the well of loneliness-suđenje

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The Well of Loneliness

For the song, see The Well of Loneliness (song). For the

torture device, see Pit of despair.

The Well of Loneliness is a 1928 lesbian novel by

the British author Radclyffe Hall. It follows the life

of Stephen Gordon, an Englishwoman from an upper-

class family whose "sexual inversion" (homosexuality)

is apparent from an early age. She finds love with

Mary Llewellyn, whom she meets while serving as an

ambulance driver in World War I, but their happiness to-

gether is marred by social isolation and rejection, whichHall depicts as having a debilitating effect on inverts. The

novel portrays inversion as a natural, God-given state and

makes an explicit plea: “Give us also the right to our

existence”.[1]

The novel became the target of a campaign by James

Douglas, editor of the Sunday Express newspaper, who

wrote, “I would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy

girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel.” Although

its only sexual reference consists of the words “and that

night, theywere notdivided”, a British court judged it ob-

scene because it defended “unnatural practices between

women”.[2] In the United States the book survived legalchallenges in New York state and in Customs Court.[3]

Publicity over The Well' s legal battles increased the visi-

bility of lesbians in British and American culture.[4] For

decades it was the best-known lesbian novel in English,

and often the first source of information about lesbian-

ism that young people could find.[5] Some readers have

valued it, while others have criticized it for Stephen’s ex-

pressions of self-hatred and seen it as inspiring shame.[6]

Its role in promoting images of lesbians as “mannish” or

cross-dressed women has also been controversial.

Although few critics rate The Well highly as a work of

literature, its treatment of sexuality and gender continues

to inspire study and debate.[7]

1 Background

In 1926, Radclyffe Hall was at the height of her ca-

reer. Her novel Adam’s Breed , about the spiritual awak-

ening of an Italian headwaiter, had become a bestseller;

it would soon win the Prix Femina and the James Tait

Black Prize.[8] She had long thought of writing a novel

about sexual inversion; now, she believed, her literaryreputation would allow such a work to be given a hearing.

Since she knew she was risking scandal and “the ship-

wreck of her whole career”, she sought and received the

blessing of her partner, Una Troubridge, before she began

work.[9] Her goals were social and political; she wanted to

end public silence about homosexuality and bring about

“a more tolerant understanding” – as well as to “spur all

classes of inverts to make good through hard work ... and

sober and useful living”.[10]

In April 1928 she told her editor that her new book would

require complete commitment from its publisher and that

she would not allow even one word to be altered. “I have

put my pen at the service of some of the most persecutedand misunderstood people in the world .... So far as I

know nothing of the kind has ever been attempted before

in fiction.”[11]

2 Plot summary

Natalie Barney , an American who lived and held a literary salon

in Paris, was the model for Valérie Seymour.[12]

1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Barneyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Una_Troubridgehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tait_Black_Prizehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tait_Black_Prizehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prix_Feminahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-dressinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Customs_Courthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yorkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussic_acidhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Expresshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Douglas_(journalist)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Douglas_(journalist)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ambulance_drivers_during_World_War_Ihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_inversion_(sexology)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radclyffe_Hallhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian_literaturehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_of_despairhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_Loneliness_(song)


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2 3 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL AND OTHER SOURCES

The book’s protagonist, Stephen Gordon, is born in

the late Victorian era[13] to upper-class parents in

Worcestershire who are expecting a boy and who christen

her with the boy’s name they had already chosen. Even at

birth she is physically unusual, a “narrow-hipped, wide-

shouldered little tadpole of a baby”.[14] As a girl she hates

dresses, wants to cut her hair short, and longs to be a boy.At seven, she develops a crush on a housemaid named

Collins, and is devastated when she sees Collins kissing a

footman.

Stephen’s father, Sir Phillip, dotes on her; he seeks to

understand her through the writings of Karl Heinrich

Ulrichs, the first modern writer to propose a theory of

homosexuality,[15] but does not share his findings with

Stephen. Her mother, Lady Anna, is distant, seeing

Stephen as a “blemished, unworthy, maimed reproduc-

tion” of Sir Phillip.[16] At eighteen, Stephen forms a close

friendship with a Canadian man, Martin Hallam, but is

horrified when he declares his love for her. The follow-ing winter, Sir Phillip is crushed by a falling tree; at the

last moment he tries to explain to Lady Anna that Stephen

is an invert, but dies without managing to do so.

Stephen begins to dress in masculine clothes made by

a tailor rather than a dressmaker. At twenty-one she

falls in love with Angela Crossby, the American wife

of a new neighbor. Angela uses Stephen as an “ano-

dyne againstboredom”, allowingher“a few rather school-

girlish kisses”.[17] Then Stephen discovers that Angela

is having an affair with a man. Fearing exposure, An-

gela shows a letter from Stephen to her husband, who

sends a copy to Stephen’s mother. Lady Anna denouncesStephen for “presum[ing] to use the word love in connec-

tion with ... these unnatural cravings of your unbalanced

mind and undisciplined body.” Stephen replies, “As my

father loved you, I loved ... It was good, good, good –

I'd have laid down my life a thousand times over for An-

gela Crossby.”[18] After the argument, Stephen goes to

her father’s study and for the first time opens his locked

bookcase. She finds a book by Krafft-Ebing – assumed

by critics to be Psychopathia Sexualis , a text about homo-

sexuality and paraphilias[19] – and, reading it, learns that

she is an invert.

Stephen moves to London and writes a well-received firstnovel. Her second novel is less successful, and her friend

theplaywright JonathanBrockett, himselfan invert, urges

her to travel to Paris to improve her writing through a

fuller experience of life. There she makes her first, brief

contact with urban invert culture, meeting the lesbian

salon hostess Valérie Seymour. During World War I she

joins an ambulance unit, eventually serving at the front

and earning the Croix de Guerre. She falls in love with

a younger fellow driver, Mary Llewellyn, who comes to

live with her after the war ends. They are happy at first,

but Mary becomes lonely when Stephen returns to writ-

ing. Rejected by polite society, Mary throws herself intoParisian nightlife. Stephen believes Mary is becoming

hardened and embittered and feels powerless to provide

her with “a more complete and normal existence”.[20]

Martin Hallam, now living in Paris, rekindles his old

friendship with Stephen. In time, he falls in love with

Mary. Persuaded that she cannot give Mary happiness,

Stephen pretends to have an affair with Valérie Seymour

to drive her into Martin’s arms. The novel ends withStephen’s plea to God: “Give us also the right to our

existence!"[21]

3 Autobiographical and other

sources

Although some writers in the 1970s and 1980s

treated The Well of Loneliness as a thinly veiled

autobiography,[22] Hall’s childhood bore little resem-

blance to Stephen’s.[23] Angela Crossby may be a

composite of various women with whom Hall hadaffairs in her youth, but Mary, whose lack of outside

interests leaves her idle when Stephen is working,[24]

does not resemble Hall’s partner Una Troubridge, an

accomplished sculptor who translated Colette's novels

into English.[25] Hall said she drew on herself only for

the “fundamental emotions that are characteristic of the

inverted”.[26]

Women of the Hackett Lowther Unit work on ambulances

3.1 World War I

Although Hall’s Author’s Note disclaims any real-worldbasis for the ambulance unit that Stephen joins, she drew

heavily on the wartime experiences of her friend Toupie

Lowther, co-commander of the only women’s unit to

serve on the front in France. Lowther, like Stephen, came

from an aristocratic family, adopted a masculine style of

dress, andwas an accomplished fencer, tennisplayer, mo-

torist and jujitsu enthusiast.[27] In later years she said the

character of Stephen was based on her, which may have

been partly true.[28]

In The Well of Loneliness , war work provides a publicly

acceptable role for inverted women. The narrative voice

asks that their contributions not be forgotten and predictsthat they will not go back into hiding: “a battalion was

formed in those terrible years that would never again be

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jujutsuhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toupie_Lowtherhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toupie_Lowtherhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colettehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/polite%2520societyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croix_de_Guerrehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphiliashttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathia_Sexualishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krafft-Ebinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_inversion_(sexology)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Heinrich_Ulrichshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Heinrich_Ulrichshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footmanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcestershirehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era


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3

completely disbanded”.[29] This military metaphor con-

tinues later in the novel when inverts in postwar Paris are

repeatedly referred to as a “miserable army”.[30] Hall in-

vokes the image of the shell-shocked soldier to depict in-

verts as psychologically damaged by their outcast status:

