctantly, Miriam nevertheless waits for Paul to finish his scampering and "come back to her." His questioning Miriam as to why she does not "do things" reflects the frustration that Paul often feels with the girl's intensity and religious temperament. Clearly the episode "works" in regard to its possessing thematic coherence to the rest of chapter 7. Yet the scene does not add discernable perception or tangible information to the chapter. Omission of such a scene justifies Schorer's general judgment of Garnett's job as editor of Sons and Lovers: "Nothing important is lost, ineptitudes disappear, and the novel emerges as tighter and more smoothly paced than it would otherwise have been" (9).
Garnett deleted other passages from chapter 7, however, whose presence in the printed text contribute considerably to our view of Paul and his young life. For example, in the printed version of the chapter, just before Paul tells his mother that he intends to teach algebra to Miriam, Garnett deletes a brief conversation between Paul and his mother. Recalling Miriam's professed dissatisfaction with her role as a female, Paul asks Mrs. Morel: "Did you want to be a man, mother?" Mrs. Morel replies that, yes, she has wished at times to be a man, because "I thought I could make a great deal better job of it than most men do." Paul replies that he certainly does not "want to be a woman." He also tells his mother that he believes she would have been a successful man. Mrs. Morel responds to this remark with a "little amused sniff," asserting that "anything that is natural is pleased to be itself. And where a woman wants very badly to be a man, you may back your life she's not much good as a woman." Such desire, she theorizes, reveals that a female's "pride as a woman is pretty low." The scene concludes with the narrator's remark that "He [Paul] always came to his mother, making her the touchstone" (MS 222).
In many respects this scene, like the one considered earlier, amplifies themes presented elsewhere in the chapter and novel. For instance, the insight into Mrs. Morel's momentary desires to alter her gender serves to enlarge an already firm sense of her estrangement from a drunken husband. Similarly, Mrs. Morel's opinion about a woman who wants badly to be a man, appearing in the chapter just after Miriam's expressed dissatisfaction with her role as woman (154-155), creates a stark contrast between Miriam as a woman and Mrs. Morel's concept of what a woman should be, a contrast that makes only more explicit a sense of Paul's suspension between these conflicting yet strangely similar women. In fact, the contrast suggests a telling parallel between Miriam and Mrs. Morel: each is unhappy with her role and status as
Yet the scene holds a thematic element largely new to the printed text of "Lad-And-Girl Love." For instance, what relation does Paul's professed desire not to be a woman bear to the scene that occurs much later in the novel's manuscript (in a passage deleted from the printed version) in which Paul puts on Clara Dawes' stockings (MS 472)? Paul's expressed dissatisfaction with the though of being a female may also help to explain his repeated irritations with Miriam, as when he helps her with algebra. Paul's annoyance stems not only from frustrated and suppressed desires, but as well from an inherent dissatisfaction with the female sex as a gender. This thematic concern is further developed in a section of the algebra scene deleted by Garnett. During Miriam's mathematical stupefaction her brother Edgar enters, looks at the lesson from behind them, and exclaims, "I see." The manuscript continues: "Paul looked round at his friend. Edgar was good-looking, and his brown eyes, sound and healthy, looked interested. It was like breathing fresh air, to explain to him" (MS 224).
Inherent in Paul's response lies a frustrated dissatisfaction with the intellectual capabilities of Miriam, the female: "You don't learn algebra with your blessed soul. Can't you look at it with your clear simple wits?" he exclaims in the printed text, soon after the deleted passage (156). At the same time Paul experiences an immediate attraction to the "clear simple wits" manifested in Edgar—wits which, as the narrator in the manuscript suggests, Paul perceives in terms of physical attractiveness. Together, these two scenes add to chapter 7 a firm sense of Paul's admiration for the male sex's intellect, an admiration informed by an appreciation of male physical beauty. These elements in Paul's character contribute a meaningful dimension to our early view of him. They also offer a subtle clue as to why and how Paul manages to continue with Miriam on a plane of abstraction for as long as he does. In effect, as early as chapter 7, the manuscript reveals a complexity of sexuality within Paul that becomes increasingly fascinating as it evolves in Paul's relationship with his father and Baxter Dawes. Though a small scene, it supports Mark Spilka's judgment that some of Garnett's "deletions might have been retained" (44).[12]
Garnett deletes another scene of thematic importance to chapter 7—a passage of considerable length, comprising four full pages of manuscript. This scene occurs at a point in the chapter immediately after the narrator tells of Paul's drawing "life-warmth" and strength from his mother and "intensity" from Miriam (158), just before we are told of Miriam's taking Paul through the dusk for "the communion she wanted" to experience in front of the secret "wild-rose bush she had discovered" (159-160).
