The novel opens by taking the reader through the upbringing of Connie Reid and her sister Hilda as upper-middle class girls in early 1900s England. They are raised as cultured, independent thinkers, free to exercise their intellectual and sexual pursuits in their teen years. Then Connie marries Sir Clifford, becoming Lady Chatterley, in 1917. However, he is sent to serve in The Great War after a short honeymoon and returns paralyzed from waist down and now impotent. The couple returns to Wragby Hall after the war, a dismal mansion in a coaling town. Here, Clifford focuses on his writing career by writing short stories, using Connie to discuss his ideas with. As he gains success, intellectuals come to the home of the Chatterley's to have long discussions on the affairs of the day and issues