Lawrence Among the Women

This exhibition ran from August to November 2007 and was produced by Manuscripts and Special Collections in collaboration with Professor Keith Cushman, a distinguished Lawrencian scholar from the University of North Carolina, and Dr Sean Matthews, Director of the University’s D H Lawrence Research Centre.

D.H. Lawrence is celebrated for his writing about women in poetry and in fiction. This exhibition shows how his own life was profoundly marked by relationships with strong, sensitive women - particularly those who loved and were loved by him in the formative years leading up to his departure from England in 1919.

The display drew on manuscripts, photographs, letters and books in the University’s Manuscripts and Special Collections. It explored the impact of his mother Lydia; sisters Ada and Emily; sweetheart Jessie Chambers; fiancée Louie Burrows; fellow schoolteacher Helen Corke; and Frieda von Richthofen Weekley, the woman Lawrence married in 1914.

The display was organised in parallel with the D.H. Lawrence International Conference (16-21 August, 2007) and the Eastwood D.H. Lawrence Festival (August and September 2007).

Exhibition Boards

Unfortunately it is not possible to display representations of the original archive material which featured in the exhibition cases or of the boards. They presented images and text on the following themes:

• Among the Women
• Family
• Frieda Weekley
• Jessie Chambers
• Louie Burrows
• Still Among the Women?