Rose Laure Allatini

Rose Laure Allatini (23 January 1890—1980) was a novelist who also wrote under the pseudonyms A.T. Fitzroy, Lucian Wainwright, Mrs Cyril Scott, and Eunice Buckley. She is best known for her 1918 novel Despised and Rejected (written under the pen name A T Fitzroy), which was banned under the Defence of the Realm Act as it combines themes of pacifism and homosexuality which were thought "likely to prejudice the recruiting of persons to serve on His Majesty's Forces". Despised and Rejected was published by C. W. Daniel and was taken up by the Bloomsbury Group. The novel draws a connection between the persecution of homosexuals and the rhetoric of imperialism. It tells the story of a homosexual composer who is conscripted for military service; his refusal leads to trial and imprisonment.

Rose Allatini was born in Vienna, into a large and prosperous Jewish family. Her father, Robert Allatini, had been born in Italy; her mother, Bronislawa ("Bronia") was born in Poland. In 1911, they were living at 18 Holland Park, London, and Robert Allatini was listed in the census as a retired merchant. In 1946, her mother (living at 61B Holland Park) renounced her Italian citizenship upon becoming a naturalized British citizen.

Her novel Despised and Rejected is set among pacifists during World War I. The sexuality of many of the characters in the book is represented as unstable, unusual for the time period. Antoinette, the main female character, at first has a passionate crush on an older woman, and then falls for Dennis, a homosexual who had previously courted her, partly as a disguise for his actual sexuality, and partly in the hope that she might cure him. Dennis is a conscientious objector as well as a homosexual, and the combined themes of pacifism and sexual unorthodoxy made the book one that was bound to cause serious controversy in 1918. Rose Allatini submitted the manuscript to the firm of Allen & Unwin. Stanley Unwin rejected it because of its potential to cause scandal, but suggested that she send it to C.W.Daniel, a committed pacifist who had published several books highly critical of the war. It was decided to issue the book under the pseudonym of 'A. T. Fitzroy' (because she lived in Fitzroy Square). When the book was published, it received unenthusiastic reviews, and some, like Allan Monkhouse, the critic of the Manchester Guardian, expressed a strong distaste for it:

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