Born September 11, 1885, David Herbert Richard Lawrence grew up in Nottingham, a mining town. His father worked in the mines and his mother taught school before marrying. He was the fourth of five children and the third son. His eldest brother, George, was apprenticed to an uncle, but William, the second son, was clever and Mrs. Lawrence had high hopes for his success. He did well in school and obtained a clerkship with a shipping firm in London. Lawrence also did well in school, earning a scholarship to the Nottingham High School and taking several prizes in math, French, and German. At the age of sixteen he obtained a place as a junior clerk with the firm J.H. Haywood Ltd in Nottingham. In the fall of 1901 William died suddenly in London of erysipelas and shortly after the funeral, Lawrence became extremely ill with pneumonia. His mother, shattered by the death of William, nursed him tirelessly for several months, transferring to Lawrence the hopes and ambitions that she had had for William. The resulting relationship between Lawrence and his mother formed the basis of Sons and Lovers (1913), one of his best known novels.

In the fall of 1902 Lawrence became a student teacher and in 1904 he entered the Pupil-Teacher Center in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, for further training. Lawrence also began attending art classes and in 1905 he began writing poetry and qualified to study at University College in Nottingham. By 1907, several of his poems and short stories had been published. He accepted a teaching position in Croyden in 1908, at the same time he continued to write extensively. He received the page proofs for his first novel, The White Peacock, in time to show them to his mother before she died in December 1910.

Lawrence was once again severely ill in November 1911. The following January he left Croyden to convalesce in his aunt's boarding house in Bournemouth, and in February he resigned his teaching post. On March 3 Lawrence visited Ernest Weekley of University College, Nottingham, and met Weekley's wife, Frieda. Shortly after meeting her, Lawrence began an affair with Mrs. Weekley and on May 3 they traveled to Germany together.

Lawrence and Frieda lived together for the rest of his life. After a protracted and bitter struggle, Frieda received a divorce from Ernest Weekley and married Lawrence on July 13, 1914. For the next 16 years they traveled almost constantly, including Italy, Germany, Australia, Ceylon, America, and Mexico in their itineraries. Throughout their travels Lawrence continued to write prolifically. He also continued to contract life-threatening illnesses including influenza and malaria. Generally he ignored his frail state, but late in 1929 he caught a chill which grew steadily in severity until he was forced to accept a doctor's diagnosis of tuberculosis. In February of 1930 he was convinced to enter a sanatorium in Vence, Italy. At the end of the month he left the sanatorium for Villa Robermond, where he died on March 2. He was buried in Vence, however, in 1935 Frieda Lawrence had his body disinterred, cremated, and taken to New Mexico, where his ashes were re-buried in a chapel above the Kiowa Ranch in Taos.