<div> <div>Seen by Lawrence as his most successful book, but subject to the initial prudery and incomprehension that met most of his fiction, <i>Women in Love</i> charts the regenerative and destructive aspects of human passion as Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen#151;who first appeared in <i>The Rainbow</i>#151;conduct relationships with Gerald Crich and Rupert Birkin. Set against a backdrop of a world consuming itself in war, the novel creates an instructive vision of humanity's poignant dance with life and death. This text is the famous "first" <i>Women In Love</i>, Lawrence's preferred and unexpurgated version, which was rejected by every publisher who saw it because of the banning of <i>The Rainbow</i> in 1915. More positive in tone than the revised version published later, with different central relationships and a radically different ending, it is now viewed by many as his greatest work.</div> </div>