The deleted scene in question concerns Paul's weekly trip to the subscription library at Bestwood, where he and Miriam have established a regular point of rendezvous. The evening of the scene is a wet one. In fact, rain
While the manuscript does not disclose Paul's immediate reaction to these witticisms, a deleted passage explicitly makes the point that Paul suffers intense anxiety at the possibility that Miriam might not appear:
As with every deleted passage of chapter 7, much of this scene elaborates elements already present in the chapter. In particular, the scene reminds us of the disparity between what others expect to develop naturally between Paul and Miriam and the relationship that really exists between them. In this regard, the scene weakly mirrors one in the printed text where Paul returns home from a similar evening jaunt with Miriam from the library, where his mother asserts: "'Besides'—her voice suddenly flashed into anger and contempt—'it is disgusting—bits of lads and girls courting'" (161). "It is not courting," Paul answers, but to no purpose. His mother does not hear or understand his denial. No one can understand. In this respect the deleted library scene adds nothing of vital importance to our understanding of the "chaste" relationship between Paul and Miriam.
Yet Paul's intense desire for Miriam's presence represents an element of the scene not similarly developed elsewhere in the chapter. We detect enormous urgency in the youth as he ponders whether Miriam will come, and we sense that something far more important is being determined in Paul's mind than simply whether he will have Miriam's company that evening. Forces exert themselves on the young man from sources beyond his conscious realm of action and reaction. While he waits, his existence becomes so identified with the expectation of her arrival that he does not respond to Mr. Smedley's teasing. He merely gazes in a trance-like state at the book in his hands, feeling an irrational hatred for the boy who enters the library, merely because this boy is not Miriam. Such anxiety renders Paul's personality virtually impotent. His power of being, centered in the sense of communion he feels with
Paul's anxiety stems partly from a fear of being unable fully to control Miriam. "Yet she would come. . . . And she had never failed him" (MS 228-229), Paul thinks, suggesting that her failure to come would somehow be a failure of the bond that links the two so powerfully. If we remember that this scene occurs in the manuscript immediately after the narrator's statement that Paul draws sustenance from two opposing forces—"From his mother he drew life-warmth, the strength to produce; Miriam urged this warmth into intensity"—the essential nature of the linking bond becomes clearer. The deleted library scene depicts Paul experiencing acute need for what Miriam provides. She sparks Paul's intellectual life in a way he craves. Even though Paul's relationship with Miriam will undergo transformation as the novel evolves, the fact that here Paul intensely desires Miriam's presence signifies that she indeed fulfills a need in him—whether that need be conscious or unconscious, healthy or neurotic.
Within the scope of the entire novel Miriam represents only a stage in Paul's personal development. Given his family and psychological background, Paul's anxiety during the library scene suggests that this stage represents an inevitable step toward maturity. Thus their non-sexual relationship provides a comfort and safety similar to Paul's relationship with his mother. At the same time, the narrator reports that when with Miriam, Paul is "stimulated into knowledge of the work he had produced unconsciously [while with his mother]. In contact with Miriam he gained insight; his vision went deeper" (158). The deleted library scene exposes Paul's desperate need for such vision and insight at the precise juncture of his life portrayed in "Lad-And-Girl Love." The threat posed by Miriam's momentary failure to meet Paul at the library—the threat of losing the part of his spiritual sustenance represented by Miriam—is not expressed elsewhere in chapter 7 in nearly so full and touching a manner.
