The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd

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The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd is a play by the English writer D. H. Lawrence. It was written in 1911 and the revised version was published in 1914 by Duckworth & Co. in London and Mitchell Kennerley in New York. It is the dramatisation of Lawrence's short story "Odour of Chrysanthemums".^[1]

Plot introduction

Mrs. Holroyd is married to a loutish miner, who drinks, patronizes prostitutes, and apparently brutalizes her. When a gentlemanly neighbor makes romantic advances to her, she wishes her husband dead. Sooner than she hoped, her wish comes true—when her husband dies in a mining accident.

When Charles Holroyd's body is brought home from the mine, and his wife and mother must wash him and lay him out for his funeral, we see for the first time the other side of the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Holroyd—now, when it's too late.

Real life connection

As in many of Lawrence's works there is a real life connection to The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd. Even though his uncle had been killed in a pit accident before Lawrence was born, the story would be told often in the family. The real life 'Mrs. Holroyd' was in fact his aunt Polly, who "lived in a tiny cottage just up the line from the railway crossing at Brinsley, near Eastwood."^[2] Lawrence may have borrowed the surname from the company that his elder brother Ernest worked for in London: John Holroyd and Company.^[3] However, the personal experience of the issues that are discussed in the play, such as the drunken miner's evening absence and the mother's scornful hate are the experiences of his own mother and father rather than his aunt's family's.

References

^ Marlan, Michael. D.H. Lawrence - The Widowing of Mrs Holoyd and the Daughter in Law. Heinemann: London
^ Boulton, James T. The Selected Letters of D.H. Lawrence. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. p.553
^ Marlan, Michael. D.H. Lawrence - The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd and the Daughter in Law. Heinemann: London

External links

The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd at Project Gutenberg
The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd public domain audiobook at LibriVox

v t e D. H. Lawrence
Novels	The White Peacock (1911) The Trespasser (1912) Sons and Lovers (1913) The Rainbow (1915) Women in Love (1920) The Lost Girl (1920) Aaron's Rod (1922) Kangaroo (1923) The Boy in the Bush (1924) The Plumed Serpent (1926) John Thomas and Lady Jane (1927) Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) The Escaped Cock (1929) Mr Noon (unfinished)
Short stories and novellas	"Odour of Chrysanthemums" (1911) The Fox (1923) The Captain's Doll (1923) The Ladybird (1923) St Mawr (1925) The Princess (1925) "The Rocking-Horse Winner" (1926) "The Woman who Rode Away" (1928) The Virgin and the Gipsy (1930)
Short story collections	The Prussian Officer and Other Stories (1914) England, My England and Other Stories (1922)
Plays	The Daughter-in-Law (1913) The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd (1914)
Poetry	Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923)
Travel books	Sea and Sardinia (1921) Mornings in Mexico (1927) Sketches of Etruscan Places and Other Italian Essays (1932)
Non-fiction books and pamphlets	Movements in European History (1921) Studies in Classic American Literature (1923)
Compendiums	The Cambridge Edition of the Letters and Works of D. H. Lawrence Penguin Lawrence Edition
Related	D. H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum D. H. Lawrence Ranch D. H. Lawrence Heritage Centre Frieda Lawrence (wife) Priest of Love (1981/1985 film) R v Penguin Books Ltd The Chatterley Affair Films based on works D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study

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