Lady Chatterley’s Lover is the final novel written by D. H. Lawrence. He began work on the novel in the autumn of 1926, after returning from a trip to England. Although English by birth, Lawrence spent the last part of his life living abroad, and was living in Italy during the time that he wrote his final novel. Over the course of the next year, Lawrence completed three different versions of the novel, experimenting with different ways of depicting the characterization and central relationship between Connie and Mellors.

The degree of sexual explicitness and the use of language that would be considered obscene (and thus unpublishable) varied significantly across these versions. It seems likely that, based on conversations with other writers who had self-published books, Lawrence arrived at a plan of self-publishing the novel around the fall of 1927, and then felt empowered to take more risks in his use of language and depiction of a cross-class relationship. The third version, which he worked on in the latter part of 1927, is the novel that has gone on to become famous.

Lawrence self-published Lady Chatterley’s Lover in Florence, Italy, in 1928, meaning that he himself bore the financial costs of having the book printed, and was not under any contract or agreement with a publishing house.