The Well of Loneliness

Description

A ground-breaking and moving lesbian novel that was banned in Britain on first publication This pride month, discover the groundbreaking and moving lesbian novel that rocked the British establishment. As a little girl Stephen Gordon always felt different. A talent for sport, a hatred of dresses and a preference for solitude were not considered suitable for a young lady of the Victorian upper-class. But when Stephen grows up and falls passionately in love with another woman, her standing in the county and her place at the home she loves become untenable. Stephen must set off to discover whether there is anywhere in the world that will have her. The complete and enhanced edition contains extra information and archival material that tells the fascinating story behind The Well's controversial publication, trial and ban in 1928.

Radclyffe Hall, the pen name of Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall, was born in Bournemouth on 12 August 1880. She was educated at King's College, London, and later undertook further studies in Germany. Hall was renowned for her open homosexuality, a subject dealt with in her best-known novel, The Well of Loneliness (1928), a semi-autobiographical work and the only one of her eight novels to deal with overt lesbian themes. Her open treatment of lesbianism in The Well of Loneliness occasioned a trial for obscenity; it was banned and an appeal refused, which resulted in all copies in Britain being destroyed. The United States allowed its publication after a long court battle. She also published several volumes of verse including Twixt Earth and Stars- Poems (1906) and Songs of Three Counties and Other Poems (1913). Adam's Breed (1926), a sensitive novel about the life of a restaurant keeper won the Prix Femina and the 1927 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. Hall died in 1943 at the age of 68 from cancer.

Passionately felt and courageous * Spectator * A pioneering lesbian novel * Daily Telegraph * Beautifully written and constructed, with delightful prose. It is the standard-bearer; the lesbian The Grapes of Wrath -- Lee Lynch