Locating Lawrence: March 1924

Europe has become a ‘weariness’ to Lawrence, but will America lift the spirits of literature’s angriest writer? Think we all know the answer to that one…

‘Thank goodness we are getting out of Europe. It is a weariness to me. I prefer to be on the American continent,[i]’ Lawrence informs Bessie Freeman on the 1 March, a few days before he sets sail to New York to sort out his income tax and unpaid royalties from his publisher Thomas Seltzer. From there, he’s off to Taos, but it’s just a ‘jumping off place’ as he really wants to go back to Mexico because he has a novel he wants ‘to finish off there.[ii]’

Dorothy Brett is joining them on their trip. Lawrence gives a reductive outline of his fellow traveller: ‘She is deaf – and a painter -and daughter of Viscount Esher.[iii]’ But this is no jumping off spot for her. Taos will become Brett’s home for the rest of her life.

The final contractual agreements are made with Mollie Skinner and Lawrence is as thorough as ever in outlining how sales work: ‘Statements are made on June 30^th and Decm. 31^st. and payments are made on 1^st Oct. and 1^st May, each year. Curtis Brown is very strict in business, so you will be quite safe.[iv]’ His objective is for her to ‘get some money as well as fame.[v]’ The least he can do after rewriting her book.

The R.M.S Aquitania does about ‘580 – or 585 sea miles a day.’[vi] ‘The unending motion irritates’ Frieda but ‘I rather like it.[vii]’ Lawrence’s main problem seems to be with the size of the ship ‘rather too big – like living in a Town Hall[viii]’ and, of course, his fellow travellers. ‘Most people are unpleasant nowadays, particularly those going to America to make a fortune.[ix]’

Despite his aversion to wealth, he knows an opportunity when he sees one. Customers are issued with a Daily Mail each day and consume it cover to cover. But what if his friend, S.S. Koteliansky, were to publish ‘an ‘important’ daily on a liner’. ‘It would command attention’ and provide an ‘opportunity of making oneself heard![x]’ Koteliansky had been doing a stint at The Adelphi and was keen on setting up some form of publishing of his own. But to succeed, he must ‘go at it like a lion, serpent, and a condor.[xi]’    

When they arrive at passport controls, Lawrence is disgusted by an official who mocks Dorothy Brett for travelling alone. ‘I got so mad,’ they soon ‘quieted up sharp.’ Then it’s time to face the winter. ‘We struggled up to 100^th St buried in luggage, in a taxi, in half a blizzard, snow and rain on a gale of N E wind. New York looking vile.’

He is greeted by Thomas Seltzer, the publisher who had been ignoring his letters, only to discover his business ‘has gone very badly’ and he’s suffered ‘sleepless nights.[xii]’ Perhaps he should have heeded the advice of his former American agent Robert Mountsier, who warned him against Seltzer. But Lawrence fell out with him in February 1923.  

To see previous video essays from 1924 see our playlist here. To read from the original source, see The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, Vol IV 1921 – 24 edited by Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield.

References

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[i] Letter to Bessie Freeman, 1 March (L3081)

[ii] Letter to Bessie Freeman, 1 March (L3081)

[iii] Letter to Witter Bynner, 3 March (L3083)

[iv] Letter to Mollie Skinner, 3 March (L3084)

[v] Letter to Mollie Skinner, 3 March (L3084)

[vi] Letter to John Middleton Murry, 10-11 March (L3090)

[vii] Letter to Mark Gertler, 10-11 March (L3089)

[viii] Letter to Mark Gertler, 10-11 March (L3089)

[ix] Letter to Catherine Carswell 16 March (L3094)

[x] Letter to Mark Gertler, 10-11 March (L3089)

[xi] Letter to S.S. Koteliansky, 13 March (L3092)

[xii] Letter to John Middleton Murry 11 March (L3090)