The Plumed Serpent is a 1926 political novel by D. H. Lawrence; Lawrence conceived the idea for the novel while visiting Mexico in 1923, and its themes reflect his experiences there. The novel was first published by Martin Secker's firm in the United Kingdom and Alfred A. Knopf in the United States; an early draft was published as Quetzalcoatl by Black Swan Books in 1995. The novel's plot concerns Kate Leslie, an Irish tourist who visits Mexico after the Mexican Revolution. She encounters Don Cipriano, a Mexican general who supports a religious movement, the Men of Quetzalcoatl, founded by his friend Don Ramón Carrasco. Within this movement, Cipriano is identified with Huitzilopochtli and Ramón with Quetzalcoatl. Kate eventually agrees to marry Cipriano, while the Men of Quetzalcoatl, with the help of a new president, bring about an end to Christianity in Mexico, replacing it with pagan Quetzalcoatl worship. The novel received a varied reception. Novelists such as British writer E. M. Forster considered it Lawrence's best literary work. Literary critics have different opinions about its literary merit. Some have found it inferior to his other work, but others have considered it his greatest accomplishment as a novelist, an assessment shared by Lawrence himself. The novel received attention in Mexico, where its reception was positive, and it was praised by the Nobel laureate Octavio Paz. The Plumed Serpent has been compared to other works by Lawrence such as the novels Kangaroo (1923) and Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), and the essays Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian essays (1932), as well as to the work of the poet T. S. Eliot. Some commentators have characterised it as fascist and as an attack on Christianity, and others have discussed the supposed belief of women's submission to men that is allegedly present in the novel. It has also been interpreted as an expression of Lawrence's personal political ambition and as having homoerotic aspects. Source: Wikipedia (en)