ABSTRACT
By focusing on the European publishing career of the infamous British author D.H. Lawrence, this chapter discusses the changing relationships between literature, the literary marketplace and the expanding reading public during the first half of the twentieth century. International publishing companies and their series played a crucial part in the international distribution of literature, as is demonstrated by mapping the production, distribution and critical reception of Lawrence’s notorious novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928). As literature became part of a commercialized world, authors faced a conflict between economic and artistic values. Lawrence explicitly addressed the preoccupation with literary prestige and the demands of a highly commercialized literary marketplace. This chapter maps the international career of Lawrence’s novel by exploring how Albatross Books – a publishing company founded in 1932 – forged a new, European readership for contemporary British and American literature.
