The Well of Loneliness

’If our love is a sin, then heaven must be full of such tender and selfless sinning as ours.’

The Well of Loneliness is among the most famous banned books in history. A pioneering work of literature, Radclyffe Hall’s novel charts the development of a ’female sexual invert’, Stephen Gordon, who from childhood feels an innate sense of masculinity and desire for women. After relocating from Malvern to London and then to Paris, Stephen encounters fellow queer characters from all walks of life, from the sapphic salon hostess Valérie Seymour to the ’miserable army’ of outcasts that frequents the ’merciless, drug-dealing, death-dealing’ bars of Montmartre. Although Stephen and her acquaintances, allies, and antagonists are of their time, Hall’s novel has offered support and solidarity to generations of LGBTQ+ readers, and it continues to shape debates about gender and sexuality today.

This edition highlights previously overlooked points of influence, inspiration, and connections with other texts as well as situating the novel in historical contexts. In addition, the editors provide vital insights into Hall’s engagement with religion, sexology, literary history, and popular culture.

Radclyffe Hall

Jana Funke is Associate Professor of English Literature and Sexuality Studies at the University of Exeter. Among other volumes, she has edited The World and Other Unpublished Works by Radclyffe Hall (2016) and, with Elizabeth English and Sarah Parker, Interrogating Lesbian Modernism: Histories, Forms, Genres (2023). She is the author of Sexological Modernism: Queer Feminism and Sexual Science (2024).

Hannah Roche is Senior Lecturer in Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture at the University of York. She is the author of The Outside Thing: Modernist Lesbian Romance (2019), which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. Hannah has published articles on queer modernism in Textual Practice, Essays in Criticism, Modernist Cultures, and Modernism/modernity.