In 1915, Lawrence`s frank representation of sexuality in The Rainbow caused a furore and the novel was seized by the police and banned almost as soon as it was published. Today it is recognised as one of the classic English novels of the twentieth century.

The Rainbow is about theree generations of the Bragwen family of Nottinghamshire from the 1840s to the early years of the twentieth century. Within this historical framework Lawrence`s essential concern is with the passionate lives of his characters and he explores the pressures that determine their lives, using a religious symbolizm in which the `rainbow` of the title is his unifying motif. His primary focus is on the individual`s struggle to growth and fulfilment within marriage and changing social circumstances, a process shown to grow more difficult through the generations. Young Ursula Brangwen, whose story is contimued in Women in Love, is finally the central figure in Lawrence`s anatomy of the confining structures of English social life and the impact of undustrialisation and urbanisation on the human psyche.