‘My dear Garnett … why do you take so much trouble for me?’: Edward Garnett, ‘Friend and Protector’

Arguing that traditional criticism on Lawrence’s literary career has studied certain figures such as the publisher’s reader Edward Garnett largely in one-dimensional terms, Chapter 4 focuses on Garnett’s vital editorial assistance with the ‘Saga of Siegmund’ manuscript, which became Lawrence’s second novel The Trespasser (1912). Ford Madox Hueffer had warned Lawrence not to publish the book, believing that its ‘phallic’ content would ruin Lawrence’s reputation. The chapter considers the help Garnett gave Lawrence in placing his poems, sketches, plays and short stories in a climate of censorship enforced by influential bodies such as the Circulating Libraries Association. Chapter 4 outlines the extensive experience Garnett had as a publisher’s reader and his status as a critic and a writer who had been involved in high-profile censorship disputes. These various experiences enabled him to manage the ‘erotic’ content of The Trespasser and to secure its publication by Gerald Duckworth. If Garnett had not intervened at this stage in Lawrence’s career then The Trespasser and Sons and Lovers (1913) may never have been published and his career could have been over before it had really begun.