Book Description
The Virgin and the Gipsy was discovered in France after D. H. Lawrence's death in 1930. Immediately recognized as a masterpiece in which Lawrence had distilled and purified his ideas about sexuality and morality, The Virgin and the Gipsy has become a classic and is one of Lawrence's most electrifying short novels.
Set in a small village in the English countryside, this is the story of a secluded, sensitive rector's daughter who yearns for meaning beyond the life to which she seems doomed. When she meets a handsome young gipsy whose life appears different from hers in every way, she is immediately smitten and yet still paralyzed by her own fear and social convention. Not until a natural catastrophe suddenly, miraculously sweeps away the world as she knew it does a new world of passion open for her. Lawrence's spirit is infused by all his tenderness, passion, and knowledge of the human soul.
Customer Reviews:
Distilled Lawrence.......2007-05-15
The Virgin and the Gipsy, told in the language of a vivid, pared-down parable, though short, seems somehow an essential addition to Lawrence's canon.
The story of a younger sister simmering with rebellion against the stifling morality of a rectory, society's expectations, and a vampiric mother figure, it seems to incorporate themes of Lady Chatterley, Sons & Lovers and Women in Love in a potent distillation of Lawrence's obsessions. It's like a voluptuous poem that affirms and fortifies his earlier work.
This is a great book for those who find some of the more well-known novels "baggy" or "loose." Direct and unadorned, the language nonetheless probes the protagonist's inner life with Lawrence's characteristic poetic incisiveness. The language catches us at the elemental level of a fairy tale, and in places, the vividness is almost startling.
Lawrence can be eyebrow-raising in his directness: not even about sex, but about human beings, their true hidden feelings and motivations. Highly recommended.
Longing For Love.......2006-05-11
In this book, Lawrence is in usual top form in describing the longing of a young girl, a virgin, for the slightly unconventional. Her vision of her future being a stayed and commonplace marriage to one of the local boys of character and money, she longs for something else before that fate befalls her. She does find that love, very much by accident.
She comes across a Gypsy and she falls deeply and viscerally in love with him. Yet, she is coy and she is proper about it. Although she badly wishes to be with him, she understands the potential scandal of such a union. Her father being one that is a non-believer, despite his position as the rector; she sees his revulsion for those things of the body. The rector's wife had left him for an impoverished boy. She sought something the rector just could not provide to her. Even though she was his everything, he was not able to make her feel the love she wished deeply even to her bones.
Her daughter too felt that there was more than just the future she envisioned. She felt that it was not a matter that could be ignored. It was a matter that had to be satisfied and soon. But how to do so, without being seen as a prostitute by her own family; that was the mystery and the beauty of the book.
Finally, amongst a great flood and terror that is more frightful than can be imagined, she finds herself with the Gypsy in her own bedroom, safe from the outside world of people because of the isolation and protection afforded by an unanticipated flood. Here she makes the passionate love to him that she had heretofore only dreamed about. Here she becomes a woman, and becomes a lover at the same time.
As always, Lawrence fills the text with serious metaphor and memory. He uses symbolism, systematically revealing the undercurrents of his character's huge love and anticipation with thinly veiled double entendres and images. This book is specifically recommended for Lawrence readers, but in addition, the book is highly recommended to those seeking love and those fulfilled in love.
A Deep Exploration of Female Feelings.......2005-07-09
Though it is a quite short story, the Virgin and the Gipsy, tells a lot about the feelings and thoughts of a lot of young women from all over the world. Yvette is a beautiful 19 year old virgin, still discovering a lot about life and sexuality. She stumbles upon this gipsy who eventually helps her settle down her turmoil of emotional confusions. Yvette has felt as a prisoner all her life. A prisoner living in a house which is supposedly occupied by her family, whereas in fact they were her enemies. A prisoner of convention and narrow defintions of important things as love and sex. And a prisoner of her own past, where she has always struggled to jusitfy her mother's escape for the sake of love. The looks of the gipsy transfer to her liberty, more precisely; sexual liberty and understanding. Although it takes her sometime to discover that, her discovery is sure at the end and at last she becomes capable of declaring that she knows what love is.
