Among other writers commenting on the book's contemporary context, Paul Binding has pointed out that its famous opening phrase, "The past is a foreign country", had first been used by Hartley's friend Lord David Cecil in his inaugural lecture as Goldsmith's Professor in 1949. Ali Smith revisited the observed parallel drawn between the treatment of class and sexuality in "The Go-Between" and in "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (1928). D.H. Lawrence’s novel was not allowed unexpurgated circulation in Britain until after "The Go-Between"s appearance, but perhaps, she speculated, Hartley's novel helped prepare the climate for the overturning of the British ban on Lawrence's work seven years later.