Overview

""Passionate and revealing love letters from the iconic lesbian novelist . . . Radclyffe Hall is getting a fresh look. . . . Glasgow has chosen these letters well and provides helpful context."" --Kirkus Review ""Many assumptions have been made about the degree to which Radclyffe Hall's lesbian classic, The Well of Loneliness, may be autobiographical. Your John dismisses such notions. This exhaustive collection of letters written between 1934 and 1942 to Evguenia Souline, a White Russian émigré with whom Hall fell deeply in love are detailed, intimate records of Hall's personal life and convictions. . . . the collection is a heart-wrenching record of how politics, money, and geography converged to undermine these women's dreams."" --Publisher's Weekly This landmark book represents the first publication of original writing by Radclyffe Hall, author of The Well of Loneliness, in over 50 years. One of the most famous and influential lesbian novelists of the twentieth century, Hall became a cause clbre in 1928, upon the publication of her novel The Well of Loneliness, when the British government brought action on behalf of the Crown to declare the book obscene. Probably the most widely read lesbian novel ever written, the book has been continuously in print since its first publication and remains to this day an important part of the literary landscape. Expertly deciphered and edited by Hall scholar and biographer Joanne Glasgow, Your John is a selection of Hall's love letters to Evguenia Souline, a White Russian èmigrè with whom Hall fell completely and passionately in love in the summer of 1934. Written between this first meeting and the onset of Hall's last illness in 1942, these letters detail Hall's growing obsession, the pain to her life partner Una Troubridge of this betrayal, and the poignant hopelessness of a happy resolution for any of the three women. It was ultimately this relationship, Glasgow argues, which tragically precipitated the decline in Hall's creative work and her health. The letters also provide important new information about her views on lesbianism and take us well beyond the artistic limits she imposed on the characters in The Well of Loneliness. They shed light on her views on religion, politics, war, and the literary and artistic scene. Illuminating both the nature of her relationships and her views on the current politics of the time, Your John will greatly extend the range of our knowledge about Radclyffe Hall.

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9780814730928

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Passionate and revealing love letters from the iconic lesbian novelist ... Radclyffe Hall is getting a fresh look... Glasgow has chosen these letters well and provides helpful context. --Kirkus Review Many assumptions have been made about the degree to which Radclyffe Hall's lesbian classic, The Well of Loneliness, may be autobiographical. Your John dismisses such notions. This exhaustive collection of letters written between 1934 and 1942 to Evguenia Souline, a White Russian emigre with whom Hall fell deeply in love are detailed, intimate records of Hall's personal life and convictions... the collection is a heart-wrenching record of how politics, money, and geography converged to undermine these women's dreams. --Publisher's Weekly

Many assumptions have been made about the degree to which Radclyffe Hall's lesbian classic, The Well of Loneliness, may be autobiographical. Your John dismisses such notions. This exhaustive collection of letters written between 1934 and 1942 to Evguenia Souline, a White Russian emigre with whom Hall fell deeply in love with are detailed, intimate records of Hall's personal life and convictions...the collection is a heart-wrenching record of how politics, money, and geography converged to undermine these women's dreams. -Publisher's Weekly Passionate and revealing love letters from the iconic lesbian novelist...Radclyffe Hall is getting a fresh look...Glasgow has chosen these letters well and provides helpful context. -Kirkus

Passionate and revealing love letters from the iconic lesbian novelist. Radclyffe Hall, one of the most popular lesbian writers - and personalities - in history, is getting a fresh look (see Terry Castle's Noel Coward and Radclyffe Hall, p. 1437). Now Glasgow has collected Hall's love letters to White Russian emigree Evguenia Souline, which were written over a period of eight years, beginning in 1934, when the two women met. At that time, Hall ( John to her friends) was 54 years old and living with Una Troubridge, her devoted life partner of 18 years. Troubridge was devastated by Hall's wandering affections but stayed with her, even helping with the logistics of the affair. Troubridge contacted officials about visas and naturalization papers for the other woman (since Souline was a refugee living in Paris, arranging for her to travel was always complicated). And when Hall became too ill to write to Souline herself, Troubridge took dictation. The letters are thoroughly engrossing; sexually frank, they provide a window into the obsessive eroticism, and simple sadness, of doomed love affairs. They also reveal much about Radclyffe Hall's politics, which are disturbingly fascist and anti-Semitic at points. More interestingly, the letters suggest the kind of lover she was - caring, yet often manipulative and unreasonable. Her writing, and her life with Una, are non-negotiable commitments, yet when Souline's concerns - her work as a nurse, her desire for a more exclusive relationship - threaten the affair, Hall angrily dismisses them. She gives Souline considerable financial support but often uses money as a means of control. Glasgow (English and Women's Studies/Bergen Community College) has chosen these letters well and provides helpful context. Sometimes, though, she leaves crucial questions unasked, such as why only one letter from Souline to John survives. These letters will be much enjoyed by the enduring Hall fan club, and by literary enthusiasts and voyeurs. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Joanne Glasgow is Professor of English and Women's Studies at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey, and coeditor of Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions, also available from NYU Press.

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