You Touched Me tells the story of a young boy who is adopted by a family that is without any male children. The mother having died, and one sister having been married off, two sisters remain with the father and raise the boy, though the boy is reluctant to embrace the education and lifestyle offered him and opts to leave for Canada. When war breaks out the boy returns as a young man and spends time with the patriarch of the house who is close to death. The sisters believe the young man is in search of a legacy, but when the elder sister mistakenly brushes her hand against the young man, thinking that it is her father in the dark of her father’s bedroom, the young man asks the father for the daughter's hand in marriage, even though she is old enough to be his mother. Both daughters are opposed to the proposition and assume the young man is doing this in hopes of inheriting money (though the boy admits to himself alone that this is only part of the reason, as he wants both the money and the daughter). The father redrafts his will, stating that his entire legacy will go to the young man if his daughter refuses to marry him. The daughter eventually gives in and while on his death bed the father demands to watch his elder daughter kiss the young man as if asserting his will over his daughter.

David Herbert Richards Lawrence (11 September 1885— 2 March 1930) was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, and instinct.

"No other writer with his imaginative standing has in our time written books that are so open to life." —Alfred Kazin

“Lawrence had that quality of genius which sucks out of ordinary experience essences strange or unknown to men.” —Anaïs Nin

E. M. Forester called Lawrence "The greatest imaginative novelist of our generation".