The Virgin and the Gipsy

The classic novella from the author of Lady Chatterley’s Lover about a sheltered young woman’s awakening to passion and love.

Abandoned by their mother when she left their father for another man, sisters Yvette and Lucille Saywell have had to suffer the judgment of their neighbors. The community of the small countryside village of Papplewick was never enamored with Arthur Saywell—righteous in words but weak in spirit—as their vicar, and humiliated by his wife’s scandalous behavior, he has retreated into himself, leaving his family in the care of his domineering mother.

Temperamental and rebellious at age nineteen, Yvette scorns her father’s rectory and any church-related events, pursuing an active, amusing social life to avoid family tensions. Her adventurous spirit leads Yvette to an encampment where she allows a clairvoyant to tell her future—a future she starts to imagine spending with the handsome man among the caravan who has caught her eye. Unlike the village boys who clumsily attempt to court her, the mysterious nomad’s interest intrigues her and arouses her senses.

As Yvette meets more people unaffiliated with her pious moral upbringing, her father fears for her soul, praying Yvette hasn’t inherited her mother’s wicked nature. And when a disaster sweeps through the town, bringing the attractive wanderer to her door, Yvette surrenders to her natural desires, embracing a life of her own choosing.

“D. H. Lawrence places sex at the heart of life; without sex there would be no life . . . [The Virgin and the Gipsy] is strikingly original; one will search novels in vain for a parallel.” —The New York Times