Creator

Radclyffe Hall

Published

New York: Covici Friede Publishers, 1928

Description

The Well of Loneliness is a lesbian novel by British author Radclyffe Hall that was first published in 1928 by Jonathan Cape. It follows the life of Stephen Gordon, an Englishwoman from an upper-class family whose “sexual inversion” (homosexuality) is apparent from an early age. The novel became the target of a censorship campaign in the Britain by James Douglas, editor of the Sunday Express, and a British court subsequently judged it obscene because it defended “unnatural practices between women”. It was banned for 21 years in Britain, and banned sight unseen in Australia. The Archives’ copy is accompanied by clippings from 1929 press coverage in UK of the obscenity trial.