Lady Chatterley’s Lover is to go under the hammer!

Lady Chatterley’s Lover was a controversial read for a time- and Penguin Publishing has to go to trial in the 1960s to defend it. The judge, Sir Lawrence Byrne, who resided over the obscenity trial famously said:

“Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters – because girls can read as well as boys – reading this book? Is it a book that you would… wish your wife or your servants to read?”

The sexually-charged novel was poured over by the judge’s wife, Lady Dorothy Byrne, with each explicit passage highlighted and notes of coarse language dotted throughout. Lady Byrne even stitched a cloth cover to keep the book away from the eyes of the press, or the innocent eyes of delicate ladies…

The very book used by Judge Lawrence Byrne, with his wife’s own notes within it, is now being auctioned off at Sotheby’s at the end of October.

The famous book is expected to go for £15,000 when sold at auction on the 30th of October, and is described by Sotheby’s as the most important copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover to exist. Thanks to the obscenity trial the book went on to sell 200,000 copies of the book in a day- all the copies they had printed.

The case has been seen as a test for the 1959 Obscene Publications Act, and summarised the clash between liberal youth and stuffy oldies of the 1960s. Thank goodness freedom of expression won- goodness knows what we may have lost out on without Penguin winning the case of Lady Chatterley’s Lover! 

I also wonder what the Judge and Lady Byrne would think of 50 Shades of Grey..! 

Buy your copy here