Frieda Lawrence (August 11, 1879 – August 11, 1956) was a German author and wife of the British novelist
D.H. Lawrence.
Life
Emma Maria Frieda Johanna Freiin (Baroness) von Richthofen[1] (also known under her married names as Frieda Weekley,[2] Frieda Lawrence, and Frieda Lawrence Ravagli) was born into the
German nobility at
Metz. Her father was Baron Friedrich Ernst Emil Ludwig von Richthofen (1844–1916), an engineer in the
Imperial German Army, and her mother was Anna Elise Lydia Marquier (1852–1930).
In 1899, she married a British philologist and professor of modern languages,
Ernest Weekley, with whom she had three children, Charles Montague (born 1900), Elsa Agnès (born 1902) and Barbara Joy (born 1904). They settled in
Nottingham, where Ernest was an academic at the university. During her marriage to Weekley she began to translate
German literature, mainly fairy tales, into English.
She met
D.H. Lawrence, a former student of her husband, in 1912; soon she fell in love with him, and they eloped to Germany.[3] During their stay Lawrence was arrested for spying; after the intervention of Frieda's father, the couple walked south over the
Alps to Italy. Following her divorce, Frieda and Lawrence married in 1914. She had to leave her children with Weekley: as the adulterous respondent to a divorce instigated by her husband she was not legally able to gain custody unless he consented.[4]
They had intended to return to the continent but the outbreak of war kept them in England, where they endured official harassment and
censorship.[5] They also struggled with limited resources and Lawrence's already frail health.[6]
Leaving postwar England at the earliest opportunity, they traveled widely, eventually settling at the
Kiowa Ranch near
Taos, New Mexico, and in Lawrence's last years at the Villa Mirenda, near
Scandicci in
Tuscany. After her husband's death in
Vence, France, in 1930, she returned to Taos to live with her third husband,
Angelo Ravagli.[7] The ranch is now owned by the
University of New Mexico at
Albuquerque.[8]
Georgia O'Keeffe, who knew her in Taos, said in 1974: "Frieda was very special. I can remember very clearly the first time I ever saw her, standing in a doorway, with her hair all frizzed out, wearing a cheap red calico dress that looked as though she'd just wiped out the frying pan with it. She was not thin, and not young, but there was something radiant and wonderful about her."[9]
Joseph Glasco became close friends with Frieda when he and
William Goyen lived together in Taos in the 1950s. At one point, Frieda asked Glasco to arrange an exhibition of
D.H. Lawrence’s paintings. They remained friends until her death in 1956.[10]
Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover is thought to be based partly on her relationship as an
aristocrat with the
working-class Lawrence. John Harte's dramatisation led to it being Lawrence's only novel to be staged. She loved the play when she read it and supported its staging but the copyright to Lawrence's story had already been acquired by
Baron Philippe de Rothschild, a close friend. He did not relinquish it until 1960, after
the film version had been released. John Harte's play was first produced at The
Arts Theatre, London in 1961, five years after her death.[12]
Death
Frieda Lawrence died on her seventy-seventh birthday in Taos.[13]
In popular culture
Frieda Lawrence's life inspired the biographical novel Frieda: The Original Lady Chatterley (
Two Roads, 2018), by
Annabel Abbs. The novel was a Times Book of the Month,[14] then a Times Book of the Year 2018.[15] Abbs also wrote about Lawrence's love for walking and the great outdoors in Windswept: Walking in the Footsteps of Remarkable Women (Two Roads, 2021).
She is an important character in On the Rocks, a play by
Amy Rosenthal which deals with her sometimes difficult relationship with D.H. Lawrence.[16]
Lawrence was the inspiration for the character Harriet Somers, played by
Judy Davis[17] in the Australian film Kangaroo (1987). The film is based on D.H. Lawrence's semi-autobiographical
novel of the same name.[18]
Bibliography
Autobiography
Lawrence, Frieda von Richthofen. Not I, but the Wind... With an afterword by Harry T. Moore. New York:
Viking, 1934.
Green, Martin. The von Richthofen Sisters: The Triumphant and the Tragic Modes of Love: Else and Frieda Von Richthofen, Otto Gross, Max Weber, and D.H. Lawrence, in the Years 1870–1970. New York:
Basic Books, 1974.
ISBN0465090508.
Jackson, Rosie. Frieda Lawrence (Including Not I, But the Wind and other autobiographical writings). London and San Francisco: Pandora, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.
Lawrence, Frieda von Richthofen, Harry T. Moore, and Dale B. Montague, eds. Frieda Lawrence and Her Circle: Letters from, to, and About Frieda Lawrence. London:
Macmillan, 1981.
ISBN0333276000.
Lucas, Robert. Frieda Lawrence: The Story of Frieda Von Richthofen and D. H. Lawrence. New York: Viking Press, 1973.
Squires, Michael, and Talbot, Lynn K. Living at the Edge: A Biography of D.H. Lawrence and Frieda Von Richthofen. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
Squires, Michael. D. H. Lawrence and Frieda: A Portrait of Love and Loyalty. London: Welbeck Publishing Group Limited, 2008.
Squires, Michael. The Limits of Love: The Lives of D. H. Lawrence and Frieda Von Richthofen. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2023 ("originated, in part, from D. H. Lawrence and Frieda: A Portrait of Love and Loyalty").
Tedlock, Jr., E. W., ed. Frieda Lawrence: The Memoirs and Correspondence. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964.
^Billington, Michael (July 2, 2008).
"Theatre Review: On the Rocks". The Guardian.
Archived from the original on August 13, 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2018.