A FINE COPY AND RARE IN THE DUST-JACKET. Published on 30 September 1915, the first printing consisted of 2,527 copies, of which several remained unbound. About 1,195 copies were destroyed as the result of court action about six weeks after publication. 

Lawrence had revised or amended this important book many times and Methuen had demanded last minute revisions prior to publication, of which Lawrence agreed to implement only minor amendments. The police impounded all the copies they could locate and Methuen was summonsed to court under the Obscene Publications Act. The novel's religious language, emotional and sexual explorations of experience, and sheer length had given its readers problems, "but it was Ursula's lesbian encounter with a schoolteacher in the chapter 'Shame' which had finally condemned it in the eyes of the law and of a country now focused on conflict: 'A thing like The Rainbow has no right to exist in the wind of war', one review had said (Kinkead-Weekes, 277)" (John Worthen, Oxford DNB). Feeling profoundly rejected Lawrence and his wife Frieda sought temporary refuge in Cornwall, before seeking to escape the country.