Plot: Constance, a young woman married to a crippled curmudgeon, takes up with Mellors, the gamekeeper.

Why it's on the list: This book is why God invented English majors. In 1928, Lawrence had 1,000 copies printed by an Italian press, however the book was widely pirated and the United States Post Office regularly confiscated copies. On July 2, 1959 a court told the prudes at the Post Office to mind their own business. Within a year Lady sold six million copies.

Excerpt: And softly, with that marvelous swoon-like caress of his hand in pure soft desire, softly he stroked the silky slope of her loins, down, down between her soft warm buttocks, coming nearer and nearer to the very quick of her. And she felt him like a flame of desire, yet tender, and she felt herself melting in the flame. She let herself go. She felt his penis risen against her with silent amazing force and assertion and she let herself go to him. She yielded with a quiver that was like death, she went all open to him…. And oh, if he were not tender to her now, how cruel, for she was all open to him and helpless!