Radclyffe-Hall, Marguerite Antonia

(1880-1943)

   Born at West Cliff, Bournemouth, Dorset, she was brought up mainly by governesses until she went to live in a stately house in Earls Court with her mother's third husband, Albert Visetti, a professor of singing at the Royal College of Music in London. She published collections of poems, seven novels, and a number of short stories. Her poem "The Blind Ploughman" was set to music by Conigsby Clarke. Her novels won her international fame. Adam's Breed (1926) won her several awards. The Well of Loneliness (1928), a courageous and serious novel about lesbianism, was prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1857, condemned as an obscene libel, all copies destroyed, and not republished in Britain until 1949. She shared her private life exclusively with women, notably with the socialite and beauty Mabel Veronica Batten. She was buried in the vault alongside Mabel Batten in Highgate Cemetery, North London. Her poetry publications: Twixt Earth and Stars, 1906. A Sheaf of Verses, 1908. Poems of the Past and Present, 1910. Songs of Three Counties and Other Poems, 1913. The Forgotten Island, 1915. Rhymes and Rhythms, 1948.

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse. Stephen Coote, ed. Penguin Books, 1983.