Unfinished fairy tale for adults.......2003-08-19
The Virgin and the Gipsy by D. H. Lawrence. Recommended.
Discovered in France after D. H. Lawrence's death and never finalized by the author, The Virgin and the Gipsy is the fairy tale-like story of Yvette Saywell, a 19-year-old rector's daughter chafing against the moral "life unbelievers" that make up her family.
Although the "virgin" of the title, Yvette is no demure maiden. She is temperamental, strong willed, and aware of her father's "degrading unbelief, the worm which was his heart's core"-just as her fallen mother was. She enjoys being contrary and openly contemptuous of her middle-class, overtly moral, covertly disturbed family. Her every exposure to life leaves her harder; "She lost her illusions in the collapse of her sympathies." She loathes the rectory "with a loathing that consumed her life."
The most hated person in the Saywell family is the rector's ancient, blind mother, called "The Mater" or "Granny." Yvette hates her. Her sister Lucille hates her. Their aunt Cissie hates her. She is compared to a toad, a reptile, a fungus. Like the toad that snaps its jaws on all the bees exiting the hive and devouring all life around it, The Mater, who gave literal life to the family, absorbs the entire family's energy and life force. The gardener smashes the toad with a stone in oblique foreshadowing of The Mater's fate.
Yvette is keenly aware of her status as a "moral unbeliever" (like her mother, who ran off with young man when Lucille and Yvette were children) and her virgin power. When she finds herself in the company of a virile gipsy man and his "lonely, predative glance," she finds herself in his virile power, "gone in his will."
The gipsy represents her "free-born will," which separates her from the rest of the Saywells. He is an outsider, "on an old, old war-path against such as herself . . . Yes, if she belonged to any side, and to any clan, it was to his." Under the influence of the absent mother, an adulterous couple she encounters, and the defiant gipsy who "endures in opposition," Yvette is forced into a confrontation with her sneering father-a confrontation that brings out his hidden evil and self-righteousness.
The Virgin and the Gipsy is an odd novel, much of it written in the style of an adult fairy tale. "The Mater could be a variation of "The Wicked Queen," while "She-who-was-Cynthia," the "white snowflower" of a myth or tale, blooming in perpetuity, could be the prodigal Princess whose transformation into a degraded nettle threatens the self-satisfied and lethal stability of the Saywells. The deluge that puts an end to this uncomfortable status quo is at first mysterious in origin, purging the world as it does on a clear, sunny, rainless day. The gipsy could be the Prince or the traveler, come from afar and finally fulfilling his role in the tale as rescuer-literally and figuratively.
Lawrence was known for rewriting and editing many times over, and clearly The Virgin and Gipsy lacks his revision. Yet its themes of female sexuality, male power over it, the immorality of conventional morality, and the sacredness of vitality that are explored in depth in Lady Chatterley's Lover and Women in Love, are here presented in a beautifully distilled form-perhaps more haunting for its very simplicity.
Diane L. Schirf, 18 August 2003.
Clash of Nature and Nurture in the Rector's Daughter.......2001-05-21
This book was found in D.H. Lawrence's papers after his death. It has been published as it was found, which was probably incomplete. The story has some rough edges that undoubtedly would have been smoothed with more rewriting. The book raises interesting questions about what love, proper behavior, and life are all about.
The rector had a tragedy in his marriage. The woman whose virginal beauty and nature he had loved became frustrated with him, and left him with two young daughters for another man. Despite his loss of "she who was Cynthia," the rector still loves that memory. His younger daughter, Yvette, grows up to be a lot like her mother. That makes life tough for her, because her Grandmother and maiden Aunt rule the roost, and despise anything that or anyone who reminds them of "she who was Cynthia." Despite the encouragement of her more conventional older sister, Yvette is at sixes and sevens. She cannot stand her home, her family, or the young men who woo her. She feels totally bored and frustrated.