“for bombs do not trouble the nerves of the invert, but

rather that terrible silent bombardment from the batteriesof God’s good people”.[31]

3.2 Paris lesbian and gay subculture

Stephen and Brockett visit Marie Antoinette’s Temple of Love,

near the Petit Trianon , Versailles

In Hall’s time, Paris was known for having a relatively

large and visible gay and lesbian community – in part be-

cause France, unlike England, had no laws against male

homosexuality.[32] Marcel Proust's (d. 1922) novels con-

tinued in their influence upon 1920s Parisian society de-

picting lesbian and gay subculture. When Stephen first

travels to Paris, at the urging of her friend Jonathan

Brockett – who may be based on Noël Coward[33] – she

has not yet spoken about her inversion to anyone. Brock-

ett, acting as tour guide, hints at a secret history of inver-

sion in the city byreferringto Marie Antoinette's rumored

relationship with the Princesse de Lamballe.[34]

Brockett next introduces Stephen to Valérie Seymour,

who – like her prototype, Natalie Clifford Barney[33] –

is the hostess of a literary salon, many of whose guests

are lesbians and gay men. Immediately after this meet-

ing Stephen announces she has decided to settle in Paris

at 35 Rue Jacob (purchased at Seymour’s recommenda-

tion), with its temple in a corner of an overgrown gar-

den. Barney lived and held her salon at 20 Rue Jacob. [35]

Stephen is wary of Valérie, however, and does not visit

her salon until after the war, when Brockett persuades

her that Mary is becoming too isolated. She finds Valérie

to be an “indestructible creature” capable of bestowing a

sense of self-respect on others, at least temporarily: “ev-

eryone felt very normal and brave when they gathered

together at Valérie Seymour’s”.[36] With Stephen’s mis-

givings “drugged”, she and Mary are drawn further into

the “desolate country” of Paris gay life. At Alec’s Bar –the worst in a series of depressing nightspots – they en-

counter “the battered remnants of men who ... despised

The Temple of Friendship at Natalie Barney’s home at 20, Rue

Jacob

of the world, must despise themselves beyond all hope, it

seemed, of salvation”.[37]

Many of those familiar with the subculture she described,

including her own friends, disagreed with her portrayal

of it; Romaine Brooks called her “a digger-up of worms

with the pretension of a distinguished archaeologist”.[38]

Hall’s correspondence shows that the negative view of

bars like Alec’s that she expressed in The Well was sin-

cerely meant,[39] but she also knew that such bars did not

represent the only homosexual communities in Paris.[40]

It is a commonplace of criticism that her own experience

of lesbian life was not as miserable as Stephen’s.[41] By

focusing on misery and describing its cause as “ceaseless

persecution” by “the so-called just and righteous”, she in-

tensified the urgency of her plea for change.[42]

4 Religious, philosophical and sci-

entific content

4.1 Sexology

Hall wrote The Well of Loneliness in part to popularize

the ideas of sexologists such as Richard von Krafft-Ebing

and Havelock Ellis, who regarded homosexuality as an in-

born and inalterable trait: congenital sexual inversion.[43]

In Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), the firstbook Stephen finds in her father’s study, inversion is de-

scribed as a degenerative disorder common in families

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havelock_Ellishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Krafft-Ebinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexologistshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaine_Brookshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Clifford_Barneyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princesse_de_Lamballehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Antoinettehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No%C3%ABl_Cowardhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Prousthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versailles_(city)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_Trianonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_batteryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_shock


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4 5 PUBLICATION AND CONTEMPORARY RESPONSE

with histories of mental illness.[44] Exposure to these

ideas leads Stephen to describe herself and other inverts

as “hideously maimed and ugly”.[45] However, later texts

such as Sexual Inversion (1896) by Havelock Ellis – who

contributed a foreword to The Well – described inversion

simply as a difference, not as a defect. By 1901 Krafft-

Ebing had adopted a similar view.[46] Hall championedtheir ideas over those of the psychoanalysts, who saw ho-

mosexuality as a form of arrested psychological develop-

ment, andsome of whom believed it could be changed.[47]

The term sexual inversion implied gender role reversal.

Female invertswere, to a greater or lesser degree, inclined

to traditionally male pursuits and dress;[48] according to

Krafft-Ebing, they had a “masculine soul”. Krafft-Ebing

believed that the most extreme inverts also exhibited re-

versal of secondary sex characteristics; Ellis’s research

had not demonstrated any such physical differences, but

he devoted a great deal of study to the search for them.[49]

The idea appears in The Well in Stephen’s unusual pro-portions at birth and in the scene set at Valerie Seymour’s

salon, where “the timbre of a voice, the build of an an-

kle, the texture of a hand” reveals the inversion of the

guests.[50]

[51]

4.2 Christianity and spiritualism

Hall, who had converted to the Roman Catholic Church

in 1912, wasdevoutly religious.[52] She was also a believer

in communication with the dead who had once hoped tobecome a medium[53] – a fact that brought her into con-

flict with the church, which condemned spiritualism.[54]

Both these beliefs made their way into The Well of Lone-

liness .

Stephen, born on Christmas Eve and named for the first

martyr of Christianity, dreams as a child that “in some

queer way she [is] Jesus”.[55] When she discovers that

Collins, object of her childhood crush, has housemaid’s

knee, she prays that the affliction be transferred to her:

“I would like to wash Collins in my blood, Lord Jesus – I

would like very much to be a Saviour to Collins – I love

her, and I want to be hurt like You were”.[56] This childishdesire for martyrdom prefigures Stephen’s ultimate self-

sacrifice for Mary’s sake.[57] After she tricks Mary into

leaving her – carrying out a plan that leads Valérie to ex-

claim “you were made for a martyr!"[58] – Stephen, left

alone in her home, sees the room thronged with inverts,

living, dead and unborn. They call on her to intercede

with God for them, and finally possess her. It is with their

collective voice that she demands of God, “Give us also

the right to our existence”.[59]

After Stephen reads Krafft-Ebing in her father’s library,

she opens the Bible at random, seeking a sign, and reads

Genesis 4:15, “And the Lord set a mark upon Cain ...”[60]Hall uses the mark of Cain, a sign of shame and exile,

throughout the novel as a metaphor for the situation of

inverts.[61] Her defense of inversion took the form of a

religious argument: God had created inverts, so human-

ity should accept them.[62] The Well' s use of religious im-

agery outraged the book’s opponents,[63] but Hall’s vision

of inversion as a God-given state was an influential con-

tribution to the language of LGBT rights.[64]

5 Publication and contemporary

response

Three publishers praised The Well but turned it down.

Hall’s agent then sent the manuscript to Jonathan Cape,

who, though cautious about publishing a controversial

book, saw the potential for a commercial success. Cape

tested the waters with a small print run of 1500 copies,

priced at 15 shillings – about twice the cost of an average

novel – to make it less attractive to sensation-seekers.[65]

Publication, originally scheduled for autumn 1928, was

moved up when he discovered that another novel with

a lesbian theme, Compton Mackenzie's Extraordinary

Women, was to be published in September. Though the

two books would prove to have little in common, Hall

and Cape saw Extraordinary Women as a competitor and

wanted to beat it to market. The Well appearedon July 27,

in a black cover with a discreet plain jacket. Cape sent re-

view copies only to newspapers and magazines he thought

would handle the subject matter non-sensationally.[66]

Early reviews were mixed. Some critics found the novel

too preachy;[67]

some, including Leonard Woolf, thoughtit was poorly structured; some complained of sloppiness

in style. Others, however, praised both its sincerity and its

artistry, and some expressed sympathy with Hall’s moral

argument.[68] In the three weeks after the book appeared

in bookstores, no reviewer called for its suppression or

suggested that it should not have been published.[69] A

review in T.P.'s & Cassell’s Weekly foresaw no difficulties

for The Well : “One cannot say what effect this book will

haveon the public attitudeof silence or derision, butevery

reader will agree with Mr. Havelock Ellis in the preface,

that 'the poignant situations are set forth with a complete

absence of offence.'"[70]

5.1 Sunday Express campaign

James Douglas, editor of the Sunday Express newspaper,

did not agree. Douglas was a dedicated moralist, an ex-

ponent of muscular Christianity, which sought to reinvig-

orate the church by promoting physical health and man-

liness. His colorfully worded editorials on subjects such

as “the flapper vote” (that is, the extension of suffrage to

women under 30) and “modern sex novelists” helped the

Express family of papers prosper in the cutthroat circula-

tion wars of the late 1920s. These leader articles sharedthe pages of the Sunday Express with gossip, murderers’

confessions, and features about the love affairs of great

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5.1 Sunday Express campaign 5

men and women of the past.[71]

[T]he adroitness and cleverness of the book intensifies

its moral danger. It is a seductive and insidious piece of

special pleading designed to display perverted decadence

as a martyrdom inflicted upon these outcasts by a cruel

society. It flings a veil of sentiment over their depravity.It even suggests that their self-made debasement is

unavoidable, because they cannot save themselves.

