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.
At fifteen, having worried all her life about being too tall, MA
read Radclyffe Hall
's The Well of Loneliness and became anxious that she might be, or might be developing into, a lesbian. She...
Cultural formation
Winifred Holtby
Rumours that they were in a lesbian relationship circulated throughout their lifetime, and some scholars have also raised this possibility. At least some of WH
's stated views on sexuality implied a questioning of heterosexual...
Baker, Michael. Our Three Selves: The Life of Radclyffe Hall. Hamish Hamilton, 1985.
94
death
Una Troubridge
The Times obituary notice recollected the cultural significance of UT
's lifelong companionship with Radclyffe Hall, declaring, Few who remember London and the Continent in the twenties and thirties will fail to recall the appearances...
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, 2005.
13
She...
Education
Edith Craig
EC
was educated first at a co-educational school run by Mrs Cole
in Foxton Road, Earl's Court, London. This school, at which Edith became a boarder in 1883, had also been attended by...
Family and Intimate relationships
Una Troubridge
UT
later said of her marriage: Almost before I knew it I was grown-up.
qtd. in
Ormrod, Richard. Una Troubridge: The Friend of Radclyffe Hall. Carroll and Graf, 1985.
39
Ernest Troubridge, who came from a distinguished naval family, was a friend of the Taylor family and a widower in...
Family and Intimate relationships
Rose Allatini
Melanie Mills (Janet Melanie Ailsa Mills
), the friend with whom RA
shared her life from the time she moved to Beckley, shared many of her interests too. Cyril Scott called Mills in...
Family and Intimate relationships
Una Troubridge
On the outbreak of World War One, Ernest Troubridge
, as the Commander of the Second Squadron, was assigned to the task of preventing German ships in the Adriatic from sallying out into the Mediterranean...
Family and Intimate relationships
Una Troubridge
UT
met Radclyffe Hall
(John) for the second time at a tea party given by Troubridge's cousin Lady Clarendon
. In 1961 she wrote Our friendship, which was to last through life and...
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...
Family and Intimate relationships
Una Troubridge
UT
's lover and companion of twenty-eight years, Radclyffe Hall
, died of colon cancer: a terrible blow to her partner.
Ormrod, Richard. Una Troubridge: The Friend of Radclyffe Hall. Carroll and Graf, 1985.
275
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, 1994.
xv
Huse suggests that this was (in addition to a stimulating literary and professional friendship) an intense relationship...
Fictionalization
Natalie Clifford Barney
NCB
has been a magnet for biographers (recently as the subject with Romaine Brooks
of Diana Souhami
's Wild Girls in 2004 and as a minor character in Joan Schenkar
's Truly Wilde: the Unsettling...
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.
Madame C. de Broutelles
founded the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse, a prestigious French literary prize awarded by a jury of twelve women. A. Mary F. Robinson
(an English writer living in France) was a co-founder.
Oliver, Reggie. Out of the Woodshed: A Portrait of Stella Gibbons. Bloomsbury, 1998.
129
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
1931: The Obelisk Press in Paris was established...
Writing climate item
1931
The Obelisk Press
in Paris was established by Jack Kahane
, in part to combat prudery in British publishing.
Craig, Alec. The Banned Books of England and Other Countries. George Allen and Unwin, 1962.
98
Thomas, Donald. A Long Time Burning: The History of Literary Censorship in England. Frederick A. Praeger, 1969.