In the midst of her crisis after school ends, she notices a gypsy who seems to command and excite her at the same time. He is the only person who has ever positively moved her, and she doesn't know what to make of it. But her lack of focus keeps her from doing much about it. "She was born inside the pale. And she liked comfort, and a certain prestige." So the idea of running off with a married father of five children who lives in a caravan doesn't exactly thrill her.
The tension builds in the household as her rector father discovers she has made friends with "unsuitable" people (a couple living together prior to marriage, following the woman's divorce). Yvette cuts off her connection with them.
Probably nothing would have happened, but the gypsy returns one more time . . . and the unexpected happens. Vague thoughts must become bold action, or danger awaits!
The book's ending has many of the qualities of "The Lady or the Tiger" and you will be left to fill in the blanks of what happens next in your own mind.
The book left me feeling a little uncomfortable. The class distinctions, the hatred, the unpleasantness to one another, and the purposeless lives irritated me. I wasn't sure where Lawrence agreed with these views and where he did not. He seems to be coming down on the side of those who are "disreputable" but he is hard on them for having inappropriate qualities as well. It's almost as though Lawrence didn't like any of his characters, except perhaps the gypsy. Certainly, it is rewarding to read about complex characters who are flawed.
The book's main weakness is that the metaphors weigh a bit too heavily on the story. A little more subtlety would have made the story more appealing. For much of the book, I thought the structure stuck out too much. There is little action for most of the story, yet the character development is limited except for Yvette and her father.
Those who are used to modern novels will find all of the hinting around about sexual attraction to be a little strange. I thought that it was sort of charming in the context of a society that liked to pretend that such emotions only occurred on a limited basis within marriage.
After you enjoy the story (be sure to stick with it to the end!), I suggest that you think about where we deny emotions and attitudes that people have every day. What honesty and spontaneity are lost thereby?
Enjoy your honest emotions as well as your honest thoughts! Be kind to all you meet!
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St Mawr / The Virgin And The Gipsy
D H Lawrence
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Lawrence, D.H.
| Classics
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000UKXFW0 |
Average customer rating:
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St Mawr / The Virgin And The Gipsy
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Lawrence, D.H.
| Classics
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000G9HJ0Y |
Average customer rating:
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St Mawr / The Virgin And The Gipsy
D H Lawrence
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Lawrence, D.H.
| Classics
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B0000CHLYK |
Average customer rating:
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St Mawr The Virgin And The Gipsy
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Lawrence, D.H.
| Classics
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000G9STZ8 |
Average customer rating:
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ST MAWR: THE VIRGIN AND THE GIPSY
D. H. LAWRENCE
Manufacturer: PENGUIN
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Lawrence, D.H.
| Classics
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000S835UQ |
Book Description
Two wonderful regencies at one wonderful price
Readers can experience Sandra Heath's "rare talent for crafting unusual but intriguing tales" (Romance Fiction Forum) with two of the award-winning author's stories-together for the first time.
Customer Reviews:
Loved them both.......2005-12-30
This is the first book I've read by the author and I really enjoyed them both. My favorite was My Lady Domino which I didn't want to put down. A Commercial Enterprise was good too but I would probably rate it a 4 instead of a 5. I'm excited to read more books from Heath.
two super Heath novels for price of one!.......2005-10-28
Ah, sigh...such a pleasure to read excellent Multi-POV that lets all the characters of the book come to life. US has this enforced single Point of View thing going the last 10 years. That is fine for those who like it. Guess what not all of us do. I love knowing all the characters in the book and find that missing so much in American writers today. Heath is British and the comforting Brit style of POV usage made me smile. Heath has this down to a pat and it's so enjoyable to read this wonderful style again.
