The Trials of Radclyffe Hall by Diana Souhami

The Trials of Radclyffe Hall

Diana Souhami

The extraordinary life of a great English eccentric and author, as seen by one of England’s leading biographers.

A fascinating figure of English literary and political history, Radclyffe Hall was born in 1880 in Bournemouth, England. Hall suffered through an exceedingly unhappy childhood until her father’s death. With her inheritance, Hall leased a house in Kensington and began to live the way she pleased. She started dressing in chappish clothes, called herself Peter, then John, and wrote her first collection of verse. She was a political reactionary, a reformed Catholic, a member of the Society for Psychical Research, fussy about food and obsessive about work. She got her pipes from Dunhill’s, wore brocade smoking jackets, spats in winter, and had her hair cropped off at the barber’s.

Hall is most famous today for her book, The Well of Loneliness, which she wrote in 1928. A novel about lesbian love, the book caused an enormous scandal on its publication and it was suppressed both in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, where Hall was put on trial under the Obscene Publications Act.

Brilliantly written, witty, and satirical, this major new biography by Diana Souhami brings a fresh and irreverent eye to the life of this fascinating eccentric.


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Details

ISBN 385489412
Genre Autobiography/Biography
Publication Date 15-Jun-99
Publisher Doubleday
Format Hardcover
No. of Pages 480
Language English
Rating NotRated
BookID 13512

Author: LFWBooks