James Douglas, “A Book That Must Be Suppressed”,

Sunday Express , 19 August 1928

Douglas’s campaign against The Well of Loneliness be-

gan on Saturday, August 18, with poster and billboard

advertising and a teaser in the Daily Express promising to

expose “A Book That Should Be Suppressed”.[72] In his

editorial the next day, Douglas wrote that “sexual inver-

sion and perversion” had already become too visible and

that the publication of The Well

brought home the needfor society to “cleans[e] itself from the leprosy of these

lepers”. For Douglas the sexological view of homosexu-

ality was pseudoscience, incompatible with the Christian

doctrine of free will; instead, he argued, homosexuals

were damnedby their own choice – which meant that oth-

ers could be corrupted by “their propaganda”. Above all,

children must be protected: “I would rather give a healthy

boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussicacid than thisnovel.

Poison kills the body, but moral poison kills the soul.”

He called on the publishers to withdraw the book and the

Home Secretary to take action if they did not.[73]

In what Hall described as an act of “imbecility coupled

with momentary panic”, Jonathan Cape sent a copy of

The Well to the Home Secretary for his opinion, offering

to withdraw the book if it would be in the public inter-

est to do so. The Home Secretary was William Joynson-

Hicks, a Conservative known for his crackdowns on al-

cohol, nightclubs and gambling, as well as for his op-

position to a revised version of The Book of Common

Prayer . He took only two days to reply that The Well was

“gravely detrimental to the public interest"; if Cape did

not withdraw it voluntarily, criminal proceedings would

be brought.[74]

Cape announced that he had stopped publication, but he

secretly leased the rights to Pegasus Press, an English lan-

guage publisher in France. His partner Wren Howard

took papier-mâché molds of the type to Paris, and by

September 28, Pegasus Press was shipping its edition to

theLondon booksellerLeopoldHill, who acted as distrib-

utor. With publicity increasing demand, sales were brisk,

but the reappearance of The Well on bookstore shelves

soon came to the attention of the Home Office. On Oc-

tober 3 Joynson-Hicks issued a warrant for shipments of

the book to be seized.[75]

One consignment of 250 copies was stopped at the port

of Dover. Then the Chairman of the Board of Cus-

toms balked. He had read The Well and considered it

a fine book, not at all obscene; he wanted no part of

suppressing it. On October 19 he released the seized

copies for delivery to Leopold Hill’s premises, where the

Metropolitan Police were waiting with a search warrant.

Hill and Cape were summoned to appear at Bow Street

Magistrates’ Court to show cause why the book should

not be destroyed.[76]

5.1.1 Response

From its beginning, the Sunday Express’ s campaign drew

the attention of other papers. Some backed Douglas, in-

cluding the Sunday Chronicle, the People and Truth.[77]

The Daily News and Westminster Gazette ran a review

that, without commenting on Douglas’s action, said the

novel “present[ed] as a martyr a woman in the grip of

a vice”.[78] However, most of the British press defended

The Well .[79] The Nation suggested that the Sunday Ex-

press had only started its campaign because it was Au-

gust, the journalistic silly season when good stories are

scarce.[79] Country Life and Lady’s Pictorial both ran

positive reviews.[80] Arnold Dawson of the Daily Her-

ald , a Labour newspaper, called Douglas a “stunt jour-

nalist"; he said no one would give the book to a child,

no child would want to read it, and any who did would

find nothing harmful.[81] Dawson also printed a scathing

condemnation of the Home Office by H. G. Wells and

George Bernard Shaw and started a counter-campaign

that helped Hall obtain statements of support from the

NationalUnion of Railwaymen andthe SouthWalesMin-

ers’ Federation.[82]

A novelist may not wish to treat any of the subjects

mentioned above but the sense that they are prohibited or

prohibitable, that there is a taboo-list, will work on him

and will make him alert and cautious instead of surren-

dering himself to his creative impulses. And he will tend

to cling to subjects that are officially acceptable, such as

murder and adultery, and to shun anything original lest it

bring him into forbidden areas.

E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf, Letter to the Nation

and Athenaeum[83]

Leonard Woolf and E. M. Forster drafted a letter of

protest against the suppression of The Well , assembling a

list of supporters that included Shaw, T. S. Eliot, Arnold

Bennett, Vera Brittain and Ethel Smyth. According to

Virginia Woolf, the plan broke down when Hall objected

to thewording of the letter, insisting it mention her book’s

“artistic merit – even genius”.[84] The Well 's sentimen-

tal romanticism, traditional form, and lofty style – using

words like withal , betoken and hath – did not appeal to

Modernist aesthetics; not all those willing to defend it on

grounds of literary freedom were equally willing to praise

its artistry.[85] The petition dwindled to a short letter in the

Nation and Athenaeum, signed by Forster and VirginiaWoolf, that focused on the chilling effects of censorship

on writers.[83]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect_(term)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nation_(UK_weekly)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speechhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernisthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolfhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Smythhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Brittainhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Bennetthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Bennetthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliothttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._M._Forsterhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Woolfhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Wales_Miners%2527_Federationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Wales_Miners%2527_Federationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Union_of_Railwaymenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wellshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Herald_(UK_newspaper)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Herald_(UK_newspaper)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_seasonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_Street_Magistrates%2527_Courthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_Street_Magistrates%2527_Courthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Policehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Customshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Customshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doverhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Hillhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typesettinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papier-m%C3%A2ch%C3%A9https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Presshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Common_Prayerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Common_Prayerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_(UK)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Joynson-Hickshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Joynson-Hickshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interesthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interesthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Capehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Secretaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussic_acidhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_in_theologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_doctrinehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_doctrinehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudosciencehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexology


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6 5 PUBLICATION AND CONTEMPORARY RESPONSE

5.2 UK trial

The obscenity trial began on 9 November 1928.[86]

Cape’s solicitor Harold Rubinstein sent out 160 letters

to potential witnesses. Many were reluctant to appear in

court; according to Virginia Woolf, “they generally put

it down to the weak heart of a father, or a cousin who is

about to have twins”.[87] About 40 turned up on the day

of the trial, including Woolf herself, Forster and such di-

verse figures as biologist Julian Huxley, Laurence Hous-

man of the British Sexological Society, Robert Cust JP

of the London Morality Council, Charles Ricketts of the

Royal Academy of Art and Rabbi Joseph Frederick Stern

of the East London Synagogue. Norman Haire, who was

the star witness after Havelock Ellis bowed out, declared

that homosexuality ran in families and a person could no

more become it by reading books than if he could be-

come syphilitic by reading about syphilis.[88] None were

allowed to offer their views of the novel. Under theObscene Publications Act of 1857, Chief Magistrate Sir

Chartres Biron could decide whether the book was ob-

scene without hearing any testimony on the question. [89]

“I don't think people are entitled to express an opinion

upon a matter which is the decision of the court”, he

said.[90] Since Hall herself was not on trial, she did not

have the right to her own counsel, and Cape’s barrister

Norman Birkett had persuaded her not to take the stand

herself.[89]

Birkett arrived in court two hours late.[91] In his defense,

he tried to claim that the relationships between women

in The Well of Loneliness were purely Platonic in nature.Biron replied, “I have read the book.” Hall had urged Bir-

kett before the trial not to "sell the inverts in our defense”.

