Hall, Radclyffe

Hall, Radclyffe

 orig. Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall

(born Aug. 12, 1880, Bournemouth, Hampshire, Eng.—died Oct. 7, 1943, London) English writer. Born to a wealthy family and educated at King's College, London, Hall began her literary career by writing verses, which eventually were collected into five volumes. She won prizes for her novel Adam's Breed (1926), a plea for animal rights. She was condemned for writing openly and sympathetically about lesbianism in The Well of Loneliness (1928), one of the first lesbian novels in English. It was judged obscene and banned in Britain; the ban was overturned on appeal after Hall's death. Most of her five other novels express her strong Christian beliefs.