Ursula and Gudrun are schoolteachers living in Beldover, a small mining town in the Midlands. Gudrun finds her crucial relationship with Gerald Crich, son of the colliery owner; Ursula finds that she loves Gerald's close friend Rupert Birkin, a school inspector. As all four characters search for a fuller life, their relationships shift and change; and violence is never far below the surface. The openness with which Lawrence treated sexual relations in Women in Love and its predecessor, The Rainbow, resulted in the public rejection of both books.

(From the publisher)

Fascinating and disturbing, Women in Love depicts the emotional lives of the Brangwen sisters, Ursula the teacher and Gudrun the artist, with their lovers, Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich. England's coal-mining region forms the backdrop for their passionate encounters, which include elements of homoeroticism and ambivolence toward sexual love. Rupert-a self portrait of Lawrence-fears being caught up and merged with Ursula, while Gerald and Gudrun's increasingly demonic affair careens toward tragedy.

Steeped in eroticism, Women in Love captures the dilemma of lovers who look for complete fulfillment in one another, and reflects the post-World War I era's despair at an increasingly mechanized, inhumane society. Dark, but bright with genius, Women in Love is a prophetic masterpiece, filled with perceptions about sexual power and obsession that have proven to be timeless and true.