Palatable Poison: Critical Perspectives on The Well of Loneliness
The Well of Loneliness -the Radclyffe Hall novel at times referred to as "the bible of lesbianism" -was released in Britain in 1928 and was immediately controversial. Pronounced obscene following a sensational trial, the book has become a cultural icon as well as a source of considerable debate, especially among feminists, lesbians, and transgendered persons.Palatable Poison gathers together classic essays on Radclyffe Hall´s book -beginning with Havelock Ellis and early reviews -as well as...
Search in google:
The Well of Loneliness -- the Radclyffe Hall novel at times referred to as "the bible of lesbianism" -- was released in Britain in 1928 and was immediately controversial. Pronounced obscene following a sensational trial, the book has become a cultural icon as well as a source of considerable debate, especially among feminists, lesbians, and transgendered persons. Palatable Poison gathers together classic essays on Radclyffe Hall's book -- beginning with Havelock Ellis and early reviews -- as well as pieces by such contemporary critics as Esther Newton, Judith Halberstam, Teresa de Lauretis, and Terry Castle. Providing an understanding of how views of the book have changed over time and covering such topics as race, the nation at war, and melancholy, the collection presents new and provocative ideas about the immense cultural impact of The Well of Loneliness and its unique place in the literature of sexual nonconformity.Palatable Poison gathers together classic essays on Radclyffe Hall's book -- beginning with Havelock Ellis and early reviews -- as well as new pieces by such contemporary critics as Esther Newton, Judith Halberstam, Teresa de Lauretis, and Terry Castle. Providing an understanding of how views of the book have changed over time and covering such topics as fetishism, inversion, and melancholy, the collection presents new and provocative ideas about the immense cultural impact of The Well of Loneliness and its unique place in the literature of sexual nonconformity.
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Critical Perspectives Past and Present1Pt. 1Perspectives Past1Commentary (1928)352"A Book That Must Be Suppressed" (1928)363Judgment (1928)394A Selection of Early Reviews505"Radclyffe Hall" (1975)776"The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman" (1989)897"Perverse Desire: The Lure of the Mannish Lesbian" (1991)109Pt. 2Perspectives Present8"Some Primitive Thing Conceived in a Turbulent Age of Transition": The Transsexual Emerging from The Well1299"A Writer of Misfits": "John" Radclyffe Hall and the Discourse of Inversion14510"The Outcast of One Age Is the Hero of Another": Radclyffe Hall, Edward Carpenter and the Intermediate Sex16211"All My Life I've Been Waiting for Something ...": Theorizing Femme Narrative in The Well of Loneliness17912The Well of Shame19913The Well of Loneliness as War Novel21614War Wounds: The Nation, Shell Shock, and Psychoanalysis in The Well of Loneliness23215Of Trees and Polities, Wars and Wounds25516"I Want to Cross Over into Camp Ground": Race and Inversion in The Well of Loneliness27717"Something Primitive and Age-Old as Nature Herself": Lesbian Sexuality and the Permission of the Exotic30018Once More unto the Breach: The Well of Loneliness and the Spaces of Inversion31619Great Cities: Radclyffe Hall at the Chicago School33620Well Meaning: Pragmatism, Lesbianism, and the U.S. Obscenity Trial35521Writing by the Light of The Well: Radclyffe Hall and the Lesbian Modernists372Afterword: It Was Good, Good, Good394Contributors403Suggested Readings407Index411
