Constance and her sister Hilda, the daughters of prominent British R.A. Sir Malcolm Reid, lived a carefree youth: they spent their days with their father’s artistic friends or at boarding school in Dresden, learning music and having love affairs with talkative young men. But when World War I started, the German lovers were killed, the pre-war parties ground to a halt, and the girls were sent back home to London. While war raged on, Hilda tied the knot with an older man, and Constance fell for and married Clifford Chatterley, a soft-spoken member of England’s aristocracy.
Now, the war is over, and Constance and Clifford have settled in Wragby Hall, the Chatterley’s mansion in the English Midlands. Clifford’s stint as a soldier has left him paralyzed from the waist down and sexually impotent. Though Connie does not mind her husband’s dependency (he relies on her to bathe him and get him in and out of his mechanized wheelchair), she does lament her lack of a baby. She also struggles with her new proximity to downcast Tevershall village, the mining town that has long supplied the Chatterleys with their wealth. The working-class miners (colliers) and their wives resent Connie, and the smoke and sound from the mines pollute the once-beautiful landscape.
Clifford starts writing short stories, which get published in prominent magazines. Inspired by Clifford’s work, a group of intellectual men begins visiting Wragby; Connie resents some of these men (like astronomer Charles May) and admires others (like military general Tommy Dukes). These men endlessly debate “the life of the mind,” minimizing sex and romance as vestigial and unimportant. Though Connie listens to these conversations, they make her anxious and bored. When Sir Malcolm visits, he frets that his daughter has become thin and sickly, even suggesting to Clifford that Connie should have an affair to alleviate stress. Clifford then tells Connie that he would accept it if she had a baby with another man, as long as she raised the child as Clifford’s.
In a bid to increase his fame, Clifford befriends Michaelis, an Irishman whose satirical plays have recently brought him international fame. Though Michaelis has money now, he was born without wealth, and the playwright’s outsider status makes him attractive to Connie. Shortly after Michaelis’s first visit to Wragby, he and Connie sleep together. Though they keep it secret from Clifford, Connie and Michaelis continue their tryst for the next several months. It ends only when Michaelis insults Connie, criticizing her for focusing too much on her own orgasm during sex.
Spring rolls around and the flowers bloom, but without Michaelis, Connie falls deeper into depression. One day, while Clifford and Connie are on a walk through the Wragby grounds, they stumble on Oliver Mellors, the property’s gamekeeper. Connie is surprised by Mellors’s gentlemanly bearing, given that he has such a working-class job (and that he sometimes speaks with the thick Midlands dialect). Privately, Connie asks Clifford about Mellors, and Clifford explains that Mellors rose through the military ranks in World War I, learning upper-crust habits as he climbed. Clifford also shares that Mellors is legally married to a woman named Bertha Coutts, though Bertha has left him for another man.
When Hilda visits Wragby, she sees what a burden taking care of Clifford has become for Connie, and she forces Clifford to hire a nurse. Clifford is reluctant, but eventually he agrees to bring on Ivy Bolton, a well-respected local widow. Mrs. Bolton bonds with both Chatterleys: she stays up late playing chess with Clifford, and she introduces Connie to the swirl of Tevershall gossip. But still, Connie feels miserable.
To break up the endless monotony, Connie begins visiting the little hut where Mellors tends to a group of mother hens. After a few weeks, the hens’ eggs start to hatch, which causes Connie to burst into tears; the chickens’ “brooding female bodies” remind her of her own plight, “forlorn and unused.” Connie’s tender crying sparks a flame of attraction in Mellors, and the two have sex. Though the actual sex is underwhelming, both Connie and Mellors feel a new sense of “life” after this brief encounter. The next day, Connie returns to Mellors’s hut, and they have sex again. Mellors is eager to touch Connie’s naked body, and his desire enchants and overwhelms her.
Wanting to clear her head, Connie stays away from Mellors’s hut for a few days. To distract herself, she visits Leslie Winter, Clifford’s godfather, and Mrs. Flint, one of Clifford’s tenants. Mrs. Flint has just had a baby, and Connie cannot help feeling jealous of this woman’s motherhood. On the way back from Mrs. Flint’s house, Connie runs into Mellors, who wonders why she has been avoiding him. The two have sex in the woods. This time, Connie and Mellors orgasm at the same time, which Mellors feels is a rare and beautiful experience. As she walks home, Connie considers having a child with Mellors.
Connie’s affair with Mellors continues, and their feelings for each other deepen, though Mellors does not want to have a child; he is deeply pessimistic about the future, which he believes is being ruined by emasculating, polluting machines. Mrs. Bolton realizes what is going on, while Clifford remains ignorant, only feeling angry that Connie is spending less and less time at home. Clifford now gives most of his time to the mines, shifting his focus from short stories to new chemical and industrial technologies. His interest in maximizing the Tevershall mines’ profits and efficiency makes him feel a renewed sense of manhood, and he (deludedly) begins to believe that he could one day conceive a child, after all.
Connie’s father suggests a family trip to Venice, and Connie decides to go—not because she wants to travel, but to pretend that she conceived a child on the trip (while secretly getting pregnant via Mellors). Clifford makes Connie promise that she will come back to him after the trip is done, though she privately plans to run off with Mellors as soon as she returns. Before she leaves, Connie introduces Mellors to Hilda, and the two instantly spar over their differences in class and their conflicting mannerisms. Then Connie and Mellors share one final night together, in which they decorate each other’s genitalia with flowers.
In Venice, Connie finds herself disgusted with all the consumerism and materialism that goes into tourism. She reconnects with Duncan Forbes, an old family friend who has earned some acclaim from his modern art; she also discovers that she is pregnant. Clifford writes to tell Connie that Mellors’s wife has returned with a vengeance, spreading the news that Mellors is having an affair with Connie—so Clifford has fired Mellors.
Connie leaves Venice and reunites with Mellors, who is now living in London. Connie tells Mellors about her pregnancy, and though he is nervous at first, she reassures him that all will be fine: “be tender” to the child, she instructs, “and that will be its future.” The couple agrees that they need to separate while they both work out their complex divorces, but they hope to be reunited soon. The novel ends with Mellors working on a farm, biding his time and waiting hopefully for his life with Connie to begin.
