This volume of the Cambridge Biography begins with Lawrence and Frieda Weekley on the Ostend ferry in 1912, and ends in 1922 on a liner header for Ceylon. Frieda did not start with the intention of leaving her first husband and their children, but these ten years see the forging of a marriage that lasted Lawrence's lifetime.

The decade sees the 'un-Englishing' of Lawrence: first through living in Italy and Germany before the Great War, and still more by his fervent opposition to that 'nightmare', and by the adverse reception of his work. In the war years he lost his audience, and then his home when he was expelled from Cornwall on suspicion of being a spy.

Poor, and alienated, he became determined to emigrate, and in 1919 he did so - finding a new life and vitality in mainland Italy, Capri and Sicily, before moving out from Europe too, a restless traveller, as well as an adventurer in the mind.

Lawrence explored his own experience in his writing with remarkable depth, courage and imagination. This biography tells the writing life too, as never before, tracing the illuminating relations between man and manuscript, without confusing life and art.

Drawing on new information from the Cambridge Editions of the Letters and Works, and original research, fresh light is shed on questions of Lawrence's sexuality, health, quarrels and friendships, which have been more often gossiped or theorised about than scrupulously examined.