Paul Metcalfe

A Fly in the Ointment' was written by D. H. Lawrence in 1908. It was the fourth of his sixty-seven short stories, all of which will be published individually in audio book format by the Blackthorn Press. The story is set in lodgings in Croydon and the incident may be autobiographical, but the story is full of yearning for the life and loves he left behind in Nottinghamshire.

The Flying Fish' is unfinished but tells the story of an Englishman, Gethin Day, returning home after years in South America. There is a hint of the home-sickness Lawrence may have felt during his long exile. The bulk of the story is the time spent on the ship which is taking Day back to England. It is a ship of fools, a 'plague ship' and the only positive note is the joy Day sees in the play of the flying fish and porpoises around the ship. It is...

The Horse Dealer's Daughter' is a story, gripping in its content. It encompasses the terror of death and disgrace which is redeemed by passion and sexuality. The question Lawrence leaves open is whether the doctor's avowal of love is genuine or driven by the awakening of his own sexuality and pity for the woman.

Love Among the Haystacks was written by D H Lawrence in 1912. It was the eighteenth of his sixty-seven short stories, all of which will be published individually in audiobook format by the Blackthorn Press. In this story, Lawrence returns to the scenes of his young manhood with farming scenes and life he experienced when courting Jessie Chambers at Haggs Farm in Nottinghamshire. Two brothers find love in two different women, both out of the ordinary...

Daughters of the Vicar was written by D H Lawrence in 1911. It was the eleventh of his sixty-seven short stories, all of which will be published individually in audio book format by the Blackthorn Press. Lawrence is at his best in this story, taken from the scenes of his childhood and based on characters he knew intimately. The main themes of the story are the class system which dominated society at the time and the pressures put on the young lovers...

The Rocking Horse Winner' is one of Lawrence's more popular short stories with its mixture of the supernatural and it moral lesson of the corrupting nature of the love of money. But it has nothing new to say on the subject and without the central core of Lawrence's passion for what he is writing, seems somewhat trite.

Lawrence wrote three drafts of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' between 1926 and 1928: 'The First Lady Chatterley's Lover', this audio book, 'John Thomas and Lady Jane' and the final version, 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. All three books are published as ebooks and paperbacks by the Blackthorn Press. Although all three books have the same story line of an aristocratic woman falling in love with a working-class man, there are differences in their tone and sensibilities....

Lessford's Rabbits was written by D H Lawrence in 1908. It was the second of his sixty-seven short stories, all of which will be published individually in audio format by the Blackthorn Press. The story is set in a local school and gives an insight into the poverty and spirit of working-class children as well as a glimpse of Lawrence's time as a teacher.

Mother and Daughter' can be read as one of Lawrence's diatribes against women. Two women do their best to get along without men but in the end, as Lawrence always proposed, a woman cannot be fulfilled without a dominant man, however unsuitable he may be.

A Modern Lover' was written by D H Lawrence in 1909. A young man returns home to his first love to declare his feelings for her, but the moment is lost when the girl will not give herself sexually. This theme was to be explored fully in Lawrence's novel, 'Sons and Lovers'