D.H. Lawrence’s Lost Girl: Plus How Lawrence Found His Lost Girl in Cornwall

How Lawrence Found His Lost Girl in Cornwall , is the title of the Introduction to this edition of Lawrence’s sixth major novel. In it Sandra Jobson shows how Lawrence based part of his character Alvina Houghton on Katherine Mansfield, the New Zealand short-story writer. ‘The Lost Girl’ was in fact Lawrence’s third novel, but was not published until 1920. It is his only novel to have won a literary prize. Originally called ‘The Insurrection of Miss Houghton’, it tells the story of Alvina Houghton, who fights for independence as a woman, but ends up falling in love with an Italian peasant form a mountain village. Will she fight again for independence? Sandra Jobson (Darroch) is the secretary of the DH Lawrence Society of Australia, and is the author of six books, including the first biography of Lady Ottoline Morrell, ‘Ottoline: The Life of Lady Ottoline Morrell’ (Chatto Windus 1975). An updated version of ‘Ottoline’, with a new Introduction by the author, will be published by The Svengali Press in 2017.