Radclyffe Hall
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| Born | Marguerite Radclyffe Hall 12 August 1880 Bournemouth, England, UK |
| Died | 7 October 1943 (aged 63) London, England, UK |
| Occupation | Novelist, poet, short story writer |
| Period | 1906–1936 |
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Marguerite Radclyffe Hall (12 August 1880 – 7 October 1943) was an English poet and author, best known for the novel The Well of Loneliness. The novel has become a groundbreaking work in lesbian literature.
Marguerite Radclyffe Hall was born in 1880 at "Sunny Lawn", Durley Road, Bournemouth, Hampshire (now Dorset), to a wealthy philandering father and a quarrelsome mother. Her stepfather was the professor of singing Albert Visetti, whom she did not like and who had a tempestuous relationship with her mother. Hall was a lesbian and described herself as a "congenital invert", a term taken from the writings of Havelock Ellis and other turn-of-the-century sexologists. Having reached adulthood without a vocation, she spent much of her twenties pursuing women she eventually lost to marriage.
In 1907 at the Homburg spa in Germany, Hall met Mabel Batten, a well-known amateur singer of lieder. Batten (nicknamed "Ladye") was 51 to Hall's 27, and was married with an adult daughter and grandchildren. They fell in love, and after Batten's husband died they set up residence together. Batten gave Hall the nickname John, which she used the rest of her life. Under Batten's influence, Hall converted to Roman Catholicism.
In 1915 Hall fell in love with Mabel Batten's cousin Una Troubridge (1887–1963), a sculptor who was the wife of Vice-Admiral Ernest Troubridge, and the mother of a young daughter. Batten died the following year, and in 1917 Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge began living together. The relationship would last until Hall's death. In 1934 Hall fell in love with Russian émigré Evguenia Souline and embarked upon a long-term affair with her, which Troubridge painfully tolerated. She became involved in affairs with other women throughout the years.
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