She took advantage of a lunch recess to tell him that if he

continued to maintain her book had no lesbian content

she would stand up in court and tell the magistrate the

truth before anyone could stop her. Birkett was forced

to retract. He argued instead that the book was tasteful

and possessed a high degree of literary merit.[92] James

Melville, appearing for Leopold Hill, took a similar line:

the book was “written in a reverend spirit”, not to inspire

libidinous thoughts but to examine a social question. The

theme itself should notbe forbidden, and the book’s treat-ment of its theme was unexceptionable.[93]

[Stephen] writes to her mother in these terms: “You

insulted what to me is natural and sacred.” “What to

me is sacred"? Natural and sacred! Then I am asked to

say that this book is in no sense a defense of unnatural

practices between women, or a glorification, or a praise

of them, to put it perhaps not quite so strongly. “Natural”

and “Sacred"! “Good” repeated three times.

Sir Chartres Biron’s judgment[94]

In his judgment, issued 16, November,[95] Biron applied

the Hicklin test of obscenity: a work was obscene if ittended to “deprave and corrupt those whose minds are

open to such immoral influences”. He held that the book’s

literary merit was irrelevant because a well-written ob-

scene book was even more harmful than a poorly written

one. The topic in itself was not necessarily unacceptable;

a book that depicted the “moral and physical degradation

which indulgence in those vices must necessary involve”

might be allowed, but no reasonable person could say that

a plea for the recognition and toleration of inverts wasnotobscene. He ordered the book destroyed, with the defen-

dants to pay court costs.[96]

5.2.1 Appeal

Hill and Cape appealed to the London Court of Quar-

ter Sessions.[97] The prosecutor, Attorney General Sir

Thomas Inskip, solicited testimony from biological and

medical experts and from the writer Rudyard Kipling.

But when Kipling appeared on the morning of the trial,

Inskip told him he would not be needed. James Melvillehad wired the defense witnesses the night before to tell

them not to come in. The panel of twelve magistrates

who heard the appeal had to rely on passages Inskip read

to them for knowledge of the book, since the Director

of Public Prosecutions had refused to release copies for

them to read. After deliberating for only five minutes,

they upheld Biron’s decision.[98]

5.3 The Sink of Solitude

In “St. Stephen”, one of Beresford Egan's illustrations for The

Sink of Solitude , Radclyffe Hall is nailed to a cross. Joynson-Hicks looks on, with a copy of The Well in his pocket, while Cu-

pid makes a derisive gesture and Sappho leaps across the scene.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beresford_Eganhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kiplinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Thomas_Inskiphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Thomas_Inskiphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_Generalhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_Quarter_Sessionshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_Quarter_Sessionshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hicklin_testhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Melville_(Labour_politician)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Melville_(Labour_politician)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_merithttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_lovehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Birketthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barristerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartres_Bironhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Magistratehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscene_Publications_Acthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Hairehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_London_Synagoguehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Academy_of_Arthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rickettshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Morality_Councilhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_of_the_Peacehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Sexological_Societyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Huxleyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solicitor


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5.4 US publication and trial 7

The Sink of Solitude, an anonymous lampoon in verse

by “several hands”, appeared in late 1928. It satirized

both sides of the controversy over The Well of Loneli-

ness , but its primary targets were Douglas and Joynson-

Hicks, “Two Good Men – never mind their intellect”.[99]

Though the introduction, by journalist P. R. Stephensen,

described The Well' s moral argument as “feeble” and dis-missed Havelock Ellis as a “psychopath”, The Sink itself

endorsed the view that lesbianism was innate:

Though SAPPHO burned with a peculiar

flame

Godunderstands her, we must do the same,

And of such eccentricities we say

"'Tis true, 'tis pity: she was made that

way.”[100]

It portrayed Hall, however, as a humorless moralist whohad a great deal in common with the opponents of her

novel.[99] One illustration, picking up on the theme of re-

ligious martyrdom in The Well , showed Hall nailed to a

cross. The image horrified Hall; her guilt at being de-

picted 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.[101]

5.4 US publication and trial

Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. had planned to publish The Well

of Loneliness in the United States at the same time as

Cape in the United Kingdom. But after Cape moved up

the publication date, Knopf found itself in the position

of publishing a book that had already been withdrawn in

its home country. They refused, telling Hall that nothing

they could do would keep the book from being treated as

pornography.[102]

Cape sold the US rights to the recently formed publish-

ing house of Pascal Covici and Donald Friede. Friede

had heard gossip about The Well at a party at Theodore

Dreiser's house and immediately decided to acquire it.

He had previously sold a copy of Dreiser’s An Ameri-

can Tragedy to a Boston police officer to create a cen-

sorship test case, which he had lost; he was awaiting an

appeal, which he would also lose. He took out a $10,000

bank loan to outbid another publisher that had offered a

$7,500 advance, and enlisted Morris Ernst, co-founder of

the American Civil Liberties Union, to defend the book

against legal challenges. Friede invited John Saxton Sum-

ner of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice

to buy a copy directly from him, to ensure that he, not a

bookseller, would be the one prosecuted. He also trav-

elled to Boston to give a copy to the Watch and Ward

Society, hoping both to further challenge censorship of

literature and to generate more publicity; he was disap-pointed when they told him they saw nothing wrong with

the book.[102]

The symbol of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice,

depicting book burning

In NewYork, Sumner and severalpolice detectives seized

865 copies of The Well from the publisher’s offices, and

Friede was charged with selling an obscene publication.

But Covici and Friede had already moved the printing

plates out of New York in order to continue publishing

the book. By the time the case came to trial, it had al-

ready been reprinted six times. Despite its price of $5

– twice the cost of an average novel – it sold more than

100,000 copies in its first year.[102]

In the US, as in the UK, the Hicklin test of obscenity ap-

plied, but New York case law had established that books

should be judged by their effects on adults rather than on

children and that literarymerit was relevant.[102] Ernst ob-

tained statements from authors including Dreiser, Ernest

Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Mil-

lay, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, H. L. Mencken,

Upton Sinclair, Ellen Glasgow and John Dos Passos.[103]

To make sure these supporters did not go unheard, he in-

corporated their opinions into his brief. His argument

relied on a comparison with Mademoiselle de Maupin by

Théophile Gautier, which had been cleared of obscen-ity in the 1922 case Halsey v. New York . Mademoiselle

de Maupin described a lesbian relationship in more ex-

plicit terms than The Well did. According to Ernst, The

Well had greater social value because it was more serious

in tone and made a case against misunderstanding and

intolerance.[102]

In an opinion issuedon 19 February1929, Magistrate Hy-

man Bushel declined to take the book’s literary qualities

into account andsaid The Well was “calculated to deprave

and corrupt minds open to its immoral influences”. Un-

der New Yorklaw, however, Bushel was nota trier of fact;

he could only remand the case to the New York Court ofSpecial Sessions for judgment. On 19 April, that court

issued a three-paragraph decision stating that The Well' s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trier_of_facthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9ophile_Gautierhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brief_(law)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dos_Passoshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Glasgowhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclairhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Menckenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Andersonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Lewishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_St._Vincent_Millayhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_St._Vincent_Millayhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgeraldhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingwayhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingwayhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_lawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_burninghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_and_Ward_Societyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_and_Ward_Societyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Society_for_the_Suppression_of_Vicehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Unionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Ernsthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Tragedyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Tragedyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Dreiserhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Dreiserhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_Covicihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_A._Knopf,_Inc.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho


8/16

8 7 SOCIAL IMPACT AND LEGACY

theme – a “delicate social problem” – did not violate the

law unless written in such a way as to make it obscene.

After “a careful reading of the entire book”, they cleared

it of all charges.[102]

Covici-Friede then imported a copy of the Pegasus Press

edition from France as a further test case and to solid-ify the book’s U.S. copyright.[102] Customs barred the

book from entering the country, which might also have

prevented it from being shipped from state to state.[104]

The United States Customs Court, however, ruled that

the book did not contain “one word, phrase, sentence or

paragraph which could be truthfully pointed out as offen-

sive to modesty”.[105]

5.5 Subsequent publication and availabil-

ity

The Pegasus Press edition of the book remained available

in France, and some copies made their way into the UK.