The manuscript's library scene does not end here, and the remaining material serves to illustrate precisely what Miriam offers Paul. The moment she arrives at the library, "A flame came up in her [eyes] that burned him too." After an exchange concerning her "usual" tardiness, the couple leaves, their conversation shifting to the discussion of a book: "He held forth passionately, she listened and her soul expanded" (MS 229). Shifting from the book, their conversation "inevitably came to a discussion of beliefs, very intimate." The manuscript continues:
"It seems as if it didn't matter, one more or less, among the lot," he said.
"No," she replied, gravely, questioning.
"I used to believe that about a sparrow falling and hair of the head—"
"Yes," she said. "And now?"
"Now I think that the race of sparrows matters, but not one sparrow: all my hair, but not one hair."
"Yes," she said, questioningly.
"And people matter. But one isn't so very important. Look at William."
"Yes," she pondered.
"I call it only wasted," he said. "Waste, no more."
"Yes," she said, very low.
It was her belief that the more people there were, the less they mattered. But to hear him talk was like life to her: like starting the breathing in a new born baby.
"Yet," he said, "I reckon we've got a proper way to go—and if we go it, we're all right—and if we go near it. But if we go wrong we die. I'm sure our William went wrong somewhere."
"And if we follow the course of our lives, we don't die?" she asked.
"No we don't. What we are inside makes us so that we ought to go one particular way, and no other."
"But do we know when we're following the true course?" she asked.
"Yes! I do. I know I'm following mine."
"You do?" she asked.
"Yes—I'm certain." (MS 229-30)
This scene's value lies on several levels. First, it offers a concrete illustration of Paul's belief that only Miriam can at this time fulfill his special needs. More than merely echo his ideas, Miriam helps Paul to discover and articulate them. Coming immediately after Paul's moments of anxiety in the library, the deleted scene establishes a pattern of relationship that would affect our reading of every such exchange later in the chapter and the novel had it been retained in the book's text. Miriam does not merely possess or enfold Paul as she tries to enfold her younger brother Hubert, an act against which Paul recoils in repugnance and hatred (153). A genuine psychic reward exists for Paul in Miriam's presence—one powerful enough to prompt his suspension of blood passion so that the reward will continue. Within the larger context of Sons and Lovers, Paul's inability for so long to sever the relationship with Miriam lies precisely in this psychic link between them: she nurtures his inner needs. The scene deleted by Garnett makes quite clear the fact that this bond is both real and mutual.
The philosophical ideas expressed in the scene—concerning the race of sparrows, the waste of human life involved in his brother William's death, and the avowal that he is following and always will follow his proper direction—add to our perception of Paul. We gain a definite sense of Paul as a being in transition. By placing his philosophy so close to the scene of his anxious waiting in the library, the narrative consciousness of Sons and Lovers foreshadows his later development. For instance, in this scene Paul reveals that he hates the waste involved in following any life direction other than the "proper" one for the individual. The disparity between what he says and what he fails to see in his own life may amuse us. Yet when we consider such disparity in light of Paul's spoken philosophy, we not only conclude that his self-realization is just beginning, but grasp that he will follow his inner promptings in a less wasteful direction when he recognizes that such emotion as he expended in the library is a waste.
In essence, the scene holds the promise of Paul's movement away from Miriam, and suddenly we gain fresh insight into his anxiety in the library. Paul both understands Miriam's ability to foster his formative ideas into consciousness and words, and fears that he will be unable to vocalize these philosophical notions that contain, paradoxically, the seeds of what will eventually
The two deleted scenes considered above are linked implicitly to the proof emendations made to the chapter's final scene.[13] In both versions the scene's action remains largely the same: an evening stroll with Miriam at Skegness, beneath a suddenly glimpsed red moon. In the details of the scene, however, sweeping alterations occur, particularly in the scenes' descriptions of Miriam. In the manuscript, Miriam stands beside Paul "forever like his attendant angel. Her face, slightly golden with moonlight, was lifted towards him: the same stillness, the same humility about the closed mouth, the same pure look of faith and yearning in her dark eyes" (MS 254). At this moment of the scene, intended by Lawrence to contrast the conflicting "soul" and "sense" of the young man and woman, the considerable detail of Miriam's description suggests in her a force latent with religious authority: "Her spiritual, yearning look was like an invisible power which he could not get past" (MS 254).
