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.
1-2
Her literary reputation was based first on her poetry but later, and more substantially, on her novels, particularly Adam's Breed.
With another member of the student company, Paul Scofield
, EJH
was invited to tea with Radclyffe Hall
and Una Troubridge
.
Howard, Elizabeth Jane. Slipstream. Macmillan.
89, 97-8
Friends, Associates
Violet Hunt
VH
and Radclyffe Hall
began an extended, artistically-productive friendship.
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster.
123-4
Friends, Associates
Vera Brittain
VB
was one of forty witnesses marshalled by the defence counsel when Radclyffe Hall
's The Well of Loneliness was prosecuted for obscenity.
Berry, Paul, and Mark Bostridge. Vera Brittain: A Life. Chatto and Windus.
228
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.
NJ
wrote a letter of appreciation to Radclyffe Hall
after The Well of Loneliness appeared in 1928. In January the following year she met Hall and Una Troubridge
when the former lectured in Southend (though...
Friends, Associates
Edith Craig
In the early 1930s—when the persecution of lesbians in general and Radclyffe Hall
in particular was raging in the wake of The Well of Loneliness trial—EC
, Christopher St John
, and Clare Atwood
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...
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.
Ormrod, Richard. Una Troubridge: The Friend of Radclyffe Hall. Carroll and Graf.
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
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
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...
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...
