A 1915 copy of The Rainbow – £13,000 at Sotheby’s.
There were around 2500 copies of first printing, of which several remained unbound, but some 1200 were subsequently destroyed as a result of court action. They were burned by a hangman outside the Royal Exchange, according to one source.
Lawrence had revised and amended his tale of the Brangwen family many times before Methuen agreed to publish, but troubles remained.
It was a chapter called ‘Shame’ and a lesbian encounter between Ursula Brangwen, a principal character in both this novel and Women in Love, and Winifred, a schoolteacher, that finally condemned it.
