IntroductionTo Lesbian & Gay Studies And Bisexual & Transgender Studies English 245 / Women’s Studies 245

Radclyffe Hall Portrait by Charles Buchel, (1918). On display at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Mabel Batten

Lady Una Troubridge & Radclyffe Hall

"Believing herself a man trapped in a woman's body, she liked to be called John, assumed a male pseudonym (her father's name, significantly), and cultivated a strikingly masculine appearance, sporting cropped hair, monocles, bow-ties, smoking jackets, and pipes.” From Radclyffe Hall’s biography by Una Troubridge

Published in 1929, The Well of Loneliness was her fifth novel. One was a best-seller and two had earned significant literary prizes. Radclyffe Hall had also published five volumes of poetry by Her purpose was to present a sympathetic portrait of the "congenital invert," one that would show the full humanity and suffering of people like herself.

"In England hitherto the subject has not been treated frankly outside the regions of scientific text-books, but that its social consequences qualify a broader and more general treatment is likely to be the opinion of thoughtful and cultured people." (Publisher Jonathan Cape on jacket) “ I wrote the book in order to help a very much misunderstood and therefore unfortunate section of society.” Radclyffe Hall, 1929.

“You’re neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad; you’re as much a part of what people call nature as anyone else; only you’re unexplained as yet—you’ve not got your niche in creation. But some day that will come, and meanwhile don’t shrink from yourself, but just face yourself calmly and bravely. Have courage; do the best you can with your burden. But above all be honorable. Cling to your honor for the sake of those others who share the same burden. For their sakes show the world that people like you and they can be quite as selfless and fine as the rest of mankind. Let your life go to prove this.” Tutor Puddles to Stephen: Book Two, chapter 20, Section 3, paragraph 4

Havelock Ellis. Sexual Inversion (1897) "I have read The Well of Loneliness with great interest because - apart from its fine qualities as a novel - it possesses a notable psychological and sociological significance. So far as I know, it is the first English novel which presents, in a completely faithful and uncompromising form, one particular aspect of sexual life as it exists among us today. The relation of certain people - who, while different from their fellow human beings, are sometimes of the highest character and the finest aptitudes - to the often hostile society in which they move presents difficult and still unsolved problems. The poignant situations which thus arise are here set forth so vividly, and yet with such complete absence of offence, that we must place Radclyffe Hall's book on a high level of distinction."

BANNED “[The Well of Loneliness is] an intolerable outrage - the first outrage of the kind in the annals of English fiction. In order to prevent the contamination and corruption of English fiction it is the duty of the critic to make it impossible for any other novelist to repeat this outrage. I say deliberately that this novel is not fit to be sold by any bookseller or to be borrowed from any library.” James Douglas, Sunday Express, August 19, “The test for obscenity is this—whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall." Obscene Publications Act of 1857