21 h 2 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 21 h 2 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Can you give yourself to love without losing the person you are trying to become?
At Marsh Farm, beside the river Erewash, the Brangwens live close to the land. Tom Brangwen longs for something beyond his fields and marries Lydia Lensky, a Polish widow who keeps part of herself apart. In D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow, their family’s story unfolds across three generations as canals, railways and collieries change the countryside.
Anna and Will Brangwen find that desire does not erase their differences. Their daughter Ursula grows up amid their quarrels, wanting education, work and love that leaves room for her own life. Through these intimate struggles, Lawrence asks what marriage, religion and work can offer—and whether closeness to another person can help you become whole.
What you’ll discover
- A family rooted in farmland Enter the meadows of the Erewash, where familiar ways of life meet industrial change.
- Love with its own boundaries Follow Tom and Lydia as longing brings them together without dissolving the distance between them.
- Marriage beyond the first rapture Watch Anna and Will struggle with faith, need and the wish for a separate self.
- Ursula’s hunger for more Meet a questioning daughter who seeks education, work and a love that does not shrink her.
- Feeling beneath the words Experience writing that follows bodily awareness and shifting emotions more closely than the turns of plot.
Who will love it
Readers who love family sagas across three generations will enjoy this novel, especially those drawn to vivid feelings, bodies and landscapes, and to marriage, faith and work.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- The Brangwens face the soil while women watch the horizon
- Young Tom Brangwen wants more than the farm gives
- A Polish widow walks into Tom's ordinary life
- Marriage is wonder, distance and a child between them
- Anna and Will Brangwen marry and fight on both sides
- Ursula grows up loving her father and testing the world
- Ursula meets a soldier, a teacher and a mine town
- Teaching and college show Ursula the machine world
- Love is a test of how far two selves can touch
- Faith and work ask Ursula what a life is for
- The telling moves in waves and symbols, not plot
Who’s who
- Tom BrangwenA farmer at Marsh Farm who cannot learn from books, and who feels a hunger for a wider, finer life.
- Lydia LenskyA Polish widow and vicarage housekeeper who marries Tom and carries a silent past and a young daughter.
- Anna BrangwenLydia's daughter, proud and defiant, who marries her cousin and wants a life of her own at home.
- Will BrangwenAnna's husband, a lace draughtsman who loves church architecture and longs for a spiritual home.
- Ursula BrangwenAnna and Will's eldest daughter, who wants independence, knowledge and a love that does not shrink her.
- Anton SkrebenskyA young army engineer who loves Ursula, hopes to marry her and expects to serve the empire.
- Winifred IngerUrsula's teacher, a strong, skeptical woman who draws her into a close, shadowed friendship.
- TillyThe cross-eyed servant at Marsh Farm who adores Tom and keeps the old spirit of the house alive.
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L’Arc-en-ciel
by D. H. Lawrence · 1915
Three generations of Brangwens look from a Derbyshire farm toward a wider world, and Ursula wants all of it.
ChallengingOver 20 hours to readfrançais
Excellent
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In short
What do you hand down to your children, the land you work or the hunger you feel? At Marsh Farm, on the Derbyshire side of the river Erewash, the Brangwens have farmed for generations.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
The Brangwens face the soil while women watch the horizon
The book begins with a family divided by the way its members face. The Brangwen men live at Marsh Farm with their backs to the road and their eyes on the fields.
The women look the other way. The front windows face the lane, the village church and the distant world of towns. A Brangwen wife watches the vicar of Cossethay, small and lean beside her big husband, and sees that he holds a power that has nothing to do with money. She decides it is knowledge, and she longs to win it for her children.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1915
- Language
- français
- Reading time
- 13 h 40 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Lawrence, D. H. The Rainbow. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-rainbow.
Lawrence, D. H. (2026). The rainbow. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-rainbow (Original work published 1915)
Lawrence, D. H. The Rainbow. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-rainbow.
@book{lawrence2026rainbow,
author = {Lawrence, D. H.},
title = {The Rainbow},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-rainbow},
note = {First published 1915}
}
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What is The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence about?
It follows three generations of the Brangwen family in the English Midlands, from farmer Tom Brangwen through his stepdaughter Anna to her daughter Ursula, as each tries to find love, faith and work that feel true.
Who is Ursula Brangwen in The Rainbow?
Ursula is Anna and Will Brangwen's eldest daughter and the main figure of the last part of the book. She wants independence, tests her faith, loves a soldier and a teacher, and trains to work as a teacher herself.
Why is the novel called The Rainbow?
The rainbow is an image of promise and passage. Anna sees it as an arch beyond her house, and it stands for the door between a settled life and the unknown. The book keeps returning to arches, doors and thresholds.
The author
D. H. Lawrence
1885–1930 · English novelist and poet
D. H. Lawrence was an English novelist and poet, among the most controversial and influential writers of the early twentieth century. Lady Chatterley's Lover, long banned for its frankness, became a landmark in the fight against literary censorship.
More by D. H. Lawrence
Voir tous ses livresMore like this
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