1880–1943
○ Died of cancer
English poet and novelist whose lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness was tried for obscenity
In 1928 her novel The Well of Loneliness, a sympathetic portrayal of lesbians, was tried for obscenity, and all copies were ordered destroyed in Britain.
An English poet and novelist, born in Bournemouth. Living on her inheritance without marrying, she dressed in men’s clothes and called herself a “congenital invert”, a term from Ellis and other sexologists. She used the name “John”, given her by her lover Mabel Batten, for the rest of her life, and from 1917 lived with Una Troubridge until her death. Adam’s Breed (1926) won the Prix Femina, and The Well of Loneliness (1928), after obscenity proceedings started by Home Secretary Joynson-Hicks, was ordered destroyed in Britain. She died of cancer in 1943.
Also known as: John Radclyffe-Hall · Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe-Hall
Activities and affiliations
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1906–1943
Literature and arts
Related historical events
- 1885–1941.11.06Sexual Reform Movements in Europe and the Reaction of the 1930s (1885–1941)NovelistHer The Well of Loneliness was judged obscene in 1928.
- 1885.08.07–1938.07.19Sexual Reform in Britain: From the Wilde Trials to The Well of Loneliness (1885–1938)NovelistHer lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness was judged obscene and destroyed in 1928.
The Well of Loneliness and its trial
Her father abandoned the family in 1882 but left her a large inheritance, while her mother, who had failed to get an abortion, made it clear that she was unwanted. She wore trousers, monocles and men’s hats, and spent her twenties pursuing women she eventually lost to marriage. In 1907 at Bad Homburg she met the 51-year-old singer Mabel Batten, who lived with her, first called her “John” and encouraged her to publish her poetry. In 1915 she fell in love with Batten’s cousin Una Troubridge, a sculptor married to a vice-admiral, and from 1917, the year after Batten’s death, she and Troubridge lived together for the rest of her life. Her Catholicism sat beside a lifelong attachment to spiritualism.
After five books of poetry (1906–1915) she published her first novel, The Unlit Lamp, in 1924. Adam’s Breed (1926) won both the Prix Femina and the James Tait Black Prize, a feat previously achieved only by E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India. That year she published her first short story dealing with homosexuality, and twelve days later began writing The Well of Loneliness. Published in 1928, the novel gave a vulnerable, sympathetic portrayal of Stephen Gordon, a masculine lesbian who, like Hall, identifies as an “invert”. Though not sexually explicit, it was attacked by the journalist James Douglas, who called for its suppression, and proceedings started by Home Secretary Joynson-Hicks ended in an order to destroy all copies in Britain; the United States allowed publication only after a long court battle.
An anonymous verse lampoon, The Sink of Solitude, aimed at Douglas and Joynson-Hicks, also mocked her; horrified by an illustration of herself nailed to a cross, she chose a religious subject for her next novel. In the 1930s she lived with Troubridge in Rye, and Troubridge painfully tolerated her affair with the Russian nurse Evguenia Souline. She died at 63 in 1943 after unsuccessful operations for rectal cancer and was buried in the Batten family vault at Highgate Cemetery. In 1999 The Well of Loneliness was seventh on a list of the top 100 lesbian and gay novels.