In 1928, there were three lesbian novels published in England: Viriginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography, Compton Mackenzie’s Extraordinary Women, and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. Between them, each book offered then-revolutionary ideas about love, sexuality, and gender; but only one has been banned, welcomed praise, and garnered controversy for almost a century.
Stephen Gordon has always been different. Firstly, she was born a girl against her parent’s wishes. Secondly, she is raised to be boyish—the son her father always wanted—much to her mother’s disdain. However, the most damning thing of all is Stephen’s love for other women, something society isn’t quite ready to accept. While Stephen lives a good life—that is, having wealth and opportunity by virtue of being born into an upper-class aristocratic family—it is far from an easy one. For Stephen, life is a frustrating existence where she does not know the meaning of herself or where she belongs in the world…that is until she meets Angela Crossby, and comes to know romantic love for the very first time.
Autobiographical in nature, Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness is an intensely emotional novel about what it means to be queer in the early twentieth century.
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A propos de l’auteur
Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) was an English poet and novelist. Born to a wealthy English father and an American mother in Bournemouth, Hampshire, Hall was left a sizeable fortune following her parents’ separation in 1882. Raised in a troubled environment, Hall struggled to gain financial independence from her mother and stepfather. As she took control of her inheritance, Hall began dressing in men’s clothing and identifying herself as a “congenital invert.” In 1907, she began a relationship with amateur singer Mabel Batten, who encouraged Hall to pursue a career in literature. By 1917, she had fallen in love with sculptor Una Troubridge, a cousin of Batten’s. After several poetry collections, Hall’s second novel The Unlit Lamp (1924) was published, becoming a bestseller shortly thereafter. Adam’s Breed (1926), a novel about an Italian waiter who abandons modern life, earned Hall the Prix Femina and the James Tait Black Prize, two of the most prestigious awards in world literature. In 1928, Hall’s sixth novel, The Well of Loneliness, was published to widespread controversy for its depiction of lesbian romance. While an obscenity trial in the United Kingdom led to an order that all copies of the novel be destroyed, a lengthy trial in the United States eventually allowed the book’s publication. Recognized as a pioneering figure in lesbian literature, Hall lived in London with Una Troubridge until her death at the age of sixty-three.
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