But Lawrence, for some reason, was reluctant to make the suggested change, and ignored her plea. As a result, she had to make the change on the manuscript herself, ensuring that her husband was portrayed in the published novel as "Donald Gilchrist".

We will revisit Lawrence's curious reluctance to make changes in his manuscripts.

Lawrence's name-shifts could be quite simple [Bertha Coutts=Bertha Cutts], or else more complex and difficult to unravel.

Take, for example, the name he gave himself in Kangaroo, Richard Lovatt Somers. Where did he get that name from?

(The spellings Lovatt and Harriett, with the double-t, is the way Lawrence originally wrote them, but Secker dropped the second "t" in both cases - and these incomplete spellings were subsequently followed in all UK editions, up to the CUP edition, which restored the original spellings.)

Obviously his Somers "departure point" was his own name - DH (David Herbert) Lawrence.

But that was not his full name, which was David Herbert Richards Lawrence, which is where he may have derived his fictional hero's first name, Richard.

When David Herbert Richards Lawrence arrived in Sydney he had, I am convinced, already decided to "fictionalise" the day-to-day activities of a visiting English author (ie, himself). One of his favourite authors happened to be Robert Louis Stevenson, who had visited Sydney some time previously.

In that context the initials "RLS" may have come to mind.

Lawrence could even have read an "Australian-content" novel Stevenson himself had co-authored with his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne (The Wrecker [Charles Scribner, New York 1905]). Not only did that novel include a sequence, as Kangaroo does, set in the Botanic Gardens in Sydney, but is also partly set on the South Coast of NSW (as, of course, is Kangaroo).

Somers' middle name Lovatt could have come from a number of sources. There was a pottery near Eastwood called Lovatt's Langley Mill, and the partner in Rosenthal's architectural practice was called Louat, which Lawrence could have misread, or misheard, as "Lovatt".

It is just as likely, however, that Lovatt is a "sliding-transposition" from Lawrence's main nickname, Lorenzo (which is what Frieda and, for example, Richard Aldington usually called him).

Significantly, Lawrence alternates between "Lovatt" and "Richard" when referring to himself in the text. However, Harriett always refers to him as "Lovatt", and he uses that name in any context in which Harriett is also mentioned. That is probably a variation of, or transposition from, "Lorenzo".

The surname Somers could also have come from a number of sources, local or exotic.

There was a garage in Macquarie Street called Somers and Dunlop, and a former Governor of Victoria had been Lord Somers.

Or it could have been derived from some other source of which we are at present unaware (such as Somers Town, near Euston station, in London).