Written in the years following World War I and set in postwar England
and Italy, Aaron's Rod questions many of the accepted social and
political institutions of Lawrence's generation, and raises issues as
valid for our own time as they were for his. The novel's hero is an
Everyman who flees the destruction in England and his failing marriage
and who, like Lawrence himself, becomes absorbed in discovering and
understanding the nature of the political and religious ideologies that
shaped western civilization. Aaron's Rod was completed in 1921 and was
censored by both Lawrence's American and English publishers. The
Cambridge Edition, based on the only authoritative, surviving
typescript, restores these cut passages and eliminates the errors and
house-styling of previous editions.The volume contains an introduction
that describes the novel's genesis, its transmission, publication
history, and reception. Extensive explanatory notes and textual
apparatus are also included.