The Well of Loneliness: a novel by Radclyffe Hall

 

Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) was a British poet and novelist who is best remembered for her fifth novel “The Well of Loneliness”, published in 1928. This was the first English novel to openly describe lesbian relationships. It led to an obscenity trial and a 20-year ban in Great Britain. It was also banned in the United States, but for a much shorter period.

The novel is the story of Stephen – a girl whose aristocratic father wanted a son and whose mother is frightened by her boyishness. She hates wearing dresses, has a series of passionate crushes on older women, and declares herself an “invert”, which was the term used by the sexologist Havelock Ellis to describe homosexuality.

Stephen drives an ambulance during World War I and finds love with Mary Llewellyn. When the war is over, the two women move to Paris and throw themselves into what would now be called gay and lesbian culture. However, happiness is impossible for them and their lifestyle is described by the novelist as being tragic and self-destructive.

The book was prosecuted by the British Home Office under the 1857 Obscene Publications Act. During the trial, Hall received support from several noted writers including Virginia Woolf, George Bernard Shaw, Rebecca West, Arnold Bennett and EM Forster. Despite the book describing no behaviour more explicit than kissing, the mention of the protagonists “not being divided” when spending the night together was probably enough to lose the case for the author.

Copies of the novel were sold in Paris and smuggled back to Britain, so it got a fairly wide readership. Reviews were generally positive and Hall received a large number of letters and telegrams of support. It was a bestseller in the United States and was selling around 100,000 copies a year internationally by the time of Hall’s death from cancer in 1943.

The Well of Loneliness was, for many years, the best known lesbian novel in the world. The attempts to ban it only increased its visibility and created greater awareness of female homosexuality. Even today – when the book’s attitudes and language seem dated and its message depressing – it still provokes discussion and academic debate and features in accounts of coming out.

© John Welford