Lawrence's novel The Rainbow (1915) follows three generations of a Nottingham family, detailing their love affairs, marriages, and family relationships. This is the first of Lawrence's novels to describe sexual situations in an open manner, and its publication stirred controversy.

Lawrence was also a poet. His first collection, Love Poems and Others (1913), contains some of his best-known poems.

Lawrence's idiosyncratic study of American literature, Studies in Classic American Literature (1923), has itself become a classic.

Sophocles's Oedipus Rex tells the story of the banished king of Greek mythology who killed his father and married his mother. A number of critics refer to the Oedipus myth when discussing Sons and Lovers.

Daniel Weiss's Oedipus at Nottingham (1962) explores the oedipal themes in Lawrence's fiction.