The printed version is much changed. Miriam "was watching him unseen. But she was brooding. She was slightly afraid—deeply moved and religious. That was her best state. He was impotent against it" (178). Youthfulness and sexual longing course through Paul's veins as he responds to the ruddy moon and Miriam's physical presence. By means of her spiritual intensity, however, Miriam manages to project a barrier that Paul cannot scale. She renders him "impotent" to assert the life force that is pulsing within him.
Other proof emendations also appear to have been introduced by Lawrence. For example, in both the manuscript and the printed text, during their moonlight walk Miriam expects "a religious state" to be exhibited by Paul. In the manuscript, Paul "wanted the answer of her blood to his. But it never came" (MS 254). Also in the manuscript, when Miriam asks Paul for the second time "What is it?" he answers not with a frown, but by "showing his teeth in a constrained smile" (MS 254). The published text, however, adds to the scene Miriam's intuitive knowledge that "The crisis was past" (178). The manuscript's "she seemed, in some way, better than he" (MS 254) has also been emended to "she seemed in some way to make him despise himself" (179). Finally, in the published version, Paul decides that he hates Miriam because "she spoilt his ease and naturalness" (179), not because, as in the manuscript, she "spoilt his relationship with his mother" (MS 255).
These revisions represent only some of the changes made to the closing scene of chapter 7, yet they indicate the direction in which Lawrence intends to take the scene. Miriam's portrayal suggests that she is less a person than a force capable of controlling Paul, of rendering him impotent, both sexually and psychically, seemingly against his will. The conflict between the two is less a battering against an obstacle, demanding that her blood answer his, than a subtle emasculation of Paul's natural self. His actions and responses characterize
In effect, the scene's emendations suggest quite strongly a weakening of the influence held by Miriam over Paul, a weakening made more explicitly clear in Lawrence's revisions concerning the issue of Paul's hatred of Miriam. The emotion of hatred, of course, marks a consistent element in the intricacies of Paul's attachment to Miriam—for instance, his hatred for her when she smothers her younger brother Hubert with affection (153). The revisions pinpoint a different source for this hatred, however. In the printed text Paul despises Miriam for having "spoilt his ease and naturalness" (175) rather than for having spoiled the relationship with his mother. In effect, the textual changes clearly identify Paul as the victim of Miriam. Her religious intensity has held him physically and psychologically suspended until his natural instincts are denied, twisted, and "spoilt":
The above passage is identical in both manuscript and printed text. But its impact is far more revelatory if we view the scene from the perspective that Lawrence himself is responsible for these revisions. The printed version suggests unmistakably a sense of Paul's being deeply wounded. Impotence becomes a manifestation of his self-despising. The fact that such feelings exist in Paul further suggests the possibility, if not the inevitability, that the relationship he presently enjoys with Miriam must change.
Emendations made to the novel's proofs restore implicitly to the final scene many ideas that were explicitly developed in the deleted passages examined above. For instance, draping Miriam in shadows rather than the angelic aura of moonlight obscures her feminine features and makes her less a breathing young female in the moonlight than a mysterious agent capable of undercutting Paul's masculinity. Her religious brooding becomes almost masculine in its insistence on excluding the possibility of passion—as though Miriam, in refusing to be fully "a woman" with Paul, insists on playing the role of a man, refusing to allow their relationship to exist on any plane other than "platonic" abstraction. Recall the deleted passage in which Mrs. Morel warns Paul about women who want "badly" to be men. Recall also that just as Mrs. Morel declares such women to have lost their "pride" as women, Paul here hates Miriam because she has caused him to "despise himself." Miriam has "spoilt [Paul's] naturalness and ease," a statement that not only evokes Mrs. Morel's advice that "anything that is natural is pleased to be itself" (MS 222) but also Paul's profession to Miriam that "I reckon we've got a proper way to go" (MS 230).
When we note the added connotations of "impotence" in the revised scene, Paul's avowed contentment with being a man echoes resonantly. How can Paul attain his masculinity with a woman who seeks with devious intensity to deny such attainment? The "naturalness" of the relationship is skewed. Miriam assumes a controlling, an almost masculine power, while Paul, though flushed with sexual desire, submits to her control. Gender roles are reversed. The idea for such a reversal, first signaled in the deleted conversation between Paul and Mrs. Morel, is here powerfully suggested precisely by those revisions made after Garnett's deletions, almost certainly by Lawrence.
