The Prussian Officer

by D. H. Lawrence

Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only

Written
1914
Form
Novel
Language
English
Length
Short · 30 ppunder 120 pages
Difficulty
Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader

We recommendThe Prussian Officer and Other StoriesPenguin Classics, 1995The Cambridge text of Lawrence's first story collection, edited by John Worthen, with the title story and eleven others.

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A short story, the title piece of Lawrence's first collection, published a few months after the outbreak of the First World War. A Prussian cavalry captain, cold, aristocratic and unmarried, becomes obsessed with his young orderly, whose easy physical life he cannot bear, and torments him with kicks and petty cruelty. On a march in the heat the orderly, half out of his mind, breaks the captain's neck in a wood, wanders in delirium through the mountains, and is found dead. The two bodies are laid side by side in the mortuary.

No reading guide yet

The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns The Prussian Officer are verified against each program's published list.

What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.

Browse the 48 works that do have a guide →

The Prussian Officer and Other Stories, captain, orderly, Bavaria, sadism, repression, short story, Lawrence's early stories, Schöner, David Herbert Lawrence