2. Lady Chatterley's Lover - D H Lawrence
Infamous for its graphic depiction of sex between a low class groundsman and an aristocrat woman - plus all of the naughty words that were verboten at that time, Lady Chatterley's Lover is an erotic classic for the ages. A young married woman Constance (Lady Chatterley) has a husband called Clifford who is very handsome and macho but tragically due to a war injury, he is paralysed from the waist down and cannot fulfil Constance's sexual desires. She embarks upon a steamy affair with Oliver Mellors - the groundsman. Through this affair, Constance realises she cannot live in the mind alone - she must experience the physical side of love as well. The book is an exploration of mind versus body and also class and social conflicts. Whenever you mention Lady Chatterley's Lover to me, it conjures up images of Sean Bean's buttocks pumping furiously as he humps Joely Richardson up against a tree in a verdant setting. That TV adaptation was considered to be very raunchy in its day but it is not half as salacious as what goes on in Lady Chatterley - the book - which provoked so many bans, so many prosecutions it all got a bit ludicrous. I love my favourite poet Philip Larkin's reference to the obscenity trials: Sexual Intercourse began In nineteen sixty three (which was rather late for me) Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatle's first LP That is what an impact the lifting of the ban had on the popular imagination. By 1976, Lady Chatterley was being parodied by Morecambe and Wise. I bet they never read it! Although if they had, it might have improved and livened up things a bit on that show. However Lady Chatterley's Lover is quintessential erotic fiction.