8vo. Original brown boards stamped in black, printed paper label on spine, uncut and unopened; PLAIN CREAM DUST JACKET (chipping to fore-corners and spine ends, partial closed tear with loss to spine panel near head, extremities sunned).

FIRST EDITION, LIMITED ISSUE, number 910 of 1,000 copies SIGNED BY LAWRENCE. 

After repeated refusals from English publishers, D.H. Lawrence arranged for Lady Chatterley's Lover to be privately printed in Florence in the spring of 1928 by the Tipografia Giuntina. Issued in an edition of 1,000 numbered copies priced at £2 each, Lawrence distributed order forms to friends and contacts in Europe and America who acted as informal agents for the book. The novel’s frank treatment of sexuality and its depiction of a relationship between an aristocratic woman and her gamekeeper quickly drew the attention of censors; it was suppressed in Britain and barred from import into the United States, forcing it to circulate largely through privately distributed or smuggled copies. By December 1928, nearly the entire edition had been sold despite these restrictions. The ban in Britain was not effectively lifted until the landmark 1960 obscenity trial, R v Penguin Books Ltd, in which Penguin Books successfully defended its right to publish an unexpurgated edition under the new Obscene Publications Act, a decision widely regarded as a turning point in modern literary censorship. Connolly, The Modern Movement 57; Roberts A42a. IN THE RARE DUST JACKET.