John Radclyffe-Hall (12 August 1880 – 7 October 1943), born as Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe-Hall and also known by her pen name Radclyffe Hall, was an English poet and author best known for her novel The Well of Loneliness (1928), a groundbreaking work in lesbian literature.
Born~Died Aug 12, 1880 ~ Oct 7, 1943Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 2:54 PM
Details
Born ~ Died
Aug 12, 1880 ~ Oct 7, 1943
Born
Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe Hall, (1880-08-12)12 August 1880, Bournemouth, Hampshire, England
Died
7 October 1943(1943-10-07) (aged 63), London, England
John Radclyffe-Hall (12 August 1880 – 7 October 1943), born as Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe-Hall and also known by her pen nameRadclyffe Hall,1 was an English poet and author best known for her novel The Well of Loneliness (1928), a groundbreaking work in lesbian literature.23
Early life
John Radclyffe-Hall was born as Marguerite Antonia in 1880 at "Sunny Lawn", Durley Road, Bournemouth, Hampshire (now Dorset),4 to Radclyffe ("Rat") Radclyffe-Hall and Mary Jane Sager (née Diehl). Hall's father was a wealthy philanderer educated at Eton and Oxford. He seldom worked, as he had inherited a large sum of money from his father, an eminent physician who was head of the British Medical Association. Her mother was an unstable American widow from Philadelphia.51 In 1882, Hall's father abandoned the family, but left behind a considerable inheritance for her.6
Hall's mother subsequently married Albert Visetti, a professor of singing.67 She did not like her new stepfather, and despised her mother, who often dipped into Hall's inheritance for herself.5 Throughout her childhood, Mary made it clear that Hall was unwanted, as she had failed to get an abortion during pregnancy.
This page is based on “Radclyffe Hall” from English Wikipedia, (r1374829376) CC BY-SA 4.0 used under the license. The original authors are listed in its page history.
As Hall grew older and gained more autonomy, she realised that she had enough inheritance money from her father to live without working or marrying. She began to do as she pleased, dressing in typical men's fashion of the times, such as trousers, monocles and hats.6 Hall was a lesbian,8 but described herself as a "congenital invert", a term taken from the writings of Havelock Ellis and other turn-of-the-century sexologists. She spent much of her twenties pursuing women she eventually lost to marriage.
A 27-year-old Hall met Mabel Batten (1856–1916), a well-known amateur singer of Lieder, in 1907 at the Bad Homburg spa in Germany. Batten, nicknamed "Ladye," was 51 years old, and was married with an adult daughter and grandchildren. They fell in love and set up residence together after Batten's husband died. Batten introduced Hall to a circle of artistic and intellectual women, many of them lesbians. She also was the first to call Hall "John", after noting her resemblance to one of Hall's male ancestors, and Hall used this name for the rest of her life.9 Batten encouraged Hall to begin seeking publishing for her poetry.5
In 1915, Hall fell in love with Batten's cousin, Una Troubridge (1887–1963). Troubridge was a sculptress, the wife of Vice-Admiral Ernest Troubridge, and the mother of a young daughter. Troubridge and Hall would be lovers for the remainder of their lives. The romance caused tension between Batten, Hall, and Troubridge until Batten died in 1916. Upon her death, Hall had Batten's corpse embalmed and a silver crucifix blessed by the pope laid on it.10 Hall, Batten, and Troubridge were "undeterred by the Church's admonitions on same-sex relationships. Hall's Catholicism sat beside a life-long attachment to spiritualism and reincarnation."11 In 1917, Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge began living together.125 From 1924 to 1929 they lived at 37 Holland Street, Kensington, London.13 The relationship lasted until Hall's death.14
Career
After a period of travel and education, Hall published five books of poetry between 1906 and 1915.15
Hall's first novel was The Unlit Lamp, published in 1924 under the name Radclyffe Hall.16 It follows Joan Ogden, a young girl who dreams of setting up a flat in London with her friend Elizabeth in a Boston marriage. She is studying to become a doctor, but feels trapped by her manipulative mother's emotional dependence on her. Its length and grimness made it a difficult book to sell, so Hall deliberately chose a lighter theme for her next novel, a social comedy entitled The Forge (1924).17 While she had used her full name for her early poetry collections, she shortened it to M. Radclyffe Hall for The Forge. The book was a modest success, making the John O'London's Weekly bestseller list.18
There followed another comic novel, A Saturday Life (1925), and then Adam's Breed (1926), a novel about an Italian headwaiter who, becoming disgusted with his job and even with the food itself, gives away his belongings and lives as a hermit in the forest. The book's mystical themes have been compared to Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha.19 It sold well, was critically acclaimed, and won both the Prix Femina and the James Tait Black Prize, a feat previously achieved only by E. M. Forster's A Passage to India.20 In 1926, she published her first short story dealing with homosexuality. Twelve days later, she began writing The Well of Loneliness.6
The Well of Loneliness
Hall's most well-known work is The Well of Loneliness, the only one of her eight novels to have overt lesbian themes.21 Published in 1928, The Well of Loneliness deals with the life of Stephen Gordon, a masculine lesbian who, like Hall herself, identifies as an "invert". The novel paints a vulnerable, sympathetic portrayal of lesbians.