These are two excellent Heath books in one! My Lady Domino finds Miss Adele Russell living in reduced circumstances. She was once the only daughter of a rich Bath banker and engaged to the devilishly handsome David Latimer, Earl of Blaisdon. The evil Duke Bellingham conspired with her father's clerk to rob the bank blind. When her father was ready to expose them, the secretary set a fire and killed her father, destroying her home. Adele was left to deal with the scandal when her father was accused to stealing the money. No one ever stopped to ask where it went. No one listened when she tried to expose the men who killed her father. Especially absent from supporting her in this time of troubles as her fiancé. David Latimer barely had the courtesy to send a dear john note before decamping Bath.
Broken hearted, Adele now lives with her former governess. The governess runs a fashionable store in bath and Adele works there as a clerk. Life goes along well, it rather dull until news that David Latimer has returned. Adele is distress everyone is saying he is going to marry the daughter of the Duke of Bellingham.
As the night of the masquerade at the Bellingham manor arrives, Adele takes the risk. She alters her mother's gown and slips into the mansion, just to live in the manner she once had. David Latimer dances with her, but he doesn't recognize her as his former love. Hurt, she dances with the son of the Duke, which sets off a chain of events that nearly destroys all their lives.
It's a skillfully woven tale, that touches the heart and done with a beautiful use of multiple-POV. Wish American readers would once again embrace this beautiful style. It's just so "full", instead of paint-by-numbers it's a masterpiece of light and shadow.
In the second full book, A Commercial Enterprise, it's about choices within oneself. Caroline Hexham's father was the black sheep of the Hexham family. He was a good man who married for love. As such, Caroline has been shunned by the powerful Hexham family her whole life. She is tried of life as a country mouse, so when her uncle dies, and his solicitor requests Caroline's presence in London, she jumps at the chance. On the journey she travels with Sir Henry Seymour, an aid and spymaster under Wellington.
Caroline is attracted to the handsome man, but has a lot on her plate at the moment. In a fit, her uncle gave the family manor in London to Caroline as long as she meets several stipulations. It's obvious to Caroline, he is being used as a prod against her cousin, but she seizes the chance to turn it into a thriving hotel for the elite.
There is romance abound, a temperamental French cook and a plot to assassinate Wellington. All done with Heaths charm and detailed style.
Two wonderful books for the price of one! A great treat.
Double the Pleasure - .......2004-12-05
MY LADY DOMINO
Once upon a time, Adele Russell had been the belle of the ball, engaged to David Latimer, with Society's doors thrown open to welcome her. But then, life intervened: David had to make a sudden trip to India, with no time to advise Adele that he still loved her and would return. The letter went astray, and the betrothal was broken.
As if that wasn't enough of a blow, four years later, her father died in disgrace, leaving her nearly destitute and forced to find employment A friend who was a haberdasher was pleased to employ Adele, but her new life style bore little resemblance to the one she had expected to be leading.
Set in Bath, the story is light-hearted yet serious, a reminder to all of us that life can change in the blink of an eye. In spite of hardships, wonderful villains and other traumatic events, all comes right in the end.
A COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE
An unexpected inheritance can open-or close-doors. When Caroline Lexham found herself to be the new owner of an elegant London mansion, she knew it would take a major effort to maintain both herself and her new abode. So, she turned it into a first-class (five-star?) hotel. Her chance to shine in Society's light is a celebratory banquet honoring the Duke of Wellington in the spring of 1818.
It's hardly to be wondered at that a cousin takes exception to this plan, as do several rivals, but Caroline will not easily give up her dream. When Harry Seymour appears on the scene, she knows she's made the right choice.
There is a lot of action in this story, and just enough romance to keep things interesting. How neat to have these two books in one volume. Adele and Caroline would have been great friends, had they ever met. Each of them is true to her own self, while forging ahead in ways new to the times in which they lived, yet never exceeding the boundaries established by society. And in the end, their dreams come true.
As usual in any book by Sandra Heath, the settings, the costumes, the characters, the events depicted are all true to the Regency era. This one provides double the pleasure. Hooray!
