ABSTRACT

The first full-length account of D.H. Lawrence’s rich engagement with a country he found both fascinating and frustrating, D.H. Lawrence’s Australia focuses on the philosophical, anthropological and literary influences that informed the utopian and regenerative visions that characterise so much of Lawrence’s work. David Game gives particular attention to the four novels and one novella published between 1920 and 1925, what Game calls Lawrence’s 'Australian period,' shedding new light on Lawrence’s attitudes towards Australia in general and, more specifically, towards Australian Aborigines, women and colonialism. He revisits key aspects of Lawrence’s development as a novelist and thinker, including the influence of Darwin and Lawrence’s rejection of eugenics, Christianity, psychoanalysis and science. While Game concentrates on the Australian novels such as Kangaroo and The Boy in the Bush, he also uncovers the Australian elements in a range of other works, including Lawrence’s last novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Lawrence lived in Australia for just three months, but as Game shows, it played a significant role in his quest for a way of life that would enable regeneration of the individual in the face of what Lawrence saw as the moral collapse of modern industrial civilisation after the outbreak of World War I.

chapter |8 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|26 pages

Darwinism and Lawrence's Quest for Regeneration

“A New Conception of What it Means, to Live”

chapter 3|8 pages

Lawrence Decides to Travel to Australia

chapter 4|24 pages

Imagining Australia

“The Vicar's Garden,” The White Peacock, The Daughter-in-Law, “The Primrose Path,” The Lost Girl, Aaron's Rod and Mr Noon

chapter 5|28 pages

“Pommy,” “Pommygranate” and “Pommigrant” in Kangaroo

Mr and Mrs Somers, the Amateur Emigrants

chapter 8|36 pages

The Race for the Bush

The Australian Aboriginal Presence and British Race Regeneration in Kangaroo and The Boy in the Bush

chapter 10|22 pages

The Aristocrat in the Bush

Some Textual Origins for the Questing Hero in The Boy in the Bush

chapter 11|16 pages

Out of Place

Colonial Australians in St. Mawr

chapter 12|28 pages

Last Words

“Preface to Black Swans,” “The Hand,” Lady Chatterley's Lover, “Eve in the Land of Nod,” P. R. Stephensen – Mandrake Press and “Introduction to Pansies,” Mimosa Letters

chapter |2 pages

Conclusion