In a “Letter from Paris” in The New Yorker , Janet Flanner

reported that it sold most heavily at thenews vendor’s cart

that served passengers travelling to London on La Fleche

D'Or .[106]

In 1946, three yearsafter Hall’sdeath, Troubridge wanted

to include The Well in a Collected Memorial Edition of

Hall’s works. Peter Davies of the Windmill Press wrote

to the Home Office's legal advisor to ask whether thepost-war Labour administration would allow the book

to be republished. Unknown to Troubridge, however,

he added a postscript saying “I am not really anxious to

do The Well of Loneliness and am rather relieved than

otherwise by any lack of enthusiasm I may encounter

in official circles.” Home Secretary James Chuter Ede

told Troubridge that any publisher reprinting the book

would risk prosecution.[107] In 1949, however, Falcon

Press brought out an edition with no legal challenge.[108]

The Well has been in print continuously ever since and

has been translated into at least 14 languages.[97] In the

1960s it was still selling 100,000 copies a year in the

United States alone.[109] Looking back on thecontroversyin 1972, Flanner remarked on how unlikely it seemedthat

a “rather innocent” book like The Well could have created

such a scandal.[106] In 1974, itwas read to the British pub-

lic on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime.[110]

5.6 Copyright status

The copyright protection for The Well of Loneliness ex-

pired in the European Union on January 1, 2014.[111] Be-cause of the URAA, copyright protection in the United

States will continue until at least 2024.

6 Other 1928 lesbian novels

See also: Lesbian literature

Three other novels with lesbian themes were published

in England in 1928: Elizabeth Bowen's The Hotel ,Virginia Woolf's Orlando and Compton MacKenzie's

satirical novel Extraordinary Women. None of them

were banned.[112] The Hotel , like earlier English novels

in which critics have identified lesbian themes, is marked

by complete reticence,[112] while Orlando may have been

protected by its Modernist playfulness.[113] The Home

Office considered prosecuting Extraordinary Women, but

concluded that it lacked the“earnestness” of The Well and

would not inspire readers to adopt “the practices referred

to”.[114] Mackenzie was disappointed; he had hoped a

censorship case would increase his book’s sales.[115] De-

spite advertising that tried to cash in on the controversy

over The Well by announcing that Radclyffe Hall was the

model for one of the characters,[116] it sold only 2,000

copies.[115]

A fourth 1928 novel, Ladies Almanack by the American

writer Djuna Barnes, not only contains a character based

on Radclyffe Hall but includes passages that may be a re-

sponse to The Well .[117] Ladies Almanack is a roman à

clef of a lesbian literary and artistic circle in Paris, writ-

ten in an archaic, Rabelaisian style and starring Natalie

Barney as Dame Evangeline Musset. Much as Sir Phillip

paces his study worrying about Stephen, Dame Musset’s

father “pac[es] his library in the most normal of Night-

Shirts”. When, unlike Sir Phillip, he confronts his daugh-

ter, she replies confidently: “Thou, good Governor, wast

expecting a Son when you lay atop of your Choosing ....

Am I not doing after your very Desire, and is it not the

more commendable, seeing that I do it without the Tools

for the Trade, and yet nothing complain?"[118] Ladies Al-

manack is far more overtly sexual than The Well ; its cryp-

tic style, full of in-jokes and ornate language, may have

been intended to disguise its content from censors. [119] It

could not in any case be prosecuted by the Home Office,

since it was published only in France, in a small, privately

printed edition. It did not become widely available until

1972.[120]

7 Social impact and legacy

In 1921, Lord Birkenhead, the Lord Chancellor of Great

Britain, had opposed a bill that would have criminal-

ized lesbianism on the grounds that “of every thousand

women ... 999 have never even heard a whisper of

these practices”.[121] Actually, awareness of lesbianism

had been gradually increasing since World War I, but it

was still a subject most people had never heard of, orperhaps just preferred to ignore.[122] The Well of Lone-

liness made sexual inversion a subject of household con-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Chancellor_of_Great_Britainhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Chancellor_of_Great_Britainhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._E._Smith,_1st_Earl_of_Birkenheadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Barneyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Barneyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabelaisianhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_%C3%A0_clefhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_%C3%A0_clefhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djuna_Barneshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton_MacKenziehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando:_A_Biographyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolfhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bowenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian_literaturehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URAAhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Unionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_at_Bedtimehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Radio_4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Chuter_Edehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Secretaryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Officehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Arrow_(train)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Arrow_(train)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Flannerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Yorkerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Customs_Courthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state


9/16

9

James Douglas’s editorial in the Sunday Express , August 19,

1928

versation for the first time.[123] The banning of the book

drew so much attention to the very subject it was in-

tended to suppress that it left British authorities wary

of further attempts to censor books for lesbian content.

In 1935, after a complaint about a health book enti-

tled The Single Woman and Her Emotional Problems , a

Home Office memo noted: “It is notorious that the pros-

ecution of the Well Of Loneliness resulted in infinitely

greater publicity about lesbianism than if there had been

no prosecution.”[124]

James Douglas illustrated his denunciation of The Well

with a photograph of Radclyffe Hall in a silk smoking

jacket and bow tie, holding a cigarette and monocle. She

was also wearing a straight knee-length skirt, but later

Sunday Express articles croppedthephotoso tightly that it

became difficult to tell she was not wearing trousers.[125]

Hall’s styleof dress was notscandalous in the1920s; short

hairstyles were common, and the combination of tailored

jackets and short skirts was a recognized fashion, dis-

cussed in magazines as the “severely masculine” look.[126]

Some lesbians, likeHall, adopted variationsof the style as

a way of signalling their sexuality, but it was a code that

only a few knew how to read.[127] With the controversy

over The Well of Loneliness , Hall became the public face

of sexual inversion, and all women who favored mascu-

line fashions came under new scrutiny.[128] Lesbian jour-

nalist Evelyn Irons – who considered Hall’s style of dress“rather effeminate” compared to her own – said that af-

ter the publication of The Well , truck drivers would call

out on the street to any woman who wore a collar and tie:

“Oh, you're Miss Radclyffe Hall”.[129] Some welcomed

their newfound visibility: when Hall spoke at a luncheon

in 1932, the audience was full of women who had imi-

tated her look.[130] But in a study of lesbian women in Salt

Lake City in the 1920s and '30s, nearly all regretted the

publication of The Well because it had drawn unwanted

attention to them.[131]

In a study of a working class lesbian community in

Buffalo, New York in the 1940s and '50s, The Well of Loneliness was the only work of lesbian literature any-

one had read or heard of.[132] For many young lesbians

in the '50s, it was the only source of information about

lesbianism.[133] The Well' s name recognition made it pos-

sible to find when bookstores and libraries did not yet

have sections devoted to LGBT literature.[134] As late as

1994, an article in Feminist Review noted that The Well

“regularly appears in coming-out stories – and not just

those of older lesbians”.[135] It has often been mocked:Terry Castle says that “like many bookish lesbians I seem

to have spent much of my adult life making jokes about

it”, and Mary Renault, who read it in 1938, remembered

laughing at its “earnest humourlessness” and “impermis-

sible allowance of self-pity”.[136] Yet it has also produced

powerful emotional responses, both positive and nega-

tive. One woman was so angry at the thought of how The

Well would affect an “isolated emerging lesbian” that she

“wrote a note in the library book, to tell other readers that

women loving women can be beautiful”.[137] A Holocaust

survivor said, “Remembering that book, I wanted to live

long enough to kiss another woman.”[138]

In the 1970s and early '80s, when lesbian feminists re-

jected the butch and femme identities that Hall’s novel

had helped to define, writers like Jane Rule and Blanche

Wiesen Cook criticized The Well for defining lesbianism

in terms of masculinity, as well as for presenting lesbian

life as “joyless”.[139] However, the novel has had its de-

fenders among feminists in the academy as well, notably

Alison Hennegan, pointing to the fact that the novel did

raise awareness of homosexuality among the British pub-

lic and cleared the way for later work that would tackle

gay and lesbian issues.[140]

In more recent criticism, critics have tended to focus onthe novel’s historical context,[141] but The Well' s reputa-

tionas "the most depressing lesbian novel ever written”[142]

persists and is still controversial. Some critics see the

book as reinforcing homophobic beliefs, while others ar-

gue that the book’s tragedy and its depiction of shame are

its most compelling aspects.[143]

The Well' s ideas and attitudes now strike many readers as

dated, and few critics praise its literary quality.[144] Nev-

ertheless, it continues to compel critical attention, to pro-

voke strong identification and intense emotional reactions

in some readers, and to elicit a high level of personal en-

gagement from its critics.[145]

