Picture of author.

Radclyffe Hall (1880–1943)

Author of The Well of Loneliness

24+ Works 3,898 Members 71 Reviews 4 Favorited

About the Author

Born Marguerite Radclyffe Hall, the writer called herself John as an adult. Educated at King's College, London, Hall began her career writing poetry set to music and performed prominently before World War I. Under the influence of the socialite Mabel Batten, Hall became devoutly Roman Catholic and show more met Una, Lady Troubridge, who was to become Hall's lifelong companion. The Well of Loneliness (1928), a frank and touching portrayal of lesbian sensibilities, was banned in Britain and America (despite George Bernard Shaw's comment that the novel told of things people should know about), nearly ruining her literary career. Copies of the book were widely confiscated; censors expressed moral outrage, especially because Hall's characters showed no contrition for their "vices" and were portrayed sympathetically. Despite aggressive attempts at censorship, though, audiences clamored for the novel, which attained a strong popularity. Hall wrote of lesbianism as natural and pleaded for tolerance, yet her writing manifests a degree of guilt that in some way affirms her society's widespread prejudice that homosexuality was a deformity. Despite her fierce defense of The Well of Loneliness, none of Hall's later writing explicitly deals with homosexual themes. Still, though Hall was less self-accepting than contemporary gay writers, The Well of Loneliness endures as a relatively rare and valuable documentation of lesbian lives and aesthetics in the early twentieth century. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Works by Radclyffe Hall

Associated Works

The Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories (1993) — Contributor — 326 copies, 2 reviews
Growing Up Gay/Growing Up Lesbian: A Literary Anthology (1993) — Contributor — 309 copies
The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse (1983) — Contributor — 256 copies, 3 reviews
Erotica: Women's Writing from Sappho to Margaret Atwood (1990) — Contributor — 182 copies
The Penguin Book of First World War Stories (2007) — Contributor — 127 copies, 1 review
The Penguin Book of Erotic Stories by Women (1995) — Contributor — 92 copies, 1 review
Queer: A Collection of LGBTQ Writing from Ancient Times to Yesterday (2021) — Contributor, some editions — 65 copies
Gender in Modernism: New Geographies, Complex Intersections (2007) — Contributor — 12 copies, 1 review
Christmas Short Works Collection 2007 (2007) — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

1001 books (27) 1920s (33) 20th century (78) British (65) British literature (35) classic (59) classics (52) England (43) English literature (34) fiction (634) gay (34) glbt (31) homosexuality (31) lesbian (211) lesbian fiction (62) lesbianism (28) lesbians (27) LGBT (76) LGBTQ (57) literature (59) novel (103) queer (68) read (35) romance (24) sexuality (34) to-read (230) Virago (114) Virago Modern Classics (58) VMC (40) women (29)

Common Knowledge

Members

Discussions

Group Read, October 2020: The Well of Loneliness in 1001 Books to read before you die (October 2020)
The Well of Loneliness in Book talk (March 2011)

Reviews

78 reviews
Ha csak a formát nézzük, meg merem kockáztatni, ez a regény elavult. Nem a XXI. század kontextusában, hanem megjelenési dátumához, 1928-hoz viszonyítva – hisz ekkorra már túl vagyunk Conradon, Joyce-on (de említhetnénk akár Galsworthy-t is), akikhez képest Hall mintha visszahátrálna két évtizedet a szorosan vett viktoriánus prózába. A magány kútja elemeiben szükségtelenül szószátyár és érzelmeskedő szöveg, ami távol tartja magát mindenféle izgalmas show more prózai kísérletezéstől, ráadásul helyenként árad belőle az „igazság sulykolásának” kényszere. (Nyilván szándékosan: programadó mű kíván lenni. Nem indokolatlanul, persze.) Hall kasztszerű szemlélete meg egyszerűen irritáló – az hogy az íreknek mindig „kelta lelke” van, ami végtelenül vagány dolog, bármit jelentsen is, még hagyján. De nekem a fülem kihámlott attól, hogy a szerző számára a cselédek, kertészek és inasok csak valamiféle köztes lényként léteznek, valahol a növények és bútorok fölött, de az emberek alatt – és tegyük még hozzá, a lovak és kutyák alatt is, legalábbis erre utal, hogy Hall lényegesen bensőségesebben taglalja ezen lelkes állatok érzelmi hullámzásait, mint mondjuk akármelyik konyhalányét vagy komornyikét*.

