The Well Of Loneliness

1st Edition / 2nd Impression. Second impression with correction to error on page 50, line 13 ('Whip' to 'Whips'). Description: Black cloth with gilt titles to spine. Language: English. Book Condition> Very Good+: Light wear to lightly bumped rear corners. Clean cloth with very minor faint marks. Tightly bound with lightly age toned intact endpapers and strong hinges. Light toned pages with very occasional small spot to one or two pages. DJ Condition> No DJ. 511pp. Size: 8vo 22.5cm by 15cm. Author: Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall was born on the south coast of England Her mother may have battered her, while her father, a playboy known as Rat, ignored her In the drawing rooms of Edwardian society, Marguerite made a small name for herself as a poet and librettist In 1907 she met a middle-aged fashionable singer, Mrs Mabel Batten, known as Ladye", who introduced her to influential people Batten and Radclyffe-Hall entered into a long-term relationship But before Batten died in 1916, Radclyffe-Hall, known in private as John, had taken up with the second love of her life, Una, Lady Troubridge, who gave up her own creative aspirations (she was the first English translator of the French novelist Colette) to manage the household which she shared with John for 28 years With Batten, Radclyffe-Hall converted to Catholicism; in the company of Una, she pursued an interest in animals and spiritualism In later life, Radclyffe-Hall chased after a younger woman named Evguenia Souline, a White Russian refugee She died from cancer of the colon in October 1943 As Radclyffe Hall (no hyphen; prefixed neither by John nor Marguerite), she published a volume of stories, Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself (1934), which describes how British society utilised masculine women during the First World War and then dropped them afterwards, and a total of seven novels However, the novel on which Radclyffe Halls reputation rests primarily is The Well of Loneliness (1928) The novel was successfully prosecuted for obscenity when if first came out, and remained banned in Britain until 1948 Vilified as the bible of lesbianism by fire-and-brimstone reactionaries In the seventies, the halcyon days of radical feminism, it was hailed as the first portrayal of a butch woman. Book Resume: Stephen is an ideal child of aristocratic parentsÑa fencer, a horse rider and a keen scholar Stephen grows to be a war hero, a bestselling writer and a loyal, protective lover But Stephen is a woman, and her lovers are women As her ambitions drive her, and society confines her, Stephen is forced into desperate actions The Well of Loneliness was banned for obscenity when published in 1928 It became an international bestseller, and for decades was the single most famous lesbian novel It has influenced how love between women is understood, for the twentieth century and beyond The book follows Stephen Gordon and her experiences as an author, a war hero and a lesbian growing up in the Victorian and Edwardian eras Stephen Douglas, editor of the Sunday Express stated that "I would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel" After a reprint to correct an error on page 50, line 13 ('Whip' to 'Whips') the book was put on trial It was banned for obscenity and at the end of its trial Sir Chartes Biron announced that all copies of the book should be destroyed. POSTAGE: PLEASE NOTE - This is a heavy item and will require additional postage for overseas deliveries. We will contact you with the additional charges. Please see our postage policy on our shop front for more information. …