8 Adaptations

Wilette Kershaw, an American actress who was staging

banned plays in Paris, proposed a dramatization of The

Well of Loneliness . Hall accepted a £100 advance, but

when she andTroubridge saw Kershaw act, they found her

too feminine for the role of Stephen. Hall tried to void the

contract on a technicality, but Kershaw refused to change

her plans. The play opened on 2 September 1930. Noplaywright was credited, implying that Hall had written

the adaptation herself; it was actually written by one of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Henneganhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Wiesen_Cookhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Wiesen_Cookhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Rulehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_and_femmehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian_feministhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocausthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Renaulthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Castlehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_outhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_literaturehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York


10/16

10 10 NOTES

Poster for a New York showing of Children of Loneliness

Kershaw’s ex-husbands, who reworked the story to make

it more upbeat.[146] According to Janet Flanner, who re-

ported on the opening night for The New Yorker , Ker-

shaw “made up in costume what she lacked in psychol-

ogy”, withdesigner boots, breeches and riding crop. Then

she changed into a white dress for a final speech in which

she “begged humanity, 'already used to earthquakes and

murderers,' to try to put up with a minor calamity likethe play’s and the book’s Lesbian protagonist, Stephen

Gordon”.[147] Hall threatened a lawsuit to stop the pro-

duction, but the issue soon became moot, since the play

closed after only a few nights. The public skirmish be-

tween Hall and Kershaw increased sales of the novel.[148]

A 1951 French film set in a girls’ boarding school was

released in the United States as The Pit of Loneliness to

capitalize on the notoriety of The Well ,[149] but was ac-

tually adapted from the novel Olivia,[150] now known to

have been written by Dorothy Bussy.[151] A mid-1930s

exploitation film, Children of Loneliness , claimed to be

“inspired by” The Well . However, little of Hall’snovel canbe discerned in its story of a butch lesbian who is blinded

with acid and run over by a truck, freeing the naïve young

roommate she seduced to find love with a fullback. A

critic for the Motion Picture Herald reported that during

the film’s run in Los Angeles in 1937 – as a double fea-

turewithLove Life of a Gorilla – a self-identified“doctor”

appeared after the screening to sell pamphlets purporting

to explain homosexuality. He was arrested for selling ob-

scene literature.[152]

9 See also

10 Notes

[1] Hall, 437; Munt, 213.

[2] Quotation fromHall, 313. For accounts of the British trial

and theeventsleadingup to it, seeSouhami, 192–241, and

Cline, 225–267. For a detailed examination of controver-

siesover The Well of Loneliness in the1920s, seechapter 1of Doan, Fashioning Sapphism. An overview canbe found

in the introduction to Doan & Prosser, Palatable Poison,

which also reprints the full text of several contemporary

reviews and reactions, including the Sunday Express edito-

rial and Chief Magistrate Sir Chartres Biron’s legal judg-

ment.

[3] A detailed discussion of the US trials can be found in Tay-

lor, “I Made Up My Mind”.

[4] See Doan, Fashioning Sapphism, chapter 5.

[5] Cook, 718–719, 731.

[6] O'Rourke’s Reflections on the Well of Loneliness contains

a reader response survey. SeealsoLove, “Hard Times and

Heartaches”.

[7] For an overview of critical responses and controversies,

see the introduction to Doan & Prosser, Palatable Poison.

[8] Souhami, 159, 172.

[9] Baker, Our Three Selves , 188.

[10] Souhami, 164, 171.

[11] Quoted in Souhami, 181.

[12] Rodriguez, 274.


[14] Hall, 13.

[15] Kennedy.

[16] Hall, 15.

[17] Hall, 147–149.

[18] Hall, 201.

[19] Green, 284–285.

[20] Hall, 379.

[21] Hall, 437.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullback_(American_football)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_filmhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Bussyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Yorkerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Flanner


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11

[22] In particular, Hall’s early biographers Lovat Dickson and

Richard Ormrod; their work is criticized in O'Rourke,

101–103.

[23] Franks, 137; Cline, 16–20.

[24] Hall, 340.

[25] Franks, 137 and 139n13; Baker, Our Three Selves , 214;

Souhami, 174.

[26] Souhami, 166.

[27] Rosner, 327–330.

[28] Baker, Our Three Selves , 216, 247.

[29] Hall, 271–272.

[30] Hall, 387.

[31] Quotation from Hall, 271. Interpretation from Medd,

241–245, and Kent, 223–224.

[32] Rosner, 323–324.

[33] Souhami, 173.

[34] Rosner, 323; Castle, The Apparitional Lesbian, 142–144.

[35] Rosner, 324.

[36] Quotation from Hall, 352; interpretation from Rodriguez,

275.

[37] Hall, 356, 387.

[38] Cline, 273–274.

[39] Baker, Our Three Selves , 253–254.

[40] Cline, 227, 273.

[41] Love. Diana Souhami's comments on the subject are par-

ticularly sharp; she says Hall “might have acknowledged

the privilege, seductions, freedom, and fun that graced

her daily life” (173) and, in response to Hall’s claim to

be writing on behalf of some of the most persecuted and

misunderstood people in the world, remarks “It is doubt-

ful whether Radclyffe Hall and Una, Natalie Barney ...

and the rest, with their fine houses, stylish lovers, inher-

ited incomes, sparkling careers and villas in the sun, were

among the most persecuted and misunderstood people inthe world.” (181–82)

[42] Quotation from Hall, 388–389. Interpretationfrom Cline,

227.

[43] Doan, Fashioning Sapphism, 126.

[44] Rule, 82.

[45] Hall, 204.

[46] Doan, Fashioning Sapphism, 141–150.

[47] Faderman, 317–325.


[49] Taylor, “The Masculine Soul”, 288–289.

[50] Quotation from Hall, 352. Baker, Our Three Selves , 218,

connects these aspects of the novel with sexology.

[51] Hemmings, 189–194; Marshik.

[52] Cline, 81; Doan, “Sappho’s Apotheosis”, 88

[53] Souhami, 99.

[54] Cline, 143.

[55] Halberstam, 156, notes the significance of Stephen’s

name.

[56] Hall, 21–22.

[57] Munt, 202, 207.

[58] Hall, 434.

[59] Terry Castle discusses this scene in light of Hall’s interest

in spiritualism in The Apparitional Lesbian, 49–52.

[60] Hall, 205.

[61] Medd, 242.

[62] Souhami, 167–168; Munt, 213; Stimpson, 368.

[63] In his decision condemning the book, Sir Chartres Biron

called the references to God “singularly inappropriate and

disgusting”. Biron, 48.

[64] Munt, 213.

[65] Cline, 235–238. For more on the practice of setting a

high price for books with “dangerous” subject matter, see

Cohler.


[67] For example, the anonymous reviewers in Glasgow Her-

ald , August 9, 1928, and North Mail and Newcastle Chron-

icle, August 11, 1928; both reprinted in Doan & Prosser,

57 and 61.

[68] Doan & Prosser, “A Selection of Early Reviews”, 50–73;

see also Doan & Prosser, “Introduction”, 4–5.

[69] Doan & Prosser, 5; Souhami, 213.

[70] Con O'Leary, August 11, 1928, in Doan & Prosser, 61.

[71] Doan & Prosser, 10–11; Doan, 15.

[72] Doan & Prosser, 11.

[73] Douglas, 36–38.

[74] Souhami, 194–196.

[75] Cline, 247–248; Souhami, 204–206.

[76] Souhami, 207–210.

[77] Cline, 245–246; Doan & Prosser, 69–70.



[80] Cline, 246.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Souhami


12/16

12 10 NOTES

[81] Doan, 19.

[82] Franks, 94, and Cline, 252–258.

[83] Winning, 376.

[84] Cline, 248–249.

[85] Doan & Prosser, 14, and Souhami, 173.

[86] Miller, pp. 187—88

[87] Souhami, 211.

[88] Souhami, 197.

[89] Cline, 256–258.

[90] Souhami, 225.

[91] Cline, 260.

[92] Souhami, 216, 225–226.

[93] Souhami, 226–227.

[94] Biron, 44.

[95] Miller, p. 189

[96] Biron, 39–49.

[97] Kitch.

[98] Souhami, 233–235.

[99] Doan, “Sappho’s Apotheosis”, 88.

[100] Doan, “Sappho’s Apotheosis”, 95–96.

[101] Baker, Our Three Selves , 257; Cline, 280.

[102] Taylor, “I Made Up My Mind”, passim.

[103] Cline, 271.

[104] “Customs Seeks to Bar 'Well of Loneliness’". New York

Times . 16 May 1929. p. 18.

