Radclyffe Hall

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Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) is best known as the author of the controversial lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness. Court cases led to the book being banned in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The American verdict was overturned on appeal, but the book remained unpublished in the United Kingdom until 1949.

Radclyffe Hall was born Marguerite Radclyffe Hall on August 12, 1880, at Christchurch, Bournemouth, England. In later life she was called John by her friends and M. Radclyffe Hall or simply Radclyffe Hall in her books. Her mother, Marie, was American and her father, Radclyffe Radclyffe Hall - or Rat-was British. Her parents divorced in 1882 and Marie remarried a musician, Albert Visetti, whom Radclyffe Hall did not like.

Hall's first romantic attachment was to a singer called Agnes Nicholls, who boarded with her mother. After she came of age and inherited her grandfather's considerable fortune, Hall visited her American family and developed close friendships with her cousins Jane Randolph and Dorothy Diehl. Hall claimed that she was never in the slightest attracted to men.

Hall wrote poetry from an early age. Her first volume of poems, 'Twixt Earth and Stars, was published in 1906. However, at that time, her main interests were hunting and travel. On August 22, 1907, at the German spa of Homburg, Hall met Mabel Batten, a 50-year-old married woman with a grown daughter. Mabel, or Ladye as her friends called her, had been a renowned beauty and was a keen amateur singer. They became lovers and Batten influenced Hall greatly, encouraging her to pursue her poetry writing. The year 1908 saw the publication of Hall's second book, which included "Ode to Sapho." Her third volume came out a year later. When Batten's husband died in 1910, the two women made a home together. Hall's fourth poetry anthology was dedicated to Batten. More volumes of poetry followed.

Batten introduced Hall to lesbian society and to Catholicism. Hall began to develop a masculine image, wearing tailored jackets and stiff collars. They both remained in England during World War I (1914-18) due to Batten's ill health. Hall began to try writing fiction.

Early Troubles

In 1915, Hall met Una Troubridge and the two women began a relationship that was to last the rest of her life. Troubridge was a professional artist with a young daughter named Andrea and was married to a naval captain, Ernest Troubridge. This affair caused an uneasy situation between Batten, Troubridge, and Hall, until Batten died in 1916.

After Batten's death, Hall and Troubridge developed an interest in spiritualism and began attending seances with a medium, Mrs. Osborne Leonard. They believed that Batten's spirit gave them advice. Sir Oliver Lodge a member of the Royal Society and former president of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), encouraged the two women to write a research paper about their seances. However, Batten's daughter complained to the SPR that the women's relationship affected their research methods.

In 1919, Troubridge and her husband agreed to a legal separation, allowing her and Hall to organize more settled domestic arrangements. Hall returned to novel writing, starting the book that would be published as The Unlit Lamp. However, Hall's problems were not over. In 1920, George Lane Fox Pitt, a member of the SPR, accused Hall and Troubridge of writing an "immoral" paper after talking with Troubridge's husband. Hall and Troubridge sued for slander and won a close victory.

Literary Success

In 1923, Hall acquired a literary agent, Audrey Heath. She began work on The Forge, which was published by Arrowsmith in 1924. This sold well and Cassell agreed to publish The Unlit Lamp. A Saturday Life, her third novel, was released on April 1, 1925, with a jacket designed by Troubridge. Hall started to write Adam's Breed, which was published by Russell Doubleday in the U.S.

Adam's Breed was released on March 4, 1926 and received favorable reviews. In early July, Hall completed the short story "Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself," which dealt with homosexuality. Twelve days later she began writing Stephen, the novel that became The Well of Loneliness.

The Well of Loneliness

The Well of Loneliness, a tragic novel about the life of a lesbian, conveys the message that lesbians cannot help being what they are and are unfairly persecuted by society. Hall researched scientific theories about homosexuality, especially those of Havelock Ellis, an English psychologist who believed that homosexuality was "congenital." She had trouble finding a publisher, eventually persuading Jonathan Cape to release it in the United Kingdom and Alfred Knopf in the United States.

The Well of Loneliness appeared in 1928. Initial sales and reviews were good. Then on Sunday, August 19, the Sunday Express printed a damning article labeling it immoral; "I would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel. Poison kills the body, but moral poison kills the soul." The book became headline news and sales rocketed. On Wednesday, August 22, the Home Secretary instructed Cape to stop the book or face legal proceedings for obscenity. U.K. publication stopped, but Cape began printing it in Paris. Nevertheless, uneasy American publishers halted the scheduled U.S. October release.

On October 4, Dover customs officers seized a shipment of the novel bound for London. They released the books on the 18th, but only so that the Metropolitan Police could use Lord Campbell's Obscene Publications Act of 1857 to confiscate and destroy copies in shops and at Cape's Bedford Square office.

The courts were packed for the trial. Hall was not asked to stand in the witness box and the presiding magistrate disallowed all but the first expert witness for the defense on the grounds that opinions were not evidence. He decided for the prosecution, saying that the book's subject matter was obscene. A December appeal failed to overturn the verdict.

