Unfolding the court case that banned a 1920s lesbian novel

In 1928 Radclyffe Hall wrote 'The Well of Loneliness', a novel
that featured female characters in same-sex relationships.
Shortly after it was published, the Sunday Express called for the
book to be suppressed and urged the Home Office to censor it.
Despite attempts by writers including Vera Brittain, T.S. Eliot
and Virginia Woolf to defend the novel as a book of literary,
sociological and psychological significance, it was banned later
that year.


In this podcast, we look at files from the obscenity trial to
find out why a lesbian novel that lacked any lewd imagery or
language was classed as obscene. Hear what the novel meant to
sexologists such as Henry Havelock Ellis; which side of the trial
Rudyard Kipling offered to stand on; and the alternate plot lines
that the magistrate believed would spare a novel with gay
characters from censorship.