Lawrence can also be credited with incorporating important features of the deleted library scene into the galley revisions of chapter 7. We recall Paul's intense anxiety while waiting for Miriam to arrive at the library—in itself a kind of impotence. Miriam's ability on their Skegness walk to inspire Paul's suppression of sexual urges suggests the power of the bond between the two. Although the relationship with Miriam reaches a point of excruciating discomfort to Paul, at Skegness he cannot perceive its unnaturalness or waste. As in the library scene, Paul's wasted emotion itself holds the essential clue to the eventual disintegration of "Lad-And-Girl Love." Here, the shame that Paul feels for his shackled masculinity holds the potential, once realized, of propelling him away from the "waste" and into the "proper way" for his life.
In this sense the galley revisions surrounding Paul's moonlight walk with Miriam introduce the momentum for movement away from an essentially wasteful situation. We gain from the revised narrative an increased sense of Paul as a being in transition, whose "hatred" for Miriam has been modified in its essence. From this modification the inference follows that Paul, as he declares during the walk subsequent to the deleted library scene, will follow his "proper way" as his self-awareness increases. Further, for Miriam to sense during the Skegness walk that a "crisis" has occurred and is now past informs us that she views Paul as an essentially undynamic person. She does not take fully into account his capability to change. As the narrative progresses from this point we realize that "the crisis" has actually just begun—that is, the conflict in Paul between his "soul" and his "sense" now approaches a point of consciousness within him.
Significantly, following Miriam's determination that the crisis with Paul is over, Lawrence ceases almost altogether to use Miriam as a focus of narrative perspective. Instead, we are shown Miriam through the perception of Paul: "He hated her, for she seemed in some way to make him despise himself" (179). To compensate for the possibility of Paul's movement away from Miriam, as subtly suggested in the deleted library scene, Lawrence has chosen to signal this same possibility by restricting narrative point of view. Paul's search for freedom of the life-urge away from Miriam's spiritual tyranny is a process complex enough to comprise much of Sons and Lovers. Lawrence's apparent revision of the final scene of "Lad-And-Girl Love" explicitly foreshadows this development, much as the deleted library scene does.
Lawrence's purpose in preparing "corrections" of chapter 7 of Sons and
Notes
- Eggert, Paul. "Edward Garnett's Sons and Lovers." Critical Quarterly 28 (1986): 51-61.
- E. T. [Jessie Chambers Wood]. D. H. Lawrence: A Personal Record. Ed. J. D. Chambers. 2nd ed. London: Frank Cass, 1965.
- Lawrence, D. H. The Letters of D. H. Lawrence. Ed. James T. Boulton. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979.
- Lawrence, D. H. Sons and Lovers. Ed. Julian Moynahan. New York: Viking, 1968.
- Lawrence, D. H. Sons and Lovers: A Facsimile of the Manuscript. Ed. Mark Schorer. Berkeley: U of California P, 1977.
- Moore, Harry T. D. H. Lawrence: His Life and Works. Rev. ed. New York: Twayne, 1964.
- Moore, Harry T. The Priest of Love: A Life of D. H. Lawrence. Rev. ed. New York: Farrar, 1974.
- Schorer, Mark. Introduction. Sons and Lovers: A Facsimile of the Manuscript. By D. H. Lawrence. Berkeley: U of California P, 1977. 1-9.
- Schorer, Mark. "Technique as Discovery." The World We Imagine. New York: Farrar, 1968. 3-23.
- Spilka, Mark. "For Mark Schorer with Combative Love: The Sons and Lovers Manuscript." Review 3 (1981): 129-147.
- Templeton, Wayne. "The Sons and Lovers Manuscript." Studies in Bibliography 37 (1984): 234-243.
- Weiss, Daniel A. Oedipus in Nottingham: D. H. Lawrence. Seattle: U. of Washington P, 1962.