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Doomed Planet (Mission Earth Series)
L. Ron Hubbard
Manufacturer: Bridge Publications (CA)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| African American
| Asian American
| Classics
| Collections & Readers
| Drama
| General
| Hispanic
| History & Criticism
| Humor
| Jewish American
| Letters & Correspondence
| Native American
| Poetry
| Short Stories
| Women Writers
Hubbard, L. Ron
| ( H )
| Authors, A-Z
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0884042162 |
Book Description
Whoom!
The tank, containing Lombar Hisst, was thrown backwards fifty yards in a breath!
Men and huts and buildings were flying through the air as though propelled by the most monstrous hurricane that ever hit a planet's face.
A hundred thousand rebel troops under Prince Mortiiy fell upon the hated Apparatus survivors. There was no quarter given.
Lombar Hisst lay in the cabin of the tank. The vehicle was upside down. Apparently they had missed, somehow, the fact that he was there.
Lombar Hisst began to plan. Palace City in a hundred and twenty-five thousand years had never been breached.
Lombar flipped the tank upright and held the throttles still. In a crazy surge of glee, he flipped on the tank's loud-hailer system and bellowed: "You idiots. I'll laugh in the faces of your corpses when you try to crack the gates of Palace City. COME AND GET ME!"
Will Hisst escape into Palace City and successfully defy Jettero Heller and Prince Mortiiy's invasion forces? Will the Army and Fleet remain aloof from the fight between Hisst and Heller and, thus, endanger the invasion and overthrow Hisst?
And what about J. Walter Madison? Will his "PR" efforts finally doom Earth to invasion despite all Jettero Heller's efforts to protect his friends back on Earth?
Find out the answers to these questions, and more, in this exciting, fiery concluding volume of L. Ron Hubbard's best-selling epic MISSION EARTH.
Average customer rating:
- I can't beleive I read the whole thing
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Doomed Planet
L.Ron Hubbard
Manufacturer: New Era Publications UK Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Hubbard, L. Ron
| ( H )
| Authors, A-Z
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
| Adventure
| Alternate History
| Anthologies
| General
| Graphic Novels
| High Tech
| History & Criticism
| Series
| Short Stories
| Space Opera
ASIN: 1870451066 |
Customer Reviews:
I can't beleive I read the whole thing.......2005-02-12
Ugh, I made it to Vol. 10! Why didn't I stop at Vol. 1?
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DOOMED PLANET
Lee Sheldon
Manufacturer: Avalon First Edition
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NZOIDW |
Average customer rating:
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Doomed planet
Lee Sheldon
Manufacturer: Avalon books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
General
| Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B0007E9Y3I |
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The Doomed Planet - Mission Earth 10
L. Ron Hubbard
Manufacturer: Bridge Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
Hubbard, L. Ron
| ( H )
| Authors, A-Z
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Fantasy
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
Fantasy
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Books on Cassette
| Audiobooks
| Formats
| Books
Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Books on Cassette
| Audiobooks
| Formats
| Books
Hubbard, L. Ron
| ( H )
| Authors, A-Z
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Books on Cassette
| Audiobooks
| Formats
| Books
General
| Books on Cassette
| Audiobooks
| Formats
| Books
ASIN: B000OISTP6 |
Product Description
The concluding episode of L. Ron Hubbard's bestselling epic Mission Earth.
Books:
- The Warmest December
- The Water Dancers: A Novel
- The Whale Caller: A Novel
- The Wicked Pavilion
- The Witches of Eastwick
- To the Last Man I Slept with and All the Jerks Just Like Him
- Too Beautiful for Words
- Tropical Fish: Stories Out Of Entebbe (Awp Award Series in Short Fiction)
- Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia
- Trying to Save Piggy Sneed
Books Index
Books Home
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- My Life As a Gay Man in a Straight Woman's Body: An Autobiography
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The Plumed Serpent
The Lost Girl: A Novel (Modern Library Classics)
Women in Love
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2: The Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century (Norton Anthology of English Literature)
The Rainbow: Cambridge Lawrence Edition (Penguin Classics)
