Lawrence's life, including his wife, Frieda, and his childhood in Nottinghamshire, influenced the novel.[4] According to some critics, the fling of Lady Ottoline Morrell with "Tiger", a young stonemason who came to carve plinths for her garden statues, also influenced the story.[5] Lawrence, who had once considered calling the novel John Thomas and Lady Jane in reference to the male and the female sex organs, made significant alterations to the text and story in the process of its composition.[6]
Lawrence allegedly read the manuscript of Maurice by E. M. Forster, which was published posthumously in 1971. That novel, although it is about a homosexual couple, also involves a gamekeeper becoming the lover of a member of the upper classes and influenced Lady Chatterley's Lover.[7][8]