[105] "'Well Of Loneliness’ Held Not Offensive”. New York

Times . 27 July 1929. p. 11.

[106] Flanner, 48.

[107] Souhami, 405–406.


[109] Newton, 103n6.

[110] Baker, Our Three Selves , 353 and 374n1.

[111] “Chapter 48, Duration of copyright, Section 12”. Copy-

right, Designs and Patents Act 1988 . The National

Archives (UK). Retrieved 10 May 2012.

[112] Foster, 281–287.

[113] Winning, 375; Parkes.

[114] Marshik.

[115] Souhami, 237.


[117] Barnes, xxxi.

[118] Barnes, 8. Susan Sniader Lanser notes the resemblance of

this scene to The Well ; Barnes, xxxv.

[119] Barnes, xli–xlii.

[120] Barnes, xv–xviii.



[123] Whitlock, 559.

[124] Baker, “How Censors Held the Line”.


[126] Doan, Fashioning Sapphism, 114–117 and passim.

[127] Langer, 45 and Elliott, 74.

[128] Doan, Fashioning Sapphism, 27, 193.

[129] Doan, Fashioning Sapphism, 113, 123.


[131] Bullough, 897.

[132] Kennedy and Davis, 34.

[133] "[M]ostof us lesbians in the1950s grewup knowing noth-

ing about lesbianism except Stephen Gordon’s swagger

[and] Stephen Gordon’s breeches”. Cook, 719.

[134] O'Rourke, 115.

[135] Dunn, 107.

[136] Castle, “Afterword”, 394; Renault, 281.

[137] O'Rourke, 128.

[138] Stevens.

[139] Cook, 731; Doan & Prosser, 15–16; Halberstam, 146.

The word “joyless” is Cook’s. Walker, 21, notes the in-

fluence of The Well on butch and femme.

[140] Hennegan 1982

[141] Doan & Prosser, 17; Love.

[142] Walker, 21.

[143] Love; Newton, 90; Munt, 213.

[144] "[T]o many [students], especially some younger lesbian

students for whom the coming out process has been rela-

tively painless, The Well is an affront, an out-dated, un-

believable, ugly insult to their self-image and to their self-

esteem.” Hopkins. Claudia Stillman Franks said in 1982

that “very few critics have ever given the novel itself high

praise. On the contrary, they often point out that stylisti-

cally, the work is marred by inflated language and stilteddialogue” (125). Doan & Prosser state that in 1990s crit-

icism “the persistent implication is that if Hall had only

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/12


13/16

13

been a better writer, she might have been a better mod-

ernist and certainly a better lesbian”. Terry Castle, sum-

ming up a 2001 collection of essays on The Well , notes

that "[t]heir authors are all in varying degree ... quick to

acknowledge their own frustrations with Hall’s often mon-

strously overwrought parable” (“Afterword”, 398).

[145] Doan & Prosser say that "[t]he novel continues to unset-

tle and provoke. Generations of feminists ... may have

dismissed or celebrated the novel ... but they have never

ignored it” (2). Castle refers to its “uncanny rhetorical

power – a power unaffected by its manifest failures as a

work of art – to activate readerly feeling ... Something

in the very pathos of Stephen Gordon’s torment ... pro-

vokes an exorbitant identification in us. Whoever we are,

we tend to see ourselves in her.” She also notes a “level of

emotional seriousness and personal engagement one sel-

dom sees” in criticism of The Well (“Afterword”, 399–

400).

[146] Cline, 277–279, and Souhami, 250–259.

[147] Flanner, 71. Kershaw’s wardrobe change for the curtain

speech is noted in Baker, Our Three Selves , 265.

[148] Cline, 277–278.

[149] Russo, 102.

[150] Anon. (May 3, 1954). "New Picture". Time. Retrieved

on 2007-01-18.

[151] Rodriguez, 40.

[152] Barrios, 158–160.

11 References

• Baker, Michael (1985). Our Three Selves: A Life

of Radclyffe Hall . London: GMP Publishers Ltd.

ISBN 0-85449-042-6.

• Baker, Simon (4 October 2005). “How Censors

Held Line against Lesbians”. Sydney Morning Her-

ald . Retrieved 2007-01-19.

• Barale, Michèle Aina (1991). “Below the Belt:

(Un)Covering The Well of Loneliness ". Fuss, Di-

ana (ed.) (1991). Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay

Theories . New York: Routledge. pp. 235–258.

ISBN 0-415-90237-1.

• Barrios, Richard (2003). Screened Out: Playing Gay

in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall . New York:

Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92328-X.

• Barnes, Djuna; with an introduction by Susan Sni-

ader Lanser (1992). Ladies Almanack . New York:

New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-1180-4.

• Bullough, Vern; Bullough, Bonnie (1977). “Les-

bianism in the 1920s and 1930s: A NewfoundStudy”. Signs 2 (4): 895–904. doi:10.1086/493419.

ISSN 0097-9740.

• Castle, Terry (1993). The Apparitional Lesbian:

Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture. New

York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-

07652-5.

• Cline, Sally (1998). Radclyffe Hall: A Woman

Called John. Woodstock & New York: The Over-look Press. ISBN 0-87951-708-5.

• Cohler, Deborah (2000). “2000 MLA Conven-

tion: Economies of Writing”. Retrieved 2006-11-

28. |chapter= ignored (help)

• Cook, BlancheWiesen (1979). "'Women Alone Stir

My Imagination': Lesbianism and the Cultural Tra-

dition”. Signs 4 (4): 718–739. doi:10.1086/493659.

ISSN 0097-9740.

• Doan, Laura (2001). Fashioning Sapphism: The

Origins of a Modern English Lesbian Culture. New

York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-11007-3.

• Doan, Laura (2004). “Sappho’s Apotheosis? Rad-

clyffe Hall’s Queer Kinship with the Watchdogs

of the Lord”. Sexuality & Culture 8 (2): 80–

106. doi:10.1007/s12119-004-1013-2. ISSN 1095-

5143.

• Doan, Laura; Prosser, Jay (2001). Palatable Poi-

son: Critical Perspectives on The Well of Loneliness.

New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-

231-11875-9.

• Biron, Sir Chartres (1928). “Judgment”.

Doan & Prosser, 39–49.

• Castle, Terry (2001). “Afterword: It Was

Good, Good, Good ". Doan & Prosser,

394–402.

• Douglas, James (1928). “A Book That

Must Be Suppressed”. Doan & Prosser,

36–38.

• Halberstam, Judith (2001). "'A Writer

of Misfits’: 'John' Radclyffe Hall and

the Discourse of Inversion”. Doan &

Prosser, 145–161.

• Hemmings, Clare (2001). "'All My Life

I'veBeenWaiting for Something...': The-

orizing Femme Narrative in The Well of

Loneliness . Doan & Prosser, 179–196.

• Kent, Susan Kingsley (2001). “The Well

of Loneliness as War Novel”. Doan &

Prosser, 216–231.

• Medd, Jodie (2001). “War Wounds: The

Nation, Shell Shock, and Psychoanaly-

sis in The Well of Loneliness ". Doan &

Prosser, 232–254.• Munt, Sally R. (2001). "The Well of

Shame”. Doan & Prosser, 199–215.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-231-11875-9https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-231-11875-9https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://www.worldcat.org/issn/1095-5143https://www.worldcat.org/issn/1095-5143https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Serial_Numberhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1007%252Fs12119-004-1013-2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifierhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-231-11007-3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-231-11007-3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://www.worldcat.org/issn/0097-9740https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Serial_Numberhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1086%252F493659https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifierhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:CS1_errors#chapter_ignoredhttp://www.case.edu/affil/sce/Texts/Cohler-MLA.htmlhttp://www.case.edu/affil/sce/Texts/Cohler-MLA.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-87951-708-5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-231-07652-5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-231-07652-5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://www.worldcat.org/issn/0097-9740https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Serial_Numberhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1086%252F493419https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifierhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-8147-1180-4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-415-92328-Xhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-415-90237-1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/world/how-censors-held-line-against-lesbians/2005/10/03/1128191658695.htmlhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/world/how-censors-held-line-against-lesbians/2005/10/03/1128191658695.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-85449-042-6https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,890942,00.html


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15

• Renault, Mary (1984). The Friendly Young Ladies.

New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-394-73369-

X.

• Rodriguez, Suzanne (2002). Wild Heart: A Life:

Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Lit-

erary Paris . New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-093780-7.

