Catherine Carswell was one of the most loyal and dependable of D.H. Lawrence’s friends. When he died in 1930, with controversy over Lady Chatterley’s Lover still raging, the abuse heaped on him prompted her into writing this warm and intimate account of his life.

Savage Pilgrimage traces Lawrence’s troubled existence back to his working-class origins and gives a description of his life during the First World War after The Rainbow had been banned, when no-one would publish his work, and he became desperately poor.

This is an essential book for anyone interested in the life of one of Britain’s greatest and most controversial writers. It includes details of Lawrence’s everyday behaviour, and insights into his character, which could only have been provided by someone who was as close to him as its author.