Based very closely on D.H. Lawrence's own life, SONS AND LOVERS (1913) tells the story of young Paul Morel, son of the troubled union of an educated, upwardly mobile mother and an ill-tempered, unlettered coal miner father who speaks in a broad dialect. Although in later life Lawrence regretted his brutal portrait of his father, the hero of the novel is most definitely his mother's boy, becoming increasingly dissatisfied with his mean, impoverished home in a Nottinghamshire coal town. He is drawn to a young woman named Miriam (based on Lawrence's old flame Jessie Chambers), with whom he reads poetry and speaks French; his voracious mother fears that Paul's attraction to Miriam will jeopardize her own relationship with him, and does everything she can to come between them. Paul then begins an affair with Clara, a married woman and a feminist. In the end, Paul finds the resolution to reject his background for good; knowing he must forget both Miriam and Clara, he sets out with renewed resolution on a quest for a life of his own. Unique for its sexual frankness and working-class background, SONS AND LOVERS is Lawrence's first major achievement, and a groundbreaking step forward in the history of English realistic fiction.