The critical essays in this volume, by leading authorities on D. H. Lawrence, focus on the importance of Italy and England in Lawrence's work and life.
The essays cover a diversity of related aspects of Lawrence's work: some explicitly discuss the relation between his sense of his Englishness and his experience of Italy; others range from those which take a primarily biographical focus to those which explore the importance of Italy to his developing vision, both in his travel writings and in his fiction; while still others concern themselves more generally with the central characteristics of Lawrence's creation of fictional worlds in England or in Italy.