Romance Hall, Radclyffe: The Well of Loneliness. v1 17 June 2019

[AlexBell]

Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall, (1880-1943) was an English poet and author who wrote most of her works as Radclyffe Hall. She is best known for this novel, which was first published in 1928 with a foreword by Havelock Ellis. It was a groundbreaking work in lesbian literature, was banned in the United Kingdom soon after it appeared, and was not published there again until several years after her death.

Some parts of the novel seem semi-autobiographical, and some parts seem similar to a case study by Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Homosexuality is described as being a a natural, God-given state, though homosexuals are condemned and made to suffer by society. The author makes an explicit plea for the right to her existence.

The text was taken from the University of Adelaide ebook library, though many corrections were made after checking against the Penguin Modern Classics version.

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