Arts minister Michael Ellis put an export bar on the copy of the D.H. Lawrence novel taken to court by Sir Laurence Byrne.

The UK government hopes a buyer based in Britain will be able to match the £56,250 asking price.

The decision to impose the bar was made on the advice of a committee of experts led by Sir Hayden Phillips, who said the copy was a “witness” to one of the 20th century’s most important criminal trials.

R v Penguin Books Ltd saw the prosecution of Penguin Books at the Old Bailey, under obscenity laws, over its publication of the novel.

The jury delivered a verdict of “not guilty”, paving the way for freedom to publish explicit material in the UK.

Sir Laurence brought his copy of the book to court every day inside a blue-grey damask bag that was hand-stitched by his wife, Dorothy.

Lady Dorothy Byrne also marked up the sexually explicit sections of the book on headed Central Criminal Court paper, with comments including “love making” and “coarse”.

Sir Laurence famously asked whether the novel was “a book that you would… wish your wife or your servants to read.”

The jury took a mere three hours to reach their decision, which auction house Sotheby’s said “helped bring to birth a more liberal and permissive Britain”.