Ugyanakkor ez a könyv tételesen és dokumentáltan az első egyértelmű irodalmi leírása a leszbikus szerelemnek**. (Így most eszembe is jutott: lehet, hogy az a baj, hogy túl egyértelmű a leírás?) Pontosan ábrázolja a számkivetettség érzését, hogy milyen a nők idegenkedésével és undorával, valamint a férfiak idegenkedésével, undorával és frusztrációjával*** szembesülni, tehát összességében: a társadalmi zárványt, amibe az ember belekerül. És izgalmasan jeleníti meg a zavarba ejtő kettősséget is, hogy valaki a bűntudattól űzve legszívesebben a katolicizmus kebelébe bújna – de a katolicizmus momentán egy laza csuklómozdulattal a Gyehenna tüzére kívánja őt vetni. Persze Hall megközelítése így mai szemmel több ponton hibádzik – mintha maga sem tudná eldönteni, hogy a homoszexualitás a nevelés következménye, vagy vele született tulajdonság (mindenesetre az előbbire utalgat többet), és hát gyakran volt az a benyomásom, hogy a főhős nem egyszerűen leszbikus, hanem konkrétan férfi akar lenni, ami azért nem ugyanaz****. (Megjegyz.: Hall maga sem használja a „leszbikus” kifejezést, hanem „inverznek” nevezi Stephent. Aki amúgy a főhősnő. Hülye angol névadási szokások.) Szóval jelentős könyv ez, olyan köntösben, ami azért lehetne sokkal jelentősebb is… Érdekes. Ritkán érzem ilyen egyértelműen, hogy egy mű becsét az határozza meg, hogy valamit először csinál.

* Amúgy ez az arisztokratikus hozzáállás nem újdonság, már Wilde esetében is meglepett, hogy a társadalomból való kitaszítottság mennyire nem jár együtt a más kitaszítottak iránti együttérzéssel, vagy akár csak azzal, hogy egyáltalán észrevegyük őket.
** Csak nehogy félreértsük egymást: a szerelemnek, nem a szexualitásnak. Szexuális téren e könyv nagyjából éppolyan prűd, mint Dickens.
*** Frusztráció, igen. Mert itt egy nő, aki a mi nőinkre pályázik. Mi több: a siker reményével! Konkurencia!
**** Amiről megint eszembe jutott Wilde, aki számos esetben konkrétan megvetéssel beszélt a nőkről. Hall esetében is tetten érhető ez a tendencia – a nők egyenjogúsításának kérdése például legfeljebb ha érintőlegesen foglalkoztatja, mint olyan esemény, ami mellesleg az ő kínjain is enyhítene.
show less
Gian-Luca's mother died in childbirth, leaving her illegitimate son to be raised by his grandparents. Fabio and Teresa live in an Italian community in London; Fabio is a naturalized citizen. Gian-Luca is "English in the eyes of the law." He's different from all the boys in school both because of his ethnic background, and because he has no father. And worse yet, Teresa sees Gian-Luca as the cause of her daughter's death, and is unable to show him any affection. He grows up lonely and show more searching for love.

Fabio's salumeria is the one source of beauty in Gian-Luca's early life:
The shop! All his life Gian-Luca remembered those first impressions of the shop; the size of it, the smell of it, the dim, mysterious gloom of it -- a gloom from which strange objects would continually jump out and try to hit you in the face-- but above all the smell, that wonderful smell that belongs to the Salumeria. The shop smelt of sawdust and cheeses and pickles and olives and sausages and garlic; the shop smelt of oil and cans and Chianti and a little of split peas and lentils; the shop smelt of coffee and sour brown bread and very faintly of vanilla; the shop smelt of people, of Fabio's boot blacking, and of all the boots that went in and out unblacked; it also smelt of Old Compton Street, a dusty, adventurous smell. (p. 27)

When Gian-Luca leaves school, he begins a career as a waiter, and eventually becomes head waiter in The Doric, London's finest restaurant. Gian-Luca is talented and driven, but empty, lacking the emotional and spiritual connections so important to personal well-being. His life is a quest for identity, and for love.

