Banned Books and Publishers’ Ploys: The Well of Loneliness as Exemplar

McCleery, Alistair

Abstract

Archival sources provide much of the basis for a consideration of the myriad methods that UK publishers employed to avoid prosecution for obscenity. In turn, the UK legal authorities took a collusive (and cosy) approach to the issue, moving only to prosecute if the book in question generated publicity or achieved wide sales. The Well of Loneliness (1928) by Radclyffe Hall may have passed unseen, except by the intelligentsia, were it not for a fiery denunciation in a popular newspaper. Jonathan Cape, its publisher, equivocated over the novel’s withdrawal, leading both to a trial and ban and to his undertaking the method of last resort of publishing it in Paris. Constant comparisons are made between the case of The Well of Loneliness and the treatment of other canonical novels of the interwar period, particularly Ulysses (1922) and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928).

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 19, 2018
• Publication Date: 2019-11
• Deposit Date: Aug 9, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: May 31, 2021
• Journal: Journal of Modern Literature
• Print ISSN: 0022-281X
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 43
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 34-52
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.2979/jmodelite.43.1.03
• Keywords: UK Obscenity practice, Jonathan Cape, Radclyffe Hall, Paris publications, interwar novels,
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1273220
• Contract Date: Aug 13, 2018