D. H. Lawrence considered WOMEN IN LOVE, his sequel to THE RAINBOW, to be his best novel. It traces the stories of Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen, particularly their romantic entanglements and dilemmas. Ursula marries Rupert Birkin--Lawrence's alter ego--a thoroughly modern and enlightened young man who believes in ideal love based on passion, equality, and mutual respect. Gudrun falls for Gerald Crich, a formidably competent businessman, owner of the local mine. Gerald is a weak, possessive reactionary who is unable to work out his feelings for Gudrun, and who, when Rupert offers his friendship--the kind of profound male friendship that Lawrence considered necessary to a man's life--rejects it. Lawrence's heavily symbolic story is an overt statement of his beliefs about men and women in modern society. Written in 1916, it didn't find a publisher until 1920, and was considered by many readers and reviewers to be depraved. Lawrence attributed much of the despair and bitterness of the novel to the travails of World War I, a war to which he was violently opposed.