Women in love

Sensuous and spirited yet sexually unfulfilled, Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are schoolteachers living in a small mining town in the Midlands. In their search for passion, Gudrun submits to the aristocrative, cruel Gerald Crich, while Ursula finds comfort in his close friend Birkin.

Driven by forces beyond their control, their relationships shift and change, and the future holds danger as well as hope. Written during the First World War, Women In Love aroused controversy with its frank approach to sexual relations and disturbing undercurrent of violence and excess.

The book was brilliantly enacted in Ken Russell's equally controversial film, which starred Glenda Jackson, Oliver Reed, Alan Bates and Jennie Linden.