Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Radclyffe Hall
-
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, 1994.
1-2
Her literary reputation was based first on her poetry but later, and more substantially, on her novels, particularly Adam's Breed.
VB
published her last book, Radclyffe Hall
: A Case of Obscenity?, an account of the Well of Loneliness obscenity trial commissioned by Muriel Box
for her publishing company Femina Books
.
Berry, Paul, and Mark Bostridge. Vera Brittain: A Life. Chatto and Windus, 1995.
514
Textual Production
Una Troubridge
UT
kept a daily diary throughout her adult life, and she relied on these diaries in the writing of her biography of Radclyffe Hall
(who did not keep a diary).
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...
UT
published her biography, The Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall, which she had finished writing by 19 February 1945.
Norman, Sylva. “A Woman’s World”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 3119, 8 Dec. 1961, p. 883.
883
Troubridge, Una. The Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall. Hammond, Hammond, 1961.
5
Ormrod, Richard. Una Troubridge: The Friend of Radclyffe Hall. Carroll and Graf, 1985.
291, 307-8
Cline, Sally. Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John. John Murray, 1997.
107
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, 1983.
173
In April 1941 she was reviewing for John O'London's, Country Life...
Textual Production
Zoë Fairbairns
ZF
wrote the introduction to a new edition of Radclyffe Hall
's The Unlit Lamp, her first-written but second-published novel, dating from 1924.
Fairbairns, Zoë, and Radclyffe Hall. “Introduction”. The Unlit Lamp, Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1981.
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Ethel Mannin
In it, she describes herself as an emancipated, rebellious, and Angry Young Woman.
qtd. in
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
The final phrase in this description claims for herself membership of a largely male literary movement of the 1950s-60s, whose recognized members...
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...
