This brooding, bittersweet work, neither utterly tragic nor notably optimistic, begins with the sights and sounds of Christmas Eve. Aaron Sisson has been gathering sweets, candles, and holiday ornaments for his family. As they prepare their decorations, his oldest daughter, Millicent, senses that something is not quite right with him. At a party that night, Aaron appears openly relieved to be away from his wife and daughters. He is also intrigued by Josephine Ford, the fiancee of Jim Bricknell, their host-s son. Abandoning his wife and children, Aaron Sisson leaves the mining community in pursuit of the 'life single': individual freedom, personal friendship, the 'male power' of passion and art. Playing the flute to pay his way he travels to post-war London, where he mixes with the modern Bohemian set and finds male friendship in Rawdon Lilly. Further travels take him to Milan and Florence ('a town of men') preoccupied with thoughts on the decline of humanity from the Renaissance to the modern age. For Aaron, in his own way, is striving to save civilization. Aaron's Rod was completed in 1921 but was then censored by Lawrence's publishers. This edition of the novel, based on the only authoritative surviving typescript, restores these cut passages and eliminates the errors of previous editions.