Radclyffe Hall

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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.
  • BirthName: Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall
  • Nickname: John
    Cline, Sally. Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John. John Murray, 1997.
    11, 66
    RH earned the nickname John, or the more intimate Johnnie, from Mabel Batten .
    Cline, Sally. Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John. John Murray, 1997.
    12, 66
    Souhami, Diana. The Trials of Radclyffe Hall. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998.
    42

  • Self-constructed: Radclyffe Hall
    She began using this name with her first published novel, in 1924.
    Cline, Sally. Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John. John Murray, 1997.
    11
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.

Milestones

12 August 1880

RH was born Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall at Bournemouth in Hampshire.
Cline, Sally. Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John. John Murray, 1997.
11, 16

Summer 1906

RH 's first publication appeared, a collection of poems entitled 'Twixt Earth and Stars, which she issued under her birth name, Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall .
Cline, Sally. Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John. John Murray, 1997.
47-8

27 July 1928

RH 's landmark lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness, was published by Jonathan CapeJonathan Cape after having been rejected by several other publishers.
Cline, Sally. Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John. John Murray, 1997.
234-7, 240

7 October 1943

RH died of bowel cancer at 502 Hood House, Dolphin Square, Pimlico, London.
Cline, Sally. Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John. John Murray, 1997.
369-70

Biography

Birth and Influences

12 August 1880

RH was born Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall at Bournemouth in Hampshire.
Cline, Sally. Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John. John Murray, 1997.
11, 16

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