Radclyffe Hall brings the Italian immigrant community to life, with delicious food and a rich supporting cast. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and the early 20th-century restaurant business. But Adam's Breed is a melancholy book that explores themes of love, God, and human nature. By the end it had evolved beyond its initial premise to a moving story of one man's search for self, and meaning.
show less
½
*4.5? 4.8?*

Do the best you can, no man can do more — but never stop fighting. For us there is no sin so great as despair, and perhaps no virtue so vital as courage.

Um. Wow.

I came across this book in my many forays of pre-Stonewall queer history when I was writing a novelization of queer 1920s New York. Lucky for my research, my main characters were male, but I still came across the few and far between primary source fictions of queer women and bookmarked them. I received this book as a show more gift this Christmas, and seeing a lull in school work, dedicated myself to the 166k word, 400-page clunker. (After reading War and Peace, it was a reassuring number, believe me.)

And man am I glad I read it.

A word of caution: If you don't like old-style prose, you probably won't like it. If you don't like a lot of detail that comes inherent to that style, you probably won't like it. And if you can't appreciate Christianity/Religiosity for a queer person and the many sufferings of it, you probably won't like it.

As I began reading, the idea that Stephen is a transgender man, instead of a "butch" lesbian, seemed to take over me. The linguistic and psychological concepts to differentiate same-sex attraction and gender identity were not known at the time, and it made Stephen's character at times both frustration and immensely fascinating. Coming into the book I was expecting a lesbian narrative, and the more I heard Stephen's feeling of being a boy, the more I grew convinced they were probably transgender, and thus a key part of understanding would be lost to me. As the book progressed, however, my theory seemed to waver, and I'm still not sure how Stephen would identify in the modern world. To me I realized, it didn't necessarily matter to my understanding of the novel's themes of a world not accepting something natural. No matter how Stephen would align themselves, the sentiments still stand: All queer people deserve to be treated equally.

From one character to the next we see how unjust the life is for an "invert". From Angela's twisted sense of selfishness to save her own unhappy honor, to Anna's disgusting denunciation of her child, to Puddle's true inclination never uttered to Stephen, to Martin's awkward growth of love and embarrassed leaving, to the deeply tragic story of Jamie and Barbara, and especially down to Stephen's last sacrifice—not only is the message abundantly clear but seems to also strengthen the connection Stephen had with her father, Sir Phillip.

Sir Phillip is the original God in this story, the Father who understands and accepts his child—but is too afraid to tell her or others for fear of hurting them. This then is the God the Father Stephen prays to at the end, the Father who loves and understands her, but for one reason or another is silent. Stephen finds his scrawled book of Psychopathia Sexualis like the commandments, and through it learns her Father accepts her. He just didn't tell her explicitly. The story is ultimately one of Stephen returning to her Father; enjoying his unabashed love as a child before being banished from her Eden of Morton, she must seek to find peace in her silent, God the Father once more.

And so I found attention to religion beautiful. Being religiously-inclined and grappling with my faith as I try to return to my own halcyon days of God (as Hall themselves would so eloquently put it), the struggle of religion was poignant to me. Stephen's life is underlined by a feeling of God: at times she believes in none of it, at others she seems to understand the power that He really is there—the symbolism of Stephen as Jesus comes to mind, sacrificing herself for her love so she may have a better life. If Hall could be a devout Catholic in the face of her sexuality, her trials—and hell—even WWI, then anyone could. I've been praying for my own spirituality recently, trying to understand my encounters with spirits against a world that tells me I must be insane, the outmoded creation stories, and twisted single-mindedness of the Christian we've all come to revile. It seems like a blessing then that I read this book at the time that I did, and I hope one day I'm at peace with my encounters with the unexplained and otherworldly, and the universality of a God for all people on earth no matter what creed. For now, I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the book, something I'll hold on to for life:

Then an unexpected, and to her very moving thing happened; his eyes filled with pitiful tears: ‘Lord,’ he muttered, ‘why need this have come upon you — this incomprehensible dispensation? It’s enough to make one deny God’s existence!’

