“Owen agrees with Anthony Burgess and Aldous Huxley that Lawrence served English literature and himself all the better for staying away from England. Gracefully, he portrays the Riviera and warmth of Italian society in which Lawrence was slowly resurrected and enabled to write. ” ― The Times

“The former Rome correspondent of The Times reconstructs the drama leading to the creation of one of history’s most controversial novels and explores DH Lawrence’s passion for all things Italian. ” ― Sunday Telegraph

“Beautifully produced. . . . This is a story of friendships and a valuable portrait of a great writer at work. ” ― Country Life

"Owen offers an engaging picture." ― Literary Review

"This book usefully fills out our knowledge of one of the twentieth century’s great writers and adds to our sense of how potent the appeal of Italy has always been to the British imagination." -- David Ellis, author of Death and the Author: How D. H. Lawrence Died, and was Remembered

November 1925: In search of health and sun, the writer D. H. Lawrence arrives on the Italian Riviera with his wife, Frieda, and is exhilarated by the view of the sparkling Mediterranean from his rented villa, set amid olives and vines. But over the next six months, Frieda will be fatally attracted to their landlord, a dashing Italian army officer. This incident of infidelity influenced Lawrence to write two short stories, “Sun” and “The Virgin and the Gypsy,” in which women are drawn to earthy, muscular men, both of which prefigured his scandalous novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

In DH Lawrence in Italy, Owen reconstructs the drama leading up to the creation of one of the most controversial novels of all time by drawing on the unpublished letters and diaries of Rina Secker, the Anglo-Italian wife of Lawrence’s publisher. In addition to telling the story of the origins of Lady Chatterley, DH Lawrence in Italy explores Lawrence’s passion for all things Italian, tracking his path to the Riviera from Lake Garda to Lerici, Abruzzo, Capri, Sicily, and Sardinia.

Richard Owen was The Times correspondent for fifteen years. Owen has written several works of non-fiction, including Crisis in the Kremlin: Soviet Succession and the Rise of Gorbachov, Letter from Moscow and Lady Chatterley’s Villa: DH Lawrence on the Italian Riviera.