Although The Well of Loneliness is not sexually explicit, it was nevertheless the subject of an obscenity trial in the UK, which resulted in an order for the destruction of all copies of the book. The United States allowed its publication only after a long court battle. It is currently published by Virago in the UK, and by Anchor Press in the United States. The Well of Loneliness was number seven on a list of the top 100 lesbian and gay novels compiled by The Publishing Triangle in 1999.22 It is now noted as the predecessor to the golden age of lesbian pulp fiction.
Later novels
Hall published one novel after The Well of Loneliness. An anonymous verse lampoon titled The Sink of Solitude had appeared during the controversy over The Well. Although its primary targets were James Douglas, who had called for The Well's suppression, and the Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks, who had started legal proceedings, it also mocked Hall and her book. One of the illustrations, which depicted Hall nailed to a cross, so horrified her that she could barely speak of it for years afterwards. Her sense of guilt at being depicted in a drawing that she saw as blasphemous led to her choice of a religious subject for her next novel The Master of the House.2324
At Hall's insistence, The Master of the House was published with no cover blurb, which may have misled some purchasers into thinking it was another novel about "inversion". Advance sales were strong, and the book made No. 1 on The Observer's bestseller list, but it received poor reviews in several key periodicals, and sales soon dropped off.25 In the United States reviewers treated the book more kindly, but shortly after the book's publication, all copies were seized by creditors, as Hall's American publisher had gone bankrupt. Houghton Mifflin took over the rights, but by the time the book could be republished, its sales momentum was lost.
Later years and death
Hall lived with Una Troubridge in London and, during the 1930s, in the small town of Rye, East Sussex, noted for its many writers, including her contemporary the novelist E. F. Benson. Hall also was involved in affairs with other women throughout the years, including the actress Ethel Waters.26
On holiday around 1934, Troubridge contracted enteritis. Evguenia Souline, a Russian nurse, was hired to care for her. Hall and Souline ended up having an affair, which Troubridge knew about and painfully tolerated.29 It unsettled Troubridge deeply, but she remained with Hall.6
In 1943, Hall was diagnosed with cancer of the rectum. Operations were unsuccessful and she died at the age of 63.6 Her body is buried in a vault in the Circle of Lebanon on the western side of Highgate Cemetery at the entrance of the chamber of the Batten family, where Mabel is also buried.30
The Sixth Beatitude (William Heineman Ltd, London, 1936)
Poetry
Dedicated to Sir Arthur Sullivan (England: s.n., 1894)
Twixt Earth and Stars (London: John and Edward Bumpus Ltd., 1906)
A Sheaf of Verses : Poems (London: J. and E. Bumpus, 1908)
Poems of the Past & Present (London: Chapman And Hall, 1910)
Songs of Three Counties and Other Poems (London: Chapman & Hall, 1913)
The Forgotten Island (London: Chapman & Hall, 1915)
Rhymes and Rhythms (Milan, 1948)
Archives
Many of Hall and Troubridge's surviving papers are held at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, including a manuscript of The Well of Loneliness, notebooks, diaries, and correspondence.31 Typescript copies of Hall's love letters to Evguenia Souline, written during the late 1930s and early 1940s, are held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.32
Works featuring Hall
Virginia's Sisters: An Anthology of Women's Writing, Aurora Metro Books, 2023, ISBN 978191243078933
Ciuraru, Carmela (2023). Lives of the wives: Five literary marriages. New York City: Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-235691-8. OCLC1365607899.
Dickson, Lovat (1975). Radclyffe Hall at the well of loneliness: A sapphic chronicle. London: Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-211235-2. OCLC1599222.
Baker, Michael J. N. (1985). Our three selves: The life of Radclyffe Hall. New York City: William Morrow. ISBN 978-0-688-04385-8. OCLC11971735.
Milletti, Nerina (1994). "Rime e Ritmi di Radclyffe Hall" [Radclyffe Hall's rhymes and rhythms]. Quir: mensile fiorentino di cultura e vita lesbica e gay, e non solo (in Italian) (9). Florence: Azione gay e lesbica: 29–30. OCLC47154672. republished by LesWiki
Souhami, Diana (1998). The trials of Radclyffe Hall. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-81825-0. OCLC39844153.
