Published in one volume, together with "The Ladybird" in 1923, these three short novels reveal Lawrence exploring the new form, developing its potential and using it, above all, to advance his ideas on leadership and male supremacy. The four novellas that followed, including "The Virgin and The Gypsy" and "The Princess", achieve a far greater beauty and vitality, and in "St Mawr", set in New Mexico, and "The Escaped Cock" an extraordinary reworking of the story of Christ's resurrection, Lawrence brings to the short novel the richness and resonance of myth.
