麻豆约拍

Richard Holmes follows in the footsteps of a great literary elopement.

A young DH Lawrence fled a teaching job, an engagement and memories of his recently dead mother to run off with a sex-crazed and very liberated German woman called Frieda von Richthofen, who was married with children. They met at a Sunday lunch and it is quite possible that she seduced him within minutes of their meeting.

The pair had a passionate but stormy relationship and, as they travelled south through Europe, their success was always touch-and-go. They had no money, Freida missed her children and they both argued like mad.

But it was at Lake Garda in Italy that Lawrence found his writing voice and, with Frieda's help, finished his first masterpiece, Sons and Lovers.

So did the warm south work its magic after all?

Producer: Tim Dee.

First broadcast on 麻豆约拍 Radio 4 in May 2000.