Cline, Sally (1998). Radclyffe Hall: A woman called John. Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press. ISBN 978-0-87951-831-8. OCLC37310687.
The Pink Paper, 26 September 1997 edition, issue #500. ↩
Hall's letters to Souline were published in Glasgow, Joanne, ed. (1997). Your John: The Love Letters of Radclyffe Hall. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-3125-3. ↩
John Radclyffe-Hall (12 August 1880 – 7 October 1943), born as Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe-Hall and also known by her pen nameRadclyffe Hall,1 was an English poet and author best known for her novel The Well of Loneliness (1928), a groundbreaking work in lesbian literature.23
Early life
John Radclyffe-Hall was born as Marguerite Antonia in 1880 at "Sunny Lawn", Durley Road, Bournemouth, Hampshire (now Dorset),4 to Radclyffe ("Rat") Radclyffe-Hall and Mary Jane Sager (née Diehl). Hall's father was a wealthy philanderer educated at Eton and Oxford. He seldom worked, as he had inherited a large sum of money from his father, an eminent physician who was head of the British Medical Association. Her mother was an unstable American widow from Philadelphia.51 In 1882, Hall's father abandoned the family, but left behind a considerable inheritance for her.6
Hall's mother subsequently married Albert Visetti, a professor of singing.67 She did not like her new stepfather, and despised her mother, who often dipped into Hall's inheritance for herself. Throughout her childhood, Mary made it clear that Hall was unwanted, as she had failed to get an abortion during pregnancy.
As Hall grew older and gained more autonomy, she realised that she had enough inheritance money from her father to live without working or marrying. She began to do as she pleased, dressing in typical men's fashion of the times, such as trousers, monocles and hats.6 Hall was a lesbian,8 but described herself as a "congenital invert", a term taken from the writings of Havelock Ellis and other turn-of-the-century sexologists. She spent much of her twenties pursuing women she eventually lost to marriage.
A 27-year-old Hall met Mabel Batten (1856–1916), a well-known amateur singer of Lieder, in 1907 at the Bad Homburg spa in Germany. Batten, nicknamed "Ladye," was 51 years old, and was married with an adult daughter and grandchildren. They fell in love and set up residence together after Batten's husband died. Batten introduced Hall to a circle of artistic and intellectual women, many of them lesbians. She also was the first to call Hall "John", after noting her resemblance to one of Hall's male ancestors, and Hall used this name for the rest of her life.9 Batten encouraged Hall to begin seeking publishing for her poetry.5
In 1915, Hall fell in love with Batten's cousin, Una Troubridge (1887–1963). Troubridge was a sculptress, the wife of Vice-Admiral Ernest Troubridge, and the mother of a young daughter. Troubridge and Hall would be lovers for the remainder of their lives. The romance caused tension between Batten, Hall, and Troubridge until Batten died in 1916. Upon her death, Hall had Batten's corpse embalmed and a silver crucifix blessed by the pope laid on it.10 Hall, Batten, and Troubridge were "undeterred by the Church's admonitions on same-sex relationships. Hall's Catholicism sat beside a life-long attachment to spiritualism and reincarnation."11 In 1917, Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge began living together.125 From 1924 to 1929 they lived at 37 Holland Street, Kensington, London.13 The relationship lasted until Hall's death.14
Career
After a period of travel and education, Hall published five books of poetry between 1906 and 1915.15
Hall's first novel was The Unlit Lamp, published in 1924 under the name Radclyffe Hall.16 It follows Joan Ogden, a young girl who dreams of setting up a flat in London with her friend Elizabeth in a Boston marriage. She is studying to become a doctor, but feels trapped by her manipulative mother's emotional dependence on her. Its length and grimness made it a difficult book to sell, so Hall deliberately chose a lighter theme for her next novel, a social comedy entitled The Forge (1924).17 While she had used her full name for her early poetry collections, she shortened it to M. Radclyffe Hall for The Forge. The book was a modest success, making the John O'London's Weekly bestseller list.18
There followed another comic novel, A Saturday Life (1925), and then Adam's Breed (1926), a novel about an Italian headwaiter who, becoming disgusted with his job and even with the food itself, gives away his belongings and lives as a hermit in the forest. The book's mystical themes have been compared to Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha.19 It sold well, was critically acclaimed, and won both the Prix Femina and the James Tait Black Prize, a feat previously achieved only by E. M. Forster's A Passage to India.20 In 1926, she published her first short story dealing with homosexuality. Twelve days later, she began writing The Well of Loneliness.6
The Well of Loneliness
Hall's most well-known work is The Well of Loneliness, the only one of her eight novels to have overt lesbian themes.21 Published in 1928, The Well of Loneliness deals with the life of Stephen Gordon, a masculine lesbian who, like Hall herself, identifies as an "invert". The novel paints a vulnerable, sympathetic portrayal of lesbians.