Works Cited
Other than the Sons and Lovers manuscript itself, only two remnants of manuscript related to Sons and Lovers exist, both of which represent fragments of the Paul Morel novels. The first set of these consists of six holograph manuscript fragments from chapters 1-4 of Lawrence's final revision of Paul Morel—the version termed by Schorer the "penultimate version" of Sons and Lovers. These fragments total approximately 58 pages and are written on paper smaller in size than most of the pages used in the Sons and Lovers manuscript. Lawrence's own revisions constitute the sole editorial markings on these pages. He indicated these revisions by a horizontal line drawn through each word or passage he wished to cancel. Substitutions occasionally appear, written in Lawrence's hand over the cancellations. Schorer's edition of the Sons and Lovers manuscript facsimile reproduces these fragments, and they reside in the Rare Books Collection of the Bancroft Library, at the University of California, Berkeley, along with the Sons and Lovers manuscript. Schorer dates these fragments to the fall of 1911. Another set of manuscript fragments from early versions of the Paul Morel novel exists at the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas. Termed by Moore the "Miriam Papers," Moore assigns these manuscripts to 1911-1912, and describes them as falling "into two parts. One of these parts comprises three manuscript sections in Jessie Chambers' own hand; the second part of the Miriam Papers consists of two sections: one is a twenty-three page fragment of manuscript in Lawrence's hand, with Jessie's interlinear comments and protests; the other is a separate four pages of comments in her hand" (D. H. Lawrence 285). Moore also notes that one of the fragments in Chambers' hand "provides the basis for the episode which occurs in chapter 7—'Lad-And-Girl Love'—and describes one of Paul's arrivals at Willey Farm and an encounter with Miriam and her sister Agatha" (286). For a detailed assessment of the Miriam Papers see Moore, D. H. Lawrence, 285-305.
This scenario is based on Lawrence's letter to Garnett, 1 December 1912, in which he responds to the editor's proposed deletions: "I sit in sadness and grief after your letter. I daren't say anything. All right, take out what you think necessary—I suppose I shall see what you've done when the proofs come, at any rate. I'm sorry I've let you in for such a job—but don't scold me too hard, it makes me wither up" (Letters 481).
The facsimile manuscript reproduces revisions made to the manuscript by Lawrence.
More particularly, each of Garnett's deletions is indicated in the manuscript by the editor's use of a large X crossed through the passage to be cut, a single extended brace enclosing either the right or the left side of the large X, and a delete sign placed in the page margin, outside the brace, beside the cancelled passage. Schorer estimates that Garnett's deletions total "at least ten or even fifteen thousand words" (Introduction 4). Garnett is consistent in his editorial markings, although he is somewhat idiosyncratic in their application. Differences, therefore, arise as to how Garnett's symbols should be described. According to Templeton, Garnett's markings are "marginal parentheses and the letter 'G'," a view for which he claims the authority of Garnett's son, David, who, according to Templeton, "saw the manuscript and . . . was familiar with his father's handwriting and editing style" (236). I believe Templeton to be inexact in his assessment of Garnett's markings. First, Templeton ignores the prominent X's that invariably mark the passages Garnett selected for deletion. Second, the term "brace" is more accurate than "marginal parentheses" to describe the vertical mark with which Garnett consistently enclosed a single side of the large X drawn through each deleted passage: these marks always occur singly, loop at the center, and almost always curve at their ends away from the text. Third, the marginal symbol placed outside each brace more closely resembles a delete symbol than the letter "G." Schorer agrees with this assessment of the symbol, stating that Garnett's cuts "were made with large X-figures and a signal to delete in the margin." It is interesting that Schorer also cites David Garnett as an authority for interpreting the elder Garnett's editorial markings: "Garnett's son, David, has examined a copy of this manuscript and is certain that, with the possible exception of two, these [markings] were made by his father" (MS 4). (The two exceptions mentioned by Schorer appear on MS 292-93, and are indicated by horizontal lines through the deleted text and large multiple X's. According to Schorer and David Garnett, these deletions should be attributed to Lawrence; the multiple X's represent Edward Garnett's confirmation of the cancellations.)
