WELL OF LONELINESS

"The Well of Loneliness" is a lesbian novel written by Radclyffe Hall and published by Jonathan Cape in 1928. It recounts the life of Stephen Gordon, an upper-class Englishwoman whose "sexual inversion" (homosexuality) is evident from a young age. She falls in love with Mary Llewellyn, whom she meets while serving as an ambulance driver in World War I, but their happiness is tainted by social isolation and rejection, which Hall portrays as common among "inverts," with predictable devastating consequences. "Give us also the right to our existence," the novel says, portraying "inversion" as a natural, God-given state.