D. H. Lawrence: Letters to Thomas & Adele Seltzer

For seven years (1919-1926), Thomas Seltzer was one of New York City's most influential small publishers, a compact engine of the coming modern movement. Born in Russia in 1875, he was a proponent of progressive politics and experimental writing, a founding editor of The Masses, and the first editor in chief of the Modern Library. At Thomas Seltzer Inc. he translated Tolstoy and Gorky, edited Chekhov and Turgenev, and published Henry James and Stefan Zweig. Most important, he championed D. H. Lawrence at a crucial period in his literary development, publishing the first U.S. editions of The Rainbow, Women in Love, Sons and Lovers, Aaron's Rod - twenty titles in all. Lawrence trusted him, enjoyed his intelligence and can-do spirit, and became warm friends to both him and his wife, Adele, who was very much a partner in Seltzer's business.

David Herbert Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England. Though better known as a novelist, his first published works were poems, and his poetry, especially his evocations of the natural world, have since had a significant influence on many poets on both side of the Atlantic. He was charged with obscenity and persecuted during World War I for the supposed German sypmathies of his wife, Frieda. Consequently, they traveled around the world, spending considerable time in Taos, New Mexico, where Lawrence became a celebrity attraction. He died in France in 1930.