LAWRENCE, D. H. (1885-1930). The Rainbow, London, 1915, 8vo, original cloth. A FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION, ONE OF APPROXIMATELY 500 COPIES PRINTED FOR 'METHUEN'S COLONIAL LIBRARY'. cf. Roberts A7.

LAWRENCE, D. H. (1885-1930).  The Rainbow. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. ["Methuen's Colonial Library" on half title], 1915. 8vo (188 x 125mm). Half title (maginal stain to a few leaves near the end). Original 'rust'-coloured cloth, the spine lettered and decorated in gilt, with "Methuen Colonial Library" advertisements to the front pastedown and endpaper, and 6-pages of advertisements at the end on and the rear pastedown (without the dust-jacket). A FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION, ONE OF APPROXIMATELY 500 COPIES PRINTED FOR 'METHUEN'S COLONIAL LIBRARY'. In November 1915 The Rainbow was prosecuted for obscenity at Bow Street Magistrate's Court, as a result of which in excess of a thousand copies of the standard Methuen first edition, of a total of approximately 2,500, were destroyed. However, Methuen had simultaneously printed a 'Colonial Library Edition' of approximately 500 copies and these, distributed to the British colonies prior to the ban, managed to evade destruction. The novel was not republished in the U.K. until Martin Secker's edition of 1926, albeit in an expurgated form. The first completely unexpurgated edition, repeating Methuen's original text verbatim, was by Penguin Books in 1949. It would be just over a decade later that Penguin would achieve its most celebrated, albeit posthumous, victory against censorship on Lawrence's behalf. "The book is remarkable for its study of the 'recurrence of love and conflict' within the marriages it describes; for its attempt to capture the flux of human personality; and for its sense of a mysterious procreative continuity within the 'rhythm of eternity' both of the seasons and of the Christian year" (The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Drabble, 1985). cf. Roberts A Bibliography of D. H. Lawrence (1963) A7: "The first printing consisted of 2500 copies, of which the majority presumably were destroyed as a result of the court action against the book." Curiously, Roberts makes no mention of the present 'Colonial Library Edition'.