He's an intoxicator, a very great writer, punished by the feminists and their ludicrous opinions. The short stories are among the best in the language. I re-read Sons and Lovers and The Rainbow recently and thought them wonderful... Has there ever been anyone like him for bringing places and people so vividly to life?

Lawrence's masterly portraiture of the human impulse in his fiction had strength and depth...He tore at the rock of life with hand and implement... in Sons and Lovers he fashioned the hard substance of his place and people in memorable ways.

An affecting portrait of a mining family torn apart by class divisions and individual desire at the turn of the century

His fierce love for his mother warring with the need to follow his own desires - analysed with a vigorous relentlessness and pungent imagery - makes this a work whose power stands the test of time

When I was 13 or 14 this was the book I couldn't put down. It's very good teenager territory

His ability to live and write on the hoof never ceases to amaze

Lawrence is tremendously exciting . . . we were all influenced by Lawrence, including the poetry, which is wonderful, and is probably still not enough liked, partly because people call him sexist. He's much more complicated

Lawrence is elegant yet passionate and his imagery is second to none