Radclyffe Hall

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Standard Name: Hall, Radclyffe
Birth Name: Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall
Nickname: John
Self-constructed Name: Radclyffe Hall
RH is best-known today for her landmark lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness, 1928. But she herself explained that she waited until she had made a name for myself as an author . . . because I felt that it would . . . be difficult for an unknown writer to get a novel on congenital sexual inversion published.
Hall, Radclyffe. Radclyffe Hall’s 1934 Letter About The Well of Loneliness. Lesbian Herstory Educational Foundation.
1-2
Her literary reputation was based first on her poetry but later, and more substantially, on her novels, particularly Adam's Breed.
Black and white photograph of Radclyffe Hall, shown from the waist up. She is wearing a man's suit and tie, and her short hair is slicked back. In her left hand she holds a small black dog.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Features Naomi Mitchison
Her format here has stories or groups of stories introduced and ended with a poem. Topics range from ancient to contemporary, from sexuality to politics. The first poem has Phaedra telling her sister Ariadne about...
Publishing Naomi Mitchison
She had finished this book, and her publisher had read it by 1933. She argued for months over its acceptability with her usual publishers, Jonathan Cape (who had been fined for publishing Radclyffe Hall 's...
Intertextuality and Influence Gwen Moffat
This book describes life in the women's army and GM 's early, rackety non-army experiences, like milking cows and steering a sailing ship as the only sober member of the crew. Most vivid of all...
politics Mary Renault
MR appreciated Compton Mackenzie 's Extraordinary Women, which dealt openly with lesbians and evaded the censor because it treated lesbianism as comic. She referred to it in a review as a masterpiece of gentle...
Textual Features Mary Renault
Lesbianism had been the subject of novels in the 1920s and 30s. Virginia Woolf 's Mrs. Dalloway and Elizabeth Bowen 's The Hotel had both been criticised (the latter severely) for sympathetic treatments of emotional...
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Renault
Homosexuals in British fiction had been portrayed mostly as sick, funny, or both since the Oscar Wilde trials (1895). E. M. Forster had kept his Maurice unpublished. Radclyffe Hall had run into trouble. Virginia Woolf
Education Bernice Rubens
Bernice attended first Tredegarville Infant School, then Roath Park Girls' School. She and her siblings would sometimes steal chocolate from Woolworths (never from a corner shop where they would have known the shopkeeper).
Rubens, Bernice. When I Grow Up. Time Warner Books.
13
She...
politics Vita Sackville-West
VSW disliked the term feminist, though many of her socially nonconforming attitudes would attract that term today. She supported the fight for Radclyffe Hall 's Well of Loneliness. She did not involve herself...
Textual Production Stevie Smith
SS 's list of requisites for a critic or reviewer goes like this: Attention, impartiality, and no regard for age or sex.
Smith, Stevie. Me Again. Editors Barbera, Jack and William McBrien, Vintage.
173
In April 1941 she was reviewing for John O'London's, Country Life...
Friends, Associates Christopher St John
CSJ , Edith Craig , and Tony Atwood spent much time in the company of Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge , who were staying temporarily in Kent while their house was being renovated.
Cockin, Katharine. Edith Craig (1869-1947): Dramatic Lives. Cassell.
161
Family and Intimate relationships Noel Streatfeild
One of her close friends and literary mentors was Daphne Ionides , whom she met in 1926.
Huse, Nancy. Noel Streatfeild. Twayne.
xv
Huse suggests that this was (in addition to a stimulating literary and professional friendship) an intense relationship...
Textual Production Violet Trefusis
Around 1941, VT and Vita discussed another writing of their story. Vita thought that a novel superior to Radclyffe Hall 's loathsomeWell of Loneliness could be produced, but soon dismissed the idea of a...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Una Troubridge
UT wrote much of her 1914 diary in Italian. After 1915, her diaries document her relationship with Radclyffe Hall , touching on the two women's health, families, travels, and social activities. She also writes about...
Family and Intimate relationships Una Troubridge
UT , who had for nearly two years been living intermittently with her lover Radclyffe Hall , agreed to sign a deed of separation from her husband . He signed the deed the next day...
Literary responses Una Troubridge
Aside from her translations, UT is largely remembered as the lover and amanuensis of Hall . She herself is partly responsible for this view of her life and work, because of her self-presententation as wholly...

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