--- title: Lady Chatterley's Lover Banned: Why Sex Sells description: On Nov. 2, 1960, 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' was cleared for sale in Britain—and readers jumped at the chance to buy it canonical: https://time.com/4087851/lady-chatterleys-lover-1960/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-02T13:00:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T12:05:18.341Z article:section: History og:title: Lady Chatterley's Lover Banned: Why Sex Sells og:description: On Nov. 2, 1960, 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' was cleared for sale in Britain og:url: https://time.com/4087851/lady-chatterleys-lover-1960/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt187a5ae6d46be2b3/698869eff887dc0bcce93073/lady-c.jpeg?branch=production&width=620&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 620 og:image:height: 349 og:image:alt: Lady Chatterley og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Lady Chatterley's Lover Banned: Why Sex Sells twitter:description: On Nov. 2, 1960, 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' was cleared for sale in Britain twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt187a5ae6d46be2b3/698869eff887dc0bcce93073/lady-c.jpeg?branch=production&width=620&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How a Book Reminded the World That Sex Sells  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Nov 2, 2015 1:00 PM UTC  November 1960: Two women outside a book shop in London, with paperback copies of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' by D H Lawrence, after a jury at the Old Bailey decided that it was not obscene. November 1960: Two women outside a book shop in London, with paperback copies of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' by D H Lawrence, after a jury at the Old Bailey decided that it was not obscene.Keystone / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Nov 2, 2015 1:00 PM UTC When D.H. Lawrence published his salacious 1928 novel _Lady Chatterley’s Lover,_ English officials [declared](http://time.com/vault/issue/1929-07-15/page/40/) it “forever banned” in that country. More than three decades later, on Nov. 2, 1960, a court proved the declaration false by removing the ban. By then, however, the book had by then lost much of its oomph. The socio-economic and sexual taboos it had broken were no longer so titillating. And when an unexpurgated American version was published about a year earlier, TIME’s critics [took its explicit scenes in stride](http://time.com/vault/issue/1959-05-04/page/90/): --- > “” --- The critical panning did little to deter readers. When the ban was lifted in 1960, Brits flooded into bookstores. “A Leicester Square book vendor peddled 1,300 copies in an hour after setting out a window placard reading ‘Lady C.—12 Sharp!’ By evening of C-day, the paperback edition, priced at 50¢, was being hawked and sold by Soho scalpers for $2.80,” TIME [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1960-11-21/page/47/). Though Lady Chatterley might not have had much to teach audiences of the 1960s about love, she did have something to remind the publishers of the era: sex, as ever, sells. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4087851/lady-chatterleys-lover-1960/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4087851/lady-chatterleys-lover-1960/"},"headline":"How a Book Reminded the World That Sex Sells","datePublished":"2015-11-02T13:00:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T12:05:18.341Z","description":"On Nov. 2, 1960, 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' was cleared for sale in Britain—and readers jumped at the chance to buy it","url":"https://time.com/4087851/lady-chatterleys-lover-1960/","keywords":["Books","Censorship"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt187a5ae6d46be2b3/698869eff887dc0bcce93073/lady-c.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt187a5ae6d46be2b3/698869eff887dc0bcce93073/lady-c.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Lady Chatterley","caption":"Lady Chatterley","creditText":"Keystone / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4087851/lady-chatterleys-lover-1960/","name":"How a Book Reminded the World That Sex Sells"}}]}] ```