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, 1994.
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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
Cultural formation Maya Angelou
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...
Cultural formation Una Troubridge
UT and her lover Radclyffe Hall joined the Society for Psychical Research (founded in 1882) at the encouragement of Sir Oliver Lodge , a well-known physicist and writer on Spiritualism.
Baker, Michael. Our Three Selves: The Life of Radclyffe Hall. Hamish Hamilton, 1985.
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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 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...
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.
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She...
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.
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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.
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Huse suggests that this was (in addition to a stimulating literary and professional friendship) an intense relationship...
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
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.
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Ernest Troubridge, who came from a distinguished naval family, was a friend of the Taylor family and a widower 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...
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 Violet Hunt
VH and Radclyffe Hall began an extended, artistically-productive friendship.
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster, 1990.
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Timeline

1904: Madame C. de Broutelles founded the Prix...

Writing climate item

1904

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.
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Thomas, Donald. A Long Time Burning: The History of Literary Censorship in England. Frederick A. Praeger, 1969.
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1965: Barrie and Rockliff publishers (formerly...

Writing climate item

1965

Barrie and Rockliff publishers (formerly James Barrie imprint) bought out both Herbert Jenkins Limited , publisher of P. G. Wodehouse , and Hammond, Hammond , publishers of Radclyffe Hall .
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 112. Gale Research, 1991.
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Mumby, Frank Arthur, and Ian Norrie. Mumby’s Publishing and Bookselling in the Twentieth Century. 6th ed., Bell and Hyman, 1982.
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14 July 2006: The Bow Street Magistrates Court, one of...

Building item

14 July 2006

The Bow Street Magistrates Court , one of London's most famous courts, closed after dispensing justice for 267 years.
“Bow Street Court Closes Its Doors”. BBC News.
“Infamous Names in Bow Street’s Past”. The Mail on Sunday.

9 December 2006-17 July 2007: The National Portrait Gallery in London mounted...

Writing climate item

9 December 2006-17 July 2007

The National Portrait Gallery in London mounted an exhibition of photographs of women writers, mostly novelists, from 1920 to 1960.
“Women writers through the lens”. Mslexia, No. 33, Apr. 2007, p. 7.
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Texts

Hall, Radclyffe. ’The World’ and other unpublished works of Radclyffe Hall. Editor Funke, Jana, Manchester University Press, 2016.
Hall, Radclyffe. ’Twixt Earth and Stars. J. and E. Bumpus, 1906.
Hall, Radclyffe. A Saturday Life. Arrowsmith, 1925.
Hall, Radclyffe. A Sheaf of Verses. J. and E. Bumpus, 1908.
Hall, Radclyffe. Adam’s Breed. Cassell, 1926.
Fairbairns, Zoë, and Radclyffe Hall. “Introduction”. The Unlit Lamp, Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1981.
Hall, Radclyffe. “Introduction”. Your John: The Love Letters of Radclyffe Hall, edited by Joanne Glasgow, New York University Press, 1997.
Hall, Radclyffe. Le puits de solitude. Translators Troubridge, Una and Léo Lack, Gallimard, 1932.
Hall, Radclyffe. Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself. William Heinemann, 1934.
Hall, Radclyffe. Poems of the Past and Present. Chapman and Hall, 1910.
Hall, Radclyffe. Radclyffe Hall’s 1934 Letter About The Well of Loneliness. Lesbian Herstory Educational Foundation, 1994.
Hall, Radclyffe. Songs of Three Counties and Other Poems. Chapman and Hall, 1913.
Hall, Radclyffe. The Forge. Arrowsmith, 1924.
Hall, Radclyffe. The Forgotten Island. Chapman and Hall, 1915.
Hall, Radclyffe. The Master of the House. Jonathan Cape, 1932.
Hall, Radclyffe. The Sixth Beatitude. William Heinemann, 1936.
Hall, Radclyffe. The Unlit Lamp. Cassell, 1924.
Hall, Radclyffe, and Havelock Ellis. The Well of Loneliness. Jonathan Cape, 1928.
Hall, Radclyffe, and Havelock Ellis. The Well of Loneliness. Anchor Books, 1990.