Radclyffe Hall’s Literary Works At the Interface between the Discourses of Medicine and Law

The aim of this study is to untangle the web of implications that the various strands of discourse – pertaining to fields as diverse as literature, journalism, sociology, medicine and law – have had on the conception, creation and reception of Radclyffe Hall’s literary works, with a focus on her infamous novel, The Well of Loneliness. Due to the mingling of such discourses this novel took precisely the particular form it did, its publishers first plummeted into agony and then soared to ecstasy, while its author rose from local fame to worldwide notoriety, at the expense of accurate representations of the alternative lifestyle currently known as lesbianism.

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