Lady Chatterley and the Monk: Anglican Radicals and the Lady Chatterley Trial of 1960

The trial of Penguin Books for publishing an unexpurgated edition of D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's lover is a symbolic episode in histories of 1960s Britain, used to illustrate changes in social attitudes. However, historians have not appreciated the impact of the trial on Anglican attitudes towards contemporary society. Using correspondence in the papers of the Mirfield father and literary critic Martin Jarrett-Kerr, this article reveals the tensions within a loose coalition of Anglican radicals just as their views began to receive attention in the media. Jarrett-Kerr and fellow liberal Anglo-Catholics found themselves in an uneasy alliance with Liberal Anglicans, whose views were conflated with those of the radicals.