Radclyffe Hall (Marguerite Radclyffe Hall) Biography

British novelist and ]poet, born in Bournemouth; she was privately educated and spent one year at King's College, London. She established herself as a minor poet of note with numerous collections of accomplished lyric verse, among which are 'Twixt Earth and Stars (1906) and Songs of Three Counties (1913). Two of her early novels, The Forge (1924) and A Saturday Life (1925), are mild satires on married life. Adam's Breed (1926), her most widely acclaimed novel, has in common with much of her other work its thematic concern with the conflict between carnal love and an altruism rooted in her orthodox Christianity. She is best known for The Well of Loneliness (1928), which candidly reflects her homosexuality in its narrative of a lesbian novelist. Despite public statements of its merits from many eminent literary figures, it was banned after a prosecution for obscenity and was not republished until 1949; Vera Brittain's Hall: A Case of Obscenity? (1968) deals with the trial. Her other publications include The Unit Lamp (1924), centring on a daughter's subjection to her mother, and the stories of Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself (1934). The Life and Death of Hall (1961) is a biography by her partner Una Troubridge.