THE CONFERNCE IN LONDON

THE fraught friendship betwen Lawrence and his benefactor Ottoline Morrell was the subject of the opening talk delivered by Sandra J. Darroch at the 14th Annual D.H. Lawrence Conference in London in August 2017.

The Conference was held in an elegant Georgian house in Bedford Square, on the opposite side of the Square to Ottoline's house at No. 44 where Lawrence was introduced by Ottoline to London literary society in 1915.

Sandra, the Secretary of the D.H. Lawrence Society of Australia, discussed the intense friendship which blossomed between Lawrence and Ottoline, and the breakdown of this friendship after Lawrence portrayed aspects of her as Hermion Roddice in Women in Love. (Click HERE to read Sandra's talk.) Nevertheless, despite the frisson caused by the portrayal of her in his novel, they patched up their friendship towards the end of their lives, and Ottoline regarded Lawrence as one of the three most important men in her life, along with Lytton Strachey and Bertrand Russell.

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