The life of Radclyffe Hall

U. Troubridge

Certainly no one could give a more personal account of the life of Margerite Radclyffe-Hall (known to her friends as "John") than Una Vincenzo, Lady Troubridge, Hall's lover for thirty years until Hall's death. Troubridge's biography contains a detailed, though sexually circumspect, account of Hall's early life as a young sportswoman in the English countryside, and of Hall's first affair with Troubridge's cousin, Mable Veronica Batten. Troubridge describes her own involvement with Hall after Batten's death, and of Hall's attachment to Evguenia Souline, who shared nine years with Hall and herself. Most importantly, this biography documents the tremendous controversy over Hall's The Well of Loneliness, leading to the book's long suppression in London and temporary censorship in the U.S. Troubridge relates how the novel finally became a best-seller in America and the rest of Europe, and the most famous defense of Lesbianism in fictional form.