The Lost Girl

By: D. H. Lawrence

Narrated by: Johanna Ward

Under-appreciated until now, The Lost Girl is perhaps D.H. Lawrence's most beautiful, thoroughly contemporary, love story. This captivating novel charts the journey of a woman caught between two worlds and two lives, one mired in dreary, industrial England and a life of convention, the other set in the vibrant Italian landscape holding the promise of sensual liberation. Alvina Houghton is fading into spinsterhood when she meets Naples-born Cicio, a vaudeville dancer who draws her into a dance of seduction, reawakening her desire as she defies her stifling upper-class life.(P)2002 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Part of the magic of audiobooks is that they allow one to enjoy works that might be difficult to digest in print form. So it is with Lawrence's tale of a young woman's quest to find herself; it might seem endless in print, but narrator Johanna Ward makes the journey pleasant." (AudioFile)

Love story in the shadow of World War I

A good book from a great writer. The book is quite slow at the start and reflects rewriting a story in 1920 that was begun about 1914. Told entirely from the viewpoint of a woman. Intense feelings after the woman falls in love with a traveling stage actor, just as cinema is replacing live vaudeville shows. Not as enjoyable as Sons and Lovers or Women in Love. Excellent narrator.

Wanted to like it...

I am happy I only spent 5 dollars in the sale, and not a whole credit. I looked forward to a nice long literary story.... I just hung in there because I was able to listen during slow time at work. The narrator elongates her syllables in a way that I don't enjoy at all, and the story barely held my interest...and the suddenness of the ending would have infuriated me if I had been one bit emotionally involved in the tale.

slow

I found this to be over wordy and not something that would keep me alert on my commute to work.

post modern feminist drama

Lawrence builds and sensitizes Elvira's character beyond the frame of her times. a good journey.

Great performance

This isn't my favorite Lawrence novel, but this reader is absolutely the best I have encountered in an audiobook. She is a rare find: a reader who really understands what is and what is not important in a novel, and who is conscious at every moment of what the prose -- and especially the dialogue -- means.