Lawrence refers here to the galley proofs. When on 14 April 1913 Lawrence writes to Garnett that he has returned "all the proofs of Sons and Lovers," he refers specifically to the novel's page proofs (Letters 539). None of these proofs are extant; therefore, we cannot say with certainty whether Lawrence's emendations were made to the galley or to the page proofs. Since Lawrence states that he "corrected" both galley and page proofs, however, we may infer that emendations were effected during both stages of the editorial process.
Commentators generally agree that Garnett's excisions meritoriously affected the final version of Sons and Lovers. For instance, Schorer asserts: "Every deletion that Garnett made seems to me have been to the novel's advantage" (Introduction 9). In a similar vein, Eggert argues that "Garnett cut not just to shorten but to improve" (56). Templeton echoes Schorer's judgment, calling Garnett's editing "masterful" and "thorough," adding the view that Garnett's "deletions rather than Lawrence's emendations are what turned a pedestrian . . . manuscript into a powerful, concise, and evenly developed novel" (243). Only Spilka disagrees with these assessments, suggesting "that many [of Garnett's] deletions reveal ideas and preoccupations which helped Lawrence to become the man whose prophetic artspeech still commands our hearing; . . . some of these deletions might have been retained. . . ." (136). The present study finds general agreement with Spilka's argument that true literary value exists in some of the scenes deleted by Garnett. As my analysis shows, Lawrence, too, must have felt the value of many of these scenes. However, in my effort to demonstrate that Lawrence actively sought to emend the galley and page proofs in such a manner as to restore
Commentators disagree in how to approach this issue. Schorer judges virtually nothing to have been lost in any of the deletions that may have been made by Duckworth (Introduction 4). Templeton's decision not to discuss these emendations, "[i]n light of their indeterminable authorship" (240), seems to me extreme.
Chapter 7 of Sons and Lovers is admirably suited for such an analysis. Virtually one-fifth of the printed chapter's text differs from the holograph manuscript reproduced in the facsimile. Further, these differences encompass both types of major textual differences that appear in the novel: (1) short and long passages deleted by Garnett, and (2) numerous emendations that appear in the printed text but not in the manuscript. As the initial chapter in Part II of Sons and Lovers, chapter 7 marks a thematic pivot in the novel: the first extensive effort to portray Paul Morel's emergence into emotional and sexual experience beyond the pale of his family. In its size, the chapter makes possible a detailed textual analysis in a study of this length. For a helpful, though incomplete, table of significant textual variants, see Schorer's facsimile edition, 609-624.
Schorer makes clear his judgment that the extensive deletions by Garnett were in no way prompted by moralistic concerns. Rather, the editor tried to keep Lawrence's manuscript to a length practicable for a one-volume publication.
Garnett deleted other such scenes from chapter 7, on 241, 242, 243, 251, and 252 of the manuscript facsimile. I consider these scenes, like the fence-stile scene, to be of only minor significance and will not analyze them. Without exception, these scenes consist primarily of dialogue between Paul and his friends and family about matters of little relation to the chapter's major themes. The longest of these, on 241-242, portrays Paul's friends on an Easter Monday outing and consists largely of casual bantering.
Spilka, in making this assessment, argues that Schorer's "inordinate satisfaction" with Garnett's editorial excisions "betrays [the] original misgivings about the novel" voiced in Schorer's 1948 "Technique as Discovery." He objects that such alterations "merely show Lawrence in the process of overcoming fairly obvious literary deficiencies" (34), and that some of Garnett's deletions represent loss to the novel. The present examination of chapter 7 differs from Spilka's assessment in its conclusion that Garnett's editorial excisions also spurred Lawrence to develop his narrative technique in order to compensate for the loss occasioned by some of these deletions.
Space will not allow an examination of two short paragraphs deleted by Lawrence himself (MS 234 and 248). The first of these describes Miriam's feelings of social contempt for a field full of folk encountered on her Good Friday outing with Paul and his family. Lawrence's intention in deleting this passage appears to be the removal of an element that deflects our attention from Miriam's anticipation of Paul's return to their private realm of existence. The second cancellation reveals Paul actively seeking to kiss and embrace the girlfriends of his sister Annie, though he is still emotionally embroiled in his "Lad-And-Girl Love" with Miriam. Lawrence's removal of this paragraph renders the "soul" vs. "sense" conflict within Paul less explicit.
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