The Well of Loneliness

"The Well of Loneliness" by Radclyffe Hall is a novel published in 1928. It follows Stephen Gordon, an upper-class Englishwoman whose homosexuality is evident from childhood. She finds love with Mary Llewellyn while serving as an ambulance driver in World War I, but their relationship faces social rejection and isolation. Hall portrays homosexuality as natural and pleads for acceptance, but the novel was banned in Britain as obscene until 1949. For decades, it remained the most widely known lesbian novel in English and a controversial touchstone of queer literature.