However, the book continued to sell well in France. In America, the Covici Friede imprint was similarly seized by New York Police and charges brought. The verdict of the first trial was that the book was obscene, but an appeal reversed the verdict.

Despite her disappointment, Hall started work on a new novel, published in 1932 as The Master of the House. Hall's writing was heavily influenced by Catholicism; in this novel the hero dies by crucifixion. Oddly, while writing it, Hall claimed to have developed stigmata in her hands. The book sold well initially, but reviews were disappointing. In 1934, a collection of short stories called Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself was released but, reviews were slightly disappointing.

At this time Hall met Evgenia Souline, a Russian nurse hired when Troubridge contracted enteritis while on holiday. Hall and Souline embarked on an affair that lasted until shortly before Hall's death. This relationship caused unhappiness for Troubridge, who remained with her nonetheless. Hall's health deteriorated in 1943 and an examination revealed that she had cancerof the rectum. Operations were unsuccessful and she died in London on October 6, after several painful months. She was watched over by Troubridge, her faithful companion until the end.

Further Reading

Baker, Michael. Our Three Selves: A Life of Radclyffe Hall. Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1985.

Troubridge, Una. The Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall. Hammond and Hammond 1961.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: English writer whose novel about a lesbian relationship was banned in Britain for many years (1883-1943)
  Synonyms: Hall, Radclyffe Hall

Radclyffe Hall
Born	August 12, 1880(1880-08-12) Bournemouth, England
Died	October 7, 1943 (aged 63) London, England
Occupation	Novelist, poet, short story writer
Writing period	1906-1936

Radclyffe Hall (born Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall on August 12, 1880 - October 7, 1943) was an English poet and author, best known for the lesbian classic The Well of Loneliness.

Contents 1 Life 2 Novels 2.1 The Well of Loneliness 2.2 Later novels 3 The Girls of Radcliff Hall 4 Works 4.1 Novels 4.2 Poetry 5 Further reading 6 References 7 External links

Life

Marguerite Radclyffe Hall was born in Bournemouth, Hampshire (now Dorset) in 1880, to a wealthy philandering father and quarrelsome mother. Lonely while growing up (her parents separated when she was a baby and she was virtually ignored by her mother and stepfather), she was educated at King's College London, and then in Germany.

Hall was a lesbian^[1] and described herself as a "congenital invert", a term taken from the writings of Havelock Ellis and other turn-of-the-century sexologists. Having reached adulthood without a vocation, she spent much of her twenties pursuing women she eventually lost to marriage.

Mabel Batten sang to John Singer Sargent as he painted this portrait of her, around 1897.

In 1907 at the Homburg spa in Germany, Hall met Mabel Batten, a well-known amateur singer of lieder. Batten (nicknamed "Ladye") was 51 to Hall's 27, and was married with an adult daughter and grandchildren. They fell in love, and after Batten's husband died they set up residence together. Batten gave Hall the nickname John, which she used the rest of her life.^[2]

In 1915 Hall fell in love with Mabel Batten's cousin, Una Troubridge (1887-1963), a sculptor who was the wife of an admiral and the mother of a young daughter. Mabel Batten died the following year, and in 1917 Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge began living together.^[3] The relationship would last until Hall's death. In 1934 Hall fell in love with Russian émigré Evguenia Souline and embarked upon a long-term affair with her, which Troubridge painfully tolerated.^[4] Hall became involved in affairs with other women throughout the years, possibly including blues singer Ethel Waters.^[5]

Hall lived with Troubridge in London and, during the 1930s, in the tiny town of Rye, East Sussex, noted for its many writers, including her contemporary, the probably-gay novelist E.F. Benson. She died at age 63 of colon cancer, and is interred at Highgate Cemetery in North London. The vault containing her remains is in the Circle of Lebanon, half way round from the Egyptian Avenue entrance.

In 1930 Radclyffe Hall received the Gold Medal of the Eichelbergher Humane Award. She was a member of the PEN club, the Council of the Society for Psychical Research and a fellow of the Zoological Society.^[6]

Radclyffe Hall was listed at number sixteen in the top 500 lesbian and gay heroes in The Pink Paper ^[7].

Novels

Hall's first novel was The Unlit Lamp, the story of Joan Ogden, a young girl who dreams of setting up a flat in London with her friend Elizabeth (a so-called Boston marriage) and studying to become a doctor, but feels trapped by her manipulative mother's emotional dependence on her. Its length and grimness made it a difficult book to sell, so she deliberately chose a lighter theme for her next novel, a social comedy entitled The Forge.^[8] While she had used her full name for her early poetry collections, she shortened it to M. Radclyffe Hall for The Forge. The book was a modest success, making the bestseller list of John O'London's Weekly.^[9] The Unlit Lamp, which followed it into print, was the first of her books to give the author's name simply as Radclyffe Hall.^[10]

There followed another comic novel, A Saturday Life (1925), and then Adam's Breed (1926), a novel about an Italian headwaiter who, becoming disgusted with his job and even with food itself, gives away his belongings and lives as a hermit in the forest. The book's mystical themes have been compared to Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha.^[11] It sold very well, was critically acclaimed, and 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.^[12]

The Well of Loneliness

Main article: The Well of Loneliness

Hall is best known for The Well of Loneliness, the only one of her eight novels to have overt lesbian themes. Published in 1928, The Well of Loneliness deals with the life of Stephen Gordon, a masculine lesbian who, like Hall herself, identifies as an invert. Although Gordon's attitude toward her own sexuality is anguished, the novel presents lesbianism as natural and makes a plea for greater tolerance.

