In 1915, shortly after the British publication of The Rainbow, the novel was successfully prosecuted for obscenity. Evaluating the initial response, many scholars have come to believe that it was censored because of Lawrence’s antiwar stance and his wife Frieda’s German heritage. The 1924 American edition of The Rainbow fared better; however, many early reviews were negative, focusing on what readers claimed was its shocking sexuality and promotion of lewd behavior. After Lawrence’s death in 1930, opinions about the novel began to turn, aided by positive assessments from E. M. Forster and Arnold Bennett. The novel came to be considered one of Lawrence’s finest.

Many early reviews of the novel were negative, due to its unusual style and its focus on sexuality. Perhaps one of the more generous was penned by J. C. Squire in a 1915 review of the book for the New Statesman. Squire claims: “Its author has a strain of genius, but in this novel he is at his worst. It is a dull and monotonous book which broods gloomily over the physical reactions of sex in a way so persistent that one wonders whether the author is under the spell of German psychologists.” Squire insists that he does not agree with the court’s decision to censure the novel, but he finds the focus on sexuality disturbing, claiming that it becomes “so tedious that a perusal of it might send Casanova himself into a monastery, if he did not go to sleep before his revulsion against sex was complete.”

A much later but still negative assessment is given by Kingsley Widmer in his article on Lawrence for the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Widmer also finds fault with the novel’s focus on sexuality, writing, “The direction of The Rainbow may be summarized as an erratically desperate effort to sanctify the erotic in an increasingly anomic society.” He adds that it fails “because of bad writing, indifferent dramatization, and fervent inchoherences.” Widmer does, however, admit to “its provocative ideas, powerful moments, and intriguing issues.” The few scenes he finds effective include Tom’s comforting of Anna in the barn while Lydia is in labor and Tom’s drunken speech about marriage after Anna’s wedding.

Widmer’s assessment, however, is not typical of contemporary evaluations of the novel. Paul Rosenzweig, in an article on the book for The D. H. Lawrence Review, writes that “Both the pioneering sense of character in The Rainbow and its intricacy of form organic to such characterization are now largely appreciated.” He finds the novel to be “Lawrence’s most carefully written and most revised work” and notes that “the intricate structure of the novel as a whole has [also] been increasingly appreciated.” Rosenzweig argues that the first part “has a rhythmic beauty in its characterization and structure” and finds a “thematic appropriateness of the structural split” between the narratives of the first two generations of the Brangwen family and the third. “The subsequent changes in the form and characterization” of the second half, he insists, fit harmoniously with the first.

In his article comparing the novel to a film version, G. B. Crump writes, “Lawrence’s Rainbow may be his most controlled yet fully realized and satisfying work.” He states that this “remarkable act of imagination” is “a pivotal work” in the author’s career. Crump claims that Ursula’s story becomes “a vivid, complex female bildungsroman” and that “The harrowing depiction of her experiences at the Brinsley Street School . . . ought to be required reading for every prospective teacher.” He praises “the extraordinary connectedness of Lawrence’s universe,” concluding that the central theme, “humanity’s fortunate fall from instinctive being into spiritualized mental consciousness” is displayed in “the widening circle structure of the narrative” of the three generations. Crump also praises Lawrence’s characterizations, especially those of Tom and Lydia, whom he depicts “with a passionate concreteness and immediacy unmatched almost anywhere in his work.” This assessment reflects late twentieth-century appreciation of Lawrence’s work in general and this novel in particular.