Sons and Lovers - Chapter I - The Early Married Life of the Morels

Aug 25, 2026

Uploaded by Levi

Sons and Lovers - Chapter I - The Early Married Life of the Morels opens with the Morel family’s move into Bestwood, shaped by the rise of large mines and the replacement of older slums. The Bottoms settlement is described as solid outside yet unpleasant in daily life, with kitchens opening onto ash-pit alleys. Against this constrained environment, Mrs. Morel—expecting her third child—prepares for the local wakes and observes the expectations her husband’s work and the children’s excitement bring to the fragile rhythm of early married life.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryStory & Novel

FormatPDF

Pages641

Reading Time16 h 27 min

AccessFree to download

Part One

Chapter I - The Early Married Life of the Morels

Sons and Lovers By D. H. Lawrence Download free eBooks of classic literature, books and novels at Planet eBook Subscribe to our free eBooks blog and email newsletter Part One 􀀗 Sons and Lovers CHAPTER I THE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF THE MORELS ‘THE BOTTOMS’ succeeded to ‘Hell Row”. Hell Row was a block of thatched, bulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill Lane. There lived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away. The brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these small mines, whose coal was drawn to the surface by donkeys that plodded wearily in a circle round a gin. And all over the countryside were these same pits, some of which had been worked in the time of Charles II, the few colliers and the donkeys burrowing down like ants into the earth, making queer moundsand little black places among the corn-fields and the meadows. And the cottages of these coal-miners, in blocks and pairs here and there, together with odd farms and homes of the stockingers, straying over the parish, formed the village of Bestwood. Then, some sixty years ago, a sudden change took place. The gin-pits were elbowed aside by the large mines of the financiers. The coal and iron field of Nottinghamshire and [Free eBooks at](Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com)[ Planet eBook.com](Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com) 􀀖 Derbyshire was discovered. Carston, Waite and Co. appeared. Amid tremendous excitement, Lord Palmerston formally opened the company’s first mine at Spinney Park, on the edge of Sherwood Forest. About this time the notorious Hell Row, which through growing old had acquired an evil reputation, was burned down, and much dirt was cleansed away. Carston, Waite & Co. found they had struck on a good thing, so, down the valleys of the brooks from Selby and Nuttall, new mines were sunk, until soon there were six pits working. From Nuttall, high up on the sandstone among the woods, the railway ran, past the ruined priory of the Carthusians and past Robin Hood’s Well, down to Spinney Park, then on to Minton, a large mine among corn-fields; from Minton across the farmlands of the valleyside to Bunker’s Hill, branching off there, and running north to Beggarlee and Selby, that looks over at Crich and the hills of Derbyshire: six mines like black studs on the countryside, linked by a loop of fine chain, the railway. To accommodate the regiments of miners, Carston, Waite and Co. built the Squares, great quadrangles of dwellingson the hillside of Bestwood, and then, in the brook valley, on the site of Hell Row, they erected the Bottoms. The Bottoms consisted of six blocks of miners’ dwellings, two rows of three, like the dots on a blank-six domino, and twelve houses in a block. This double row of dwellings sat at the foot of the rather sharp slope from Bestwood, and looked out, from the attic windows at least, on the slow climb of the valley towards Selby. 􀀎 Sons and Lovers The houses themselves were substantial and very decent. One could walk all round, seeing little front gardens with auriculas and saxifrage in the shadow of the bottom block, sweet-williams and pinks in the sunny top block; seeing neat front windows, little porches, little privet hedges, and dormer windows for the attics. But that was outside; that was the view on to the uninhabited parlours of all the colliers’ wives. The dwelling-room, the kitchen, was at the back of the house, facing inward between the blocks, looking at a scrubby back garden, and then at the ash-pits. And between the rows, between the long lines of ash-pits, went the alley, where the children played and the women gossiped and the men smoked. So, the actual conditions of living in the Bottoms, that was so well built and that looked so nice, were quite unsavoury because people must live in the kitchen, and the kitchens opened on to that nasty alley of ash-pits. Mrs. Morel was not anxious to move into the Bottoms, which was already twelve years old an

FAQs

What is Mrs. Morel’s situation when the wakes begin?

Mrs. Morel has moved into the Bottoms and is pregnant, with her third baby expected in September, while her children are eager to attend the local fair.

Aug 25, 2026

Uploaded by Levi