Radclyffe Hall is best known for gaining notoriety for the publication and subsequent obscenity trial of her 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness, a text that had not only an openly lesbian protagonist, Stephen Gordon, but also explored the struggles of queer individuals, especially women, during the early twentieth century. It has since become a cornerstone of lesbian literature as one of the first novels to present lesbian relationships openly, and Hall has become a figurehead for queerness in the literary canon. Herself a lesbian, Hall lived openly with women while pursuing a literary career in which she wrote poetry and several novels, although none as notorious or as studied as The Well of Loneliness.
Radclyffe Hall was born Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe-Hall in 1880 at “Sunny Lawn”, Bournemouth, in what is now Dorset. She was the...
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Citation: Mincher, Marianne. "Radclyffe Hall". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 April 2026 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1944, accessed 09 June 2026.]
