The Well of Loneliness

Stephen Gordon grows up with a sense of difference that the conventions surrounding her cannot comfortably accommodate. Her love for women brings that difference into sharper focus, turning questions of family, belonging and self-expression into a struggle for the right to live honestly. Radclyffe Hall follows Stephen through the emotional costs of social exclusion and the hope offered by intimacy with another woman. First published in 1928, the novel places its protagonist's inner life against a world determined to judge it. Its language and understanding of sexuality belong to its historical moment, while its central conflict remains the effort to secure dignity, love and a place within a society that refuses to make room.