In 1926, Radclyffe Hall was at the height of her career. Her novel Adam's Breed, about the spiritual awakening of an Italian headwaiter, had become a bestseller; it would soon win the Prix Femina and the James Tait Black Prize.[8] She had long thought of writing a novel about sexual inversion; now, she believed, her literary reputation would allow such a work to be given a hearing. Since she knew she was risking scandal and "the shipwreck of her whole career", she sought and received the blessing of her partner, Una Troubridge, before she began work.[9] Her goals were social and political; she wanted to end public silence about homosexuality and bring about "a more tolerant understanding" — as well as to "spur all classes of inverts to make good through hard work... and sober and useful living".[10]
In April 1928 she told her editor that her new book would require complete commitment from its publisher and that she would not allow even one word to be altered. "I have put my pen at the service of some of the most persecuted and misunderstood people in the world.... So far as I know nothing of the kind has ever been attempted before in fiction."[11]
[edit] Plot summary
The book's protagonist, Stephen Gordon, is born in the late Victorian era[12] to upper-class parents in Worcestershire who are expecting a boy and who christen her with the boy's name they had already chosen. Even at birth she is physically unusual, a "narrow-hipped, wide-shouldered little tadpole of a baby".[13] As a girl she hates dresses, wants to cut her hair short, and longs to be a boy. At seven, she develops a crush on a housemaid named Collins, and is devastated when she sees Collins kissing a footman.
Stephen's father, Sir Phillip, dotes on her; he seeks to understand her through the writings of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first modern writer to propose a theory of homosexuality,[14] but does not share his findings with Stephen. Her mother, Lady Anna, is distant, seeing Stephen as a "blemished, unworthy, maimed reproduction" of Sir Phillip.[15] At eighteen, Stephen forms a close friendship with a Canadian man, Martin Hallam, but is horrified when he declares his love for her. The following winter, Sir Phillip is crushed by a falling tree; at the last moment he tries to explain to Lady Anna that Stephen is an invert, but dies without managing to do so.
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