If you’ve been keeping up with the OLA, you’d know that we recently moved to a new location in OTR! With moving comes a lot of unpacking, and as a new volunteer, this has given me a great opportunity to get a look at many of the pieces in our collection. One of my favorites so far was a 1st American edition of The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, which is widely considered to be the first Western lesbian novel.
Published in England in 1928, and later in the United States, The Well of Loneliness caused quite a stir. The story follows Stephen, a woman who was raised as a boy, from her romances with women to her struggles with feeling more like a man than a woman. Her story portrays the contemporary idea of “sexual inversion,” a theory that gay people are attracted to the same sex because they are born with an inversion of gender traits. Stephen is a woman, but she has a “masculine soul.” Proponents of the sexual inversion theory would say that it is because of Stephen’s mismatched body and soul that she dresses in men’s clothes and is attracted to women. While today we have a clear separation of gender identity and sexuality, in the early 20th century the separation was not as distinct—the category of “sexual invert” could include both trans and gay people by our modern definitions.
The novel’s use of sexual inversion caused it to stand out from other novels that are now considered lesbian novels of the time. In the 19th century, close relationships between women that toed the line between platonic and romantic were common. Because of the prevalence of these romantic friendships, many novels with lesbian themes were not seen as queer. The themes of sexual inversion in The Well of Loneliness, on the other hand, made the queerness of the story inescapable. This is part of what caused the huge waves of backlash against the novel.
In both England and the United States, there were campaigns to stop the publication of the novel. Moralists like James Douglas claimed the novel was propaganda and would corrupt children, stating “This pestilence is devastating the younger generation. It is wrecking young lives. It is defiling young souls.” In response, numerous authors in both England and the U.S.—including such figures as T.S. Eliot, Virigina Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Upton Sinclair, and many others—wrote in support of the novel’s continued publication. Although the UK obscenity trial ruled the novel be banned from print only a few months after its release, it was allowed to remain in print in the U.S. because a legal precedent stated the novel must be judged on its effect on adults rather than children.
And The Well of Loneliness certainly had an “effect” on adults. At the time, the novel and tales of its legal battles were often the first introduction people had to lesbianism. The Well of Loneliness was commonly cited in lesbians’ coming out stories, and its masculine/feminine dynamics between Stephen and her lovers helped in part to shape the butch/femme dynamics of lesbian bar culture in the 1940s and ‘50s. While later lesbian feminist scholars began to criticize the novel for its bleak portrayal of lesbianism and strict butch/femme dynamics, The Well of Loneliness’s effect on lesbian awareness, awakening, and visibility in the 20th century is indisputable. For decades, the novel was the lesbian narrative in England and the U.S. Even now, more than 90 years later, the book has an important cultural impact, making the OLA’s 1st edition a prized member of the archive’s collection.
One response to “Collection Highlight: The Well of Loneliness”
Great review of an important HERstoric novel. I hope you continue these reviews!