Although The Well of Loneliness is not sexually explicit, it was nevertheless the subject of an obscenity trial in the UK, which resulted in an order for the destruction of all copies of the book. The United States allowed its publication only after a long court battle. It is currently published by Virago in the UK, and by Anchor Press in the United States. The Well of Loneliness was number seven on a list of the top 100 lesbian and gay novels compiled by The Publishing Triangle in 1999.22 It is now noted as the predecessor to the golden age of lesbian pulp fiction.
Later novels
Hall published one novel after The Well of Loneliness. An anonymous verse lampoon titled The Sink of Solitude had appeared during the controversy over The Well. Although its primary targets were James Douglas, who had called for The Well's suppression, and the Home Secretary William Joynson-Hicks, who had started legal proceedings, it also mocked Hall and her book. One of the illustrations, which depicted Hall nailed to a cross, so horrified her that she could barely speak of it for years afterwards. Her sense of guilt at being depicted in a drawing that she saw as blasphemous led to her choice of a religious subject for her next novel The Master of the House.2324
At Hall's insistence, The Master of the House was published with no cover blurb, which may have misled some purchasers into thinking it was another novel about "inversion". Advance sales were strong, and the book made No. 1 on The Observer's bestseller list, but it received poor reviews in several key periodicals, and sales soon dropped off.25 In the United States reviewers treated the book more kindly, but shortly after the book's publication, all copies were seized by creditors, as Hall's American publisher had gone bankrupt. Houghton Mifflin took over the rights, but by the time the book could be republished, its sales momentum was lost.
Later years and death
Hall lived with Una Troubridge in London and, during the 1930s, in the small town of Rye, East Sussex, noted for its many writers, including her contemporary the novelist E. F. Benson. Hall also was involved in affairs with other women throughout the years, including the actress Ethel Waters.26
On holiday around 1934, Troubridge contracted enteritis. Evguenia Souline, a Russian nurse, was hired to care for her. Hall and Souline ended up having an affair, which Troubridge knew about and painfully tolerated.29 It unsettled Troubridge deeply, but she remained with Hall.6
In 1943, Hall was diagnosed with cancer of the rectum. Operations were unsuccessful and she died at the age of 63.6 Her body is buried in a vault in the Circle of Lebanon on the western side of Highgate Cemetery at the entrance of the chamber of the Batten family, where Mabel is also buried.30
The Sixth Beatitude (William Heineman Ltd, London, 1936)
Poetry
Dedicated to Sir Arthur Sullivan (England: s.n., 1894)
Twixt Earth and Stars (London: John and Edward Bumpus Ltd., 1906)
A Sheaf of Verses : Poems (London: J. and E. Bumpus, 1908)
Poems of the Past & Present (London: Chapman And Hall, 1910)
Songs of Three Counties and Other Poems (London: Chapman & Hall, 1913)
The Forgotten Island (London: Chapman & Hall, 1915)
Rhymes and Rhythms (Milan, 1948)
Archives
Many of Hall and Troubridge's surviving papers are held at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, including a manuscript of The Well of Loneliness, notebooks, diaries, and correspondence.31 Typescript copies of Hall's love letters to Evguenia Souline, written during the late 1930s and early 1940s, are held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.32
Works featuring Hall
Virginia's Sisters: An Anthology of Women's Writing, Aurora Metro Books, 2023, ISBN 978191243078933
Ciuraru, Carmela (2023). Lives of the wives: Five literary marriages. New York City: Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-235691-8. OCLC1365607899.
Dickson, Lovat (1975). Radclyffe Hall at the well of loneliness: A sapphic chronicle. London: Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-211235-2. OCLC1599222.
Baker, Michael J. N. (1985). Our three selves: The life of Radclyffe Hall. New York City: William Morrow. ISBN 978-0-688-04385-8. OCLC11971735.
Milletti, Nerina (1994). "Rime e Ritmi di Radclyffe Hall" [Radclyffe Hall's rhymes and rhythms]. Quir: mensile fiorentino di cultura e vita lesbica e gay, e non solo (in Italian) (9). Florence: Azione gay e lesbica: 29–30. OCLC47154672. republished by LesWiki
Souhami, Diana (1998). The trials of Radclyffe Hall. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-81825-0. OCLC39844153.
Cline, Sally (1998). Radclyffe Hall: A woman called John. Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press. ISBN 978-0-87951-831-8. OCLC37310687.
The Pink Paper, 26 September 1997 edition, issue #500. ↩
Hall's letters to Souline were published in Glasgow, Joanne, ed. (1997). Your John: The Love Letters of Radclyffe Hall. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-3125-3. ↩