• Russo, Vito (1987). The Celluloid Closet: Homo-

sexuality in the Movies . New York: Harper & Row.

ISBN 0-06-096132-5.

• Schaff, Barbara (1998). “Third International

Congress on Sex and Gender”. Retrieved 2007-01-

18. |chapter= ignored (help)

• Souhami, Diana (1999). The Trials of Radclyffe

Hall . New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-48941-

2.

• Stevens, Lillian L. (14 July 1990). “Texas Lesbians,

in Particular; The Third Annual Texas Lesbian Con-

ference Builds on the Past with a Promise for the

Future”. Gay Community News . p. 16.

• Stimpson, Catharine R. (Winter 1981). “Zero De-

greeDeviancy: The Lesbian Novel in English”. Crit-

ical Inquiry 8 (2): 363–379. doi:10.1086/448159.

ISSN 0093-1896.

• Taylor, Leslie A. (2001). "'I Made Up My Mind

to Get It': The American Trial of The Well of

Loneliness, New York City, 1928–1929”. Jour-nal of the History of Sexuality 10 (2): 250–286.

doi:10.1353/sex.2001.0042. ISSN 1043-4070.

• Taylor, Melanie A. (1998). "'The Masculine

Soul Heaving in the Female Bosom': The-

ories of inversion and The Well of Loneli-

ness”. Journal of Gender Studies 7 (3): 287–

296. doi:10.1080/09589236.1998.9960722. ISSN

0958-9236.

• Walker, Lisa (2001). Looking Like What You Are:

Sexual Style, Race, and Lesbian Identity. New York:

NYU Press. ISBN 0-8147-9372-X.

• Whitlock, Gillian (1987). ""Everything is Out of

Place": Radclyffe Hall and the Lesbian LiteraryTra-

dition”. Feminist Studies (Feminist Studies, Vol. 13,

No. 3) 13 (3): 554–582. doi:10.2307/3177881.

ISSN 0046-3663. JSTOR 3177881.

12 External links

• Facsimiles of correspondence relating to the seizure

of The Well of Loneliness at The National Archives

• Letter by Radclyffe Hall about the writing of The

Well at the Lesbian Herstory Archives

• Radclyffe Hall at Times Online including correspon-

dence, document facsimiles, and text of legal judg-

ments

• Well of Loneliness courtesy of Project Gutenberg

Australia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gutenberg_Australiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gutenberg_Australiahttp://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-a-m.html#letterHhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,8464,00.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian_Herstory_Archiveshttp://www.lesbianherstoryarchives.org/pblintrhall.htmhttp://www.lesbianherstoryarchives.org/pblintrhall.htmhttp://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/releases/2005/january2/http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/releases/2005/january2/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3177881https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSTORhttps://www.worldcat.org/issn/0046-3663https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Serial_Numberhttps://dx.doi.org/10.2307%252F3177881https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifierhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-8147-9372-Xhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://www.worldcat.org/issn/0958-9236https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Serial_Numberhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1080%252F09589236.1998.9960722https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifierhttps://www.worldcat.org/issn/1043-4070https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Serial_Numberhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1353%252Fsex.2001.0042https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifierhttps://www.worldcat.org/issn/0093-1896https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Serial_Numberhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1086%252F448159https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifierhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-385-48941-2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-385-48941-2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:CS1_errors#chapter_ignoredhttp://www.pfc.org.uk/node/212http://www.pfc.org.uk/node/212https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-06-096132-5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-06-093780-7https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-06-093780-7https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Numberhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-394-73369-Xhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-394-73369-Xhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number


16/16

16 13 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

13 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

13.1 Text

• The Well of Loneliness Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Well%20of%20Loneliness?oldid=623876661 Contributors: Jah-sonic, AlexR, Tpbradbury, Mackensen, Warofdreams, GPHemsley, Bearcat, Walloon, Kaldari, DNewhall, DragonflySixtyseven, KlemenKocjancic, YUL89YYZ, Nkedel, Carbon Caryatid, Kouban, GregorB, Cuchullain, BD2412, Ketiltrout, Rjwilmsi, Tim!, Koavf, Unlikely-

heroine, Brighterorange, Ecelan, Marta.Paczynska, Quentin X, RussBot, CanadianCaesar, Critical.solvent, Gaius Cornelius, Eddie.willers,Tfine80, Retiredusername, RL0919, Paul Magnussen, Nikkimaria, Mr-Thomas, SmackBot, Kintetsubuffalo,Kevinalewis,Chris thespeller,Jprg1966, G.dallorto, Colonies Chris, Philip Howard, John, Chienloup, Mr Stephen, Collywolly, AdultSwim, Gpscholar, NThurston,Dev920, Zotdragon, ShelfSkewed, Michaelas10, DumbBOT, Nabokov, Thijs!bot, Llewellyn of the Lakes, John Smythe, Antique Rose,Tjmayerinsf, Robina Fox, Celithemis, Alphawave, Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, مس , MikkoK, M-le-mot-dit, Ontarioboy, STBotD, Gra-hamHardy, Xnuala, VolkovBot, Nite-Sirk, Lightmouse, Dabomb87, LarRan, Drmies, Piledhigheranddeeper, DragonBot, No such user,Another Believer, Good Olfactory, Addbot, DOI bot, 89diehl, Jarble, CountryBot, Luckas-bot, Yobot, AnomieBOT, Mike Hayes, Citationbot, Xqbot, GrouchoBot, Wikignome0529, Shiver of recognition, Citation bot 1, Full-date unlinking bot, EmausBot, ZéroBot, Brandmeis-ter, ClueBot NG, John Jiezuberband, Harley Hudson, Lowercase sigmabot, George Ponderevo, CitationCleanerBot, Harizotoh9, BattyBot,DarafshBot, Dexbot, Sir Don Juan, Diana Wyndham, Monkbot, LawrencePrincipe, Diana Bassplayer and Anonymous: 37

13.2 Images

• File:Atget_-_Temple_of_Friendship_at_20_Rue_Jacob.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Atget_-_

Temple_of_Friendship_at_20_Rue_Jacob.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Le Temple de l'Amitié (ruevisconti.com) Original artist: Eugène Atget (French, 1857–1927), reproduction : Baptiste Essevaz-Roulet

• File:Book_collection.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Book_collection.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

• File:Children_of_Loneliness.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ea/Children_of_Loneliness.jpg License: ? Con-tributors: ? Original artist: ?

• File:Cscr-featured.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e7/Cscr-featured.svg License: ? Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

• File:Hackett_Lowther_ambulances.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/59/Hackett_Lowther_ambulances.jpg Li-cense: ? Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

• File:Natalie_Barney_in_Fur_Cape.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Natalie_Barney_in_Fur_Cape.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Smithsonian Institution Original artist: Alice Pike Barney

• File:NewYorkSocietyForTheSuppressionOfVice.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/NewYorkSocietyForTheSuppressionOfVice.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Public-domain image due to age, found athttp://www.drugwar.com/inquisition.shtm Original artist: Uploaded by User Apeloverage on en.wikipedia

• File:Nuvola_LGBT_flag.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Nuvola_LGBT_flag.svg License: Publicdomain Contributors:

• Adapted from: Nuvola_Ugandan_flag.svg using colors from Gay_flag.svg Original artist: Nuvola_Ugandan_flag.svg: Antigoni

• File:Radclyffe_Hall_-_Sunday_Express.gif Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a5/Radclyffe_Hall_-_Sunday_Express.gif License: ? Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

• File:Temple_de_L'Amour3.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/24/Temple_de_L%27Amour3.jpgLicense: ? Con-tributors: ? Original artist: ?

• File:The_Sink_of_Solitude.gif Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/19/The_Sink_of_Solitude.gif License: Fair useContributors:

Laura Doan, “Sappho’s Apotheosis? Radclyffe Hall’s Queer Kinship with the Watchdogs of the Lord”, p. 84

Original artist:

Beresford Egan

• File:Woman-power_emblem.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Woman-power_emblem.svg License: Public domain Contributors: Made by myself, based on a character outline in the (PostScript Type 1) “Fnord Hodge-Podge Discordian fontsversion 2” by toa267 (declared by him to be Public Domain). I chose the color to be kind of equally intermediate between red, pink, andlavender (without being any one of the three...). Original artist: AnonMoos, toa267

13.3 Content license

• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
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the well of loneliness-suđenje

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