Radclyffe Hall (August 12, 1880 - October 7, 1943) (born Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall, in life she went by the name John) was a British lesbian, and author of The Well of Loneliness .
In 1928, The Well of Loneliness was the subject of an obscenity trial which resulted in all copies of the novel ordered destroyed. It was subsequently reprinted, and is currently in print in the United States, published by Anchor Press. Not only a classic of lesbian literature , The Well of Loneliness is also an example of sentimental literature. It is, however, somewhat anachronistic to refer to either Hall or the main character of The Well of Loneliness as a lesbian. Hall described herself as a congenital invert a term she acquired from the writings of Havelock Ellis and other turn of the century sexologists. The Well of Loneliness is commonly acknowledged to be a thinly veiled autobiography of Hall.
Other works by Hall include The Unlit Lamp, A Saturday Life, The Forge, The Master of the House, The Bells of Aspenden, The Sixth Beatitude and Adam's Breed.
The British composer and bon-vivant Gerald Berners, also the 17th Lord Berners, wrote a roman à clef The Girls of Radclyffe Hall , in which he depicts himself and his circle of friends, including Cecil Beaton and Oliver Messel , as lesbian schoolgirls at a school named Radclyffe Hall. The indiscretions made in this novel (which was published and distributed privately) created an uproar among Berners' intimates and acquaintances, making the whole affair highly discussed in the 1930s. The novel subsequently disappeared from circulation, making it an extremely rare book among collectors of gay literature . Rumour has it that Beaton bought all the already scarce copies of the book and destroyed them.
Judith Halberstam, in her book Female Masculinity writes about Radclyffe Hall and The Well of Loneliness.
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