The Trials of Radclyffe Hall
Short-listed for the James Tait Black Prize for Biography · Winner of the Lambda Literary Award
The Trials of Radclyffe Hall is available now from amazon.co.uk · Kindle edition
Radclyffe Hall’s novel The Well of Loneliness about ‘congenital inverts’ put her publishers, Jonathan Cape, on trial in 1928. The book was banned. The Attorney General described it as ‘propaganda for the practice which has long been known as Lesbianism… it is corrupting and obscene and its publication is a misdemeanour.’ Radclyffe Hall’s life was an emotional trial too.
At a time when certain Tory MPs are getting themselves in a fluster about the “aggressive homosexual community”, Diana Souhami's tremendous biography of Radclyffe Hall underlines their place in a long, dispiriting line of establishment homophobes. [ read this review at www.guardian.co.uk ]
Victoria Segal · The Guardian
This reviewer found herself engrossed from page one. Carried along at breakneck speed by the pace and wit of Souhami’s style. Fascinating and frightening, a magnificent book.
Teresa Waugh · The Spectator
An outrageously entertaining book
Victoria Glendinning · Daily Telegraph