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David Herbert Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England and became one of the most influential writers of the early 20th century, publishing poetry, short stories, essays, novels, and plays. His father and many of the men who lived in his childhood neighborhood were coal miners, while his mother came from a more well-to-do family. This class-based contrast created a tense household for the Lawrence children. Lawrence's father stayed out most nights drinking, and his mother felt depressed by her lot in life, much like Paul’s mother in “The Rocking-Horse Winner.” Lawrence’s mother encouraged her children to strive to rise from their class by instilling in them a love of books. His parents' relationships with each other and with their children greatly influenced Lawrence's writing. Particularly, many of his works explore the dynamics of mother-son relationships. Lawrence performed well in school and had no desire to be a coal miner, making him an outsider among his peers. Toward the end of high school, he began to put more work into his own writing on the advice of his teachers. He then went to school to learn to be a teacher while also publishing some of his works.  

In 1912, Lawrence fell in love with his college professor's wife and the couple eloped. Lawrence quit teaching and began traveling around Europe while publishing some of his most well-known literary works, including the novel Sons and Lovers. The novel was controversial for its treatment of sex, though it would prove to be rather tame by Lawrence's standards. Lawrence continued to push the boundaries of what was expected of literature, a quality of the Modernist literary movement. He was often accused of writing sexually explicit content, but it was his novel The Rainbow that ultimately went too far in the eyes of the public. The book was banned, and Lawrence again became an outsider. Despite the controversy, Lawrence continued to publish literature and travel around Europe and the United States. Although it also caused him problems, Lawrence gained popularity in part for his sexually charged content, most notably his novel Lady Chatterley's Lover which was banned for many years in the United States.  

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