ABSTRACT
In a letter of December 31, 1915, Lawrence confided in his friend Catherine Carswell that he was about to write a “midwinter story of oblivion” (Sagar 1979, 68; Boulton 1981, 493). Ten days later, he wrote another friend, Lady Ottoline Morrell, that he had completed the first part of a short story but found it difficult to continue. “You see,” he wrote, “one must break into a new world and it is so difficult.” Fur ther describing this first draft of what would become “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” Lawrence went on to observe that one “always believe[d] in miracles” (Boulton 1981, 501), a revealing phrase consider ing “The Miracle” was the first title of “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter.”