She felt a great need to reassure him. At that moment he seemed so much younger than she was as he stood there with his eyes full of pitiful tears, doubting God, because of his human compassion: ‘There are still the trees. Don’t forget the trees, Martin — because of them you used to believe.’

‘Have you come to believe in a God then?’ he muttered.

‘Yes,’ she told him, ‘it’s strange, but I know now I must — lots of us feel that way in the end. I’m not really religious like some of the others, but I’ve got to acknowledge God’s existence, though at times I still think: “Can He really exist?” One can’t help it, when one’s seen what I have here in Paris. But unless there’s a God, where do some of us find even the little courage we possess?’


(For anyone more interested in Hall's relationship with her spirituality, I recommend this article written by a queer Christian site
The book is not 5 stars only because of the length. Sometimes I felt myself slogging through (sometimes being the keyword), though I genuinely liked the writing style in all its stately obsequiousness to detail I know many do not appreciate. Sometimes the attention to detail, especially of natural elements, went on for paragraphs and I wanted to bang my head against something to wake it up. I felt at times the themes were not completely cohesive either, as the details seemed to muddy the message Hall was going for.

I could write 3 papers on this book and the literary merit it still holds—why it is not in schools hounds me. I feel the value of the book escapes the masses, not by any deficiency of themselves but rather of the time and the subject manner. We have equal protection under the law now and classical religion is dwindling. The pertinent issues were already niche 90 years ago, I understand the canon's ignorance of it, though it makes my heart ache. If only Hall could see the happy, queer marriages able to take place in churches now—though a part of me knows she sees it all already.

***
‘God,’ she gasped, we believe; we have told You we believe . . . We have not denied You, then rise up and defend us. Acknowledge us, oh God, before the whole world. Give us also the right to our existence!’
show less
½
Boy, was this book a product of its time. The title is spot-on in describing the mood of this novel. The Well of Loneliness is a thinly veiled account of the author’s own life as a lesbian in the 1920s and earlier, and it was very depressing.

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve wanted to read this book for a long time, and I’m very glad to have read it and experienced it. But I struggled through it. It was draining.

The main character, a lesbian named Stephen, grows up feeling very different from show more everyone around her, although she doesn’t have a name for this difference. She begins an affair with a married woman who abandons her, and eventually she falls in love with a woman she met during WWI. The entire book paints lesbians and gay men as social outcasts, sexual deviants, freaks of nature–which is how society viewed them at that time. Stephen is hyperaware of just how extremely heavy the burden of her “deviant sexuality” is. She is rejected by her mother and by others in her life, she struggles to find friends and to create a social life, and eventually she tricks her lover into ending their relationship with the hope that her lover will marry a man and thus be saved from the difficult life of a lesbian.

This book was immediately banned in many places when it was published, and it almost ended Radclyffe Hall’s career. I think she is remarkably brave for having written it, and I think it does inspire sympathy and increase understanding of the burden that society placed on gay people back then. (One minor lesbian character committed suicide; another struggled with immense guilt because of religious oppression.)

Although I would have loved to see Stephen take joy in her sexual orientation, that is perhaps not realistic for its time. Stephen did the best she could in an extremely oppressive society, even maintaining faith in God despite the way the world treated her.
show less
½

Lists

Awards

You May Also Like

Associated Authors

Statistics

Works
24
Also by
12
Members
3,898
Popularity
#6,496
Rating
½ 3.5
Reviews
71
ISBNs
105
Languages
10
Favorited
4

Charts & Graphs