Although The Well of Loneliness is not sexually explicit, it was nevertheless the subject of an obscenity trial in the UK, which resulted in all copies of the novel being ordered destroyed. The United States allowed its publication only after a long court battle. It is currently published in the UK by Virago, and by Anchor Press in the United States.

The Well of Loneliness was number seven on a list of the top 100 lesbian and gay novels compiled by The Publishing Triangle in 1999.^[13]

Later novels

An anonymous verse lampoon entitled The Sink of Solitude appeared during the controversy over The Well. Although its primary targets were James Douglas, who had called for The Well's suppression, and the Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks, who had started legal proceedings, it also mocked Hall and her book. One of the illustrations, which depicted Hall nailed to a cross, so horrified her that she could barely speak of it for years afterward. Her sense of guilt at being depicted in a drawing that she saw as blasphemous led to her choice of a religious subject for her next novel, The Master of the House.^[14]

At Hall's insistence, The Master of the House was published with no cover blurb, which may have misled some purchasers into thinking it was another novel about inversion. Advance sales were strong, and the book made #1 on the Observer's bestseller list, but it received poor reviews in several key periodicals, and sales soon dropped off.^[15] In the United States reviewers treated the book more kindly, but shortly after the book's publication, all copies were seized—not by the police, but by creditors. Hall's American publisher had gone bankrupt. Houghton Mifflin took over the rights, but by the time the book could be republished, its sales momentum was lost.^[16]

The Girls of Radcliff Hall

The British composer and bon-vivant Gerald Berners, the 14th Lord Berners, wrote a roman à clef girls' school story entitled The Girls of Radcliff Hall, in which he depicts himself and his circle of friends, including Cecil Beaton and Oliver Messel, as lesbian schoolgirls at a school named Radcliff Hall. The indiscretions the novel (which was published and distributed privately) alluded to created an uproar among Berners's intimates and acquaintances, making the whole affair highly discussed in the 1930s. The novel subsequently disappeared from circulation, making it extremely rare. The story is, however, included in the Berners anthology Collected Tales and Fantasies.

Works

Novels The Forge (1924) The Unlit Lamp (1924) A Saturday Life (1925) Adam's Breed (1926) The Well of Loneliness (1928) The Master of the House (1932) Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself (1926) The Sixth Beatitude (William Heineman Ltd, London, 1936)

Poetry The Forgotten Island (London : Chapman & Hall,1915) Dedicated to Sir Arthur Sullivan (England : s.n., 1894) A Sheaf Of Verses : Poems (London : J. And E. Bumpus, 1908) Twixt Earth And Stars (London : John And Edward Bumpus Ltd., 1906) Poems Of The Past & Present (London : Chapman And Hall, 1910) Songs Of Three Counties And Other Poems (London: Chapman & Hall, Ltd. 1913) Rhymes and Rhythms (Milan, 1948)

Further reading

• Baker, M. (1985). Our Three Selves. The Life of Radclyffe Hall (New York: William Morrow)
• Cline, Sally. (1999) Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John (Overlook Press)
• Souhami, Diana (1998). The Trials of Radclyffe Hall (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Troubridge, Una (1961): The Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall (London: Hammond)

References

1. ^ Glagow, Joanne (2002), "Hall, Radclyffe", glbtq.com, http://www.glbtq.com/literature/hall_radclyffe.html, retrieved 2007-11-05 
2. ^ Cline, 58-67.
3. ^ "Radclyffe Hall". http://www.apurnell.com/wilreadings/Hall.htm. 
4. ^ Hall's letters to Souline were published in Glasgow, Joanne (ed.) (1997). Your John: The Love Letters of Radclyffe Hall. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-3125-2. 
5. ^ Tina Gianoulis, "Ethel Waters", GLBTQ: An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, transgender and queer culture.
6. ^ Biographical note in the Virago Press edition of The Well of Loneliness.
7. ^ September 26, 1997 edition, issue 500
8. ^ Baker, 152-156.
9. ^ Baker, 164.
10. ^ Baker, 168.
11. ^ Baker, 183-186.
12. ^ Baker, 196-197.
13. ^ "The Publishing Triangle's list of the 100 best lesbian and gay novels". http://www.publishingtriangle.org/100best.asp. 
14. ^ Baker, 257; Cline, 280.
15. ^ Baker, 275-276.
16. ^ Baker, 279-280.

External links

• Guardian story: Lesbian novel was 'danger to nation'
• Radclyffe Hall The Knitting Circle: Literature
• Hall, Radclyffe From the Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, & Queer Culture
• Radclyffe Hall Collection, Photographs at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

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