Categories: Contemporary Fiction Classic Books & Novels


The Well of Loneliness - Penguin Modern Classics
Radclyffe Hall

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Paperback (05 Feb 2015)


New to Penguin Modern Classics, the seminal work of gay literature that sparked an infamous legal trial for obscenity and went on to become a bestseller.

The Well of Loneliness tells the story of tomboyish Stephen, who hunts, wears trousers and cuts her hair short - and who gradually comes to realise that she is attracted to women. Charting her romantic and professional adventures during the First World War and beyond, the novel provoked a furore on first publication in 1928 for its lesbian heroine and led to a notorious legal trial for obscenity. Hall herself, however, saw the book as a pioneer work and today it is recognised as a landmark work of gay fiction.

This Penguin edition includes a new introduction by Maureen Duffy.

The archetypal lesbian novel - Times Literary Supplement

One of the first and most influential contributions of gay and lesbian literature - New Statesman

Radclyffe Hall was born in 1880. After an unhappy childhood, she inherited her fathers estate and from then on was free to travel and live as she chose. She fell in love and lived with an older woman before settling down with Una Troubridge, a married sculptor. Hall wrote many books but is best known for The Well of Loneliness, first published in 1928. She died in 1943 and is buried in Highgate Cemetery in London.

Maureen Duffy was born in 1933 and educated at Kings College London. She became a full-time writer in the 1960s, and has since written numerous screenplays, poetry and novels. A lifelong campaigner for gay rights and animal rights, Duffy is also president of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society.


Product details

Format Paperback | 512 pages
Dimensions 129 x 198 x 22mm | 351g
Publication date 05 Feb 2015
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Imprint Penguin Classics
Publication City/Country London, United Kingdom
Language English
Edition Statement UK ed.
ISBN10 014119183X
ISBN13 9780141191836
Bestsellers rank 57,340