ePub Trials of Radclyffe Hall download

by Diana Souhami

Author:

Diana Souhami

ISBN13:

978-0297818250

ISBN:

0297818252

Language:

English

Publisher:

Trafalgar Square (July 13, 1998)

Category:

No category

ePub file:

1852 kb

Fb2 file:

1680 kb

Other formats:

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Rating:

4.4

Votes:

426

Diana Souhami English

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The intolerable load. Her latest book is Murder at Wrotham Hill. She lives in London and Devon.

The intolerable load. trois 31 How long O Lord how long. Diana Souhami is the author of Selkirk's Island (winner of the Whitbread Biography award), the bestselling Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter (also winner of the Lambda Literary Award and a New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year').

Books for People with Print Disabilities. Internet Archive Books. Uploaded by sf-loadersive. org on July 30, 2010. SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata). Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014).

From start to finish of Souhami’s book my lower jaw kept dropping with amazement. Val Hennessy · Daily Mail.

Born in 1880 in Bournemouth in a house inappropriately named ‘Sunny Lawn’, her mother drank gin in an attempt to terminate the pregnancy and her father fled the family home. Life changed for Radclyffe Hall aged eighteen when she inherited her father’s estate. She was free to travel, employ servants, call herself John, write novels and pursue women. Ye Gods what a character. From start to finish of Souhami’s book my lower jaw kept dropping with amazement.

This is a well written book about two horrible people: Radclyffe Hall and Una Trowbridge. Souhami became a full-time writer publishing biographies which mostly explore the most influential and intriguing of 20th c Diana Souhami was brought up in London and studied philosophy at Hull University. Completely deserving of each other. She worked in the publications department of the BBC before turning to biography. In 1986 she was approached by Pandora Press and received a commission to write a biography of Hannah Gluckstein.

At a time when certain Tory MPs are getting themselves in a fluster about the "aggressive homosexual community", Diana Souhami's tremendous 1998 biography of Radclyffe Hall underlines their place in a long, dispiriting line of establishment homophobes. Souhami's book is not just a cutting study of intolerance, however: at its heart is a fabulous portrait of the charismatic yet unlikeable Hall, whose bravery in living the life she pleased is not put forward as an excuse for her towering egotism, nor her fondness for cruelly pointed love triangles.

Diana Souhami’s Lambda Award–winning biography is a fascinating look at. .

Diana Souhami’s Lambda Award–winning biography is a fascinating look at one of the twentieth century’s most intriguing lesbian literary figures. Born in 1880, Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall was a young unwanted child when her parents put an end to their tempestuous marriage by filing for divorce. She had already made tentative forays into lesbian love when her father died, leaving her an heiress at eighteen. Dubbed the bible of lesbianism, the book caused a scandal on both sides of the Atlantic. Though moralistic in tone, because of its subject matter it was tried as obscene in America and in the United Kingdom, where it was censored under the Obscene Publications Act.

Souhami went on to write a book about two famous acquaintances of Hall's, the painter Romaine Brooks and her companion, Natalie Barney.

The book's title is laced with heavy irony, referring both to Hall's identification with Oscar Wilde and to the fact that her miseries came equally from both her persecutors and her lovers. Souhami went on to write a book about two famous acquaintances of Hall's, the painter Romaine Brooks and her companion, Natalie Barney. 2 people found this helpful.

Archived from the original on 13 March 2014. Retrieved 19 April 2014.

In 2007 Souhami returned to writing about islands with Coconut Chaos, which is both an investigation into the lives on Pitcairn Island of the HMS Bounty muntineers and their descendants, and a memoir of her journey to Pitcairn with a woman known only as "Lady Myre". Archived from the original on 13 March 2014.

The wealthy, conservative lesbian Radclyffe Hall is remembered now for a single brave act: the publication of her troubling classic . This is a biography of Radclyffe Hall, one of England nost eccentric contemporaywomen. She is also the quintissential gay and lesbian icon.

The wealthy, conservative lesbian Radclyffe Hall is remembered now for a single brave act: the publication of her troubling classic The Well of Loneliness (1928),. The book spans her whole life from her unhappy childhood to the contravercy of her most famous book" Well of Loneliness". Brilliantly written, witty and satirical, this major new biography brings a fresh and irreverent eye to the life of this fascinating eccentric.

Diana Souhami is the author of many books including GERTRUDE AND ALICE and a biography of Mrs Keppel. She has also written plays for radio and television.

This is a biography of Radclyffe Hall, one of England nost eccentric contemporaywomen. She is also the quintissential gay and lesbian icon. The book spans her whole life from her unhappy childhood to the contravercy of her most famous book" Well of Loneliness". Brilliantly written, witty and satirical, this major new biography brings a fresh and irreverent eye to the life of this fascinating eccentric.

Winenama

Let me be the first to criticize this biography because it is worthy of criticism. This book should only be read in conjunction with "Your John-The Love Letters of Radclyffe Hall". Souhami's biography is a misrepresentation of a brilliant yet complex author, and one can easily come away with wrong (and negative) impressions of her unless one knows better after reading "Your John". This is definitely not an altogether honest portrait of the artist. For every quote Souhami should have a note in the back of her book stating where she got that quote from. But there are way too many quotes with no notes (sometimes lasting for several pages at a time), and this unfortunate trend persists throughout her book from start to finish. Some of Souhami's noteless quotes are inflamatory in nature, and they don't line up with Radclyffe's own writing contained in "Your John". Even Souhami's own made up words which she claims came from a letter dated May 19, 1935 (included in its entirety in "Your John" ) are also inflamatory. Plus Souhami gives a false impression of Radclyffe, making her appear as though she wanted Evguenia as her slave. From Souhami's book we read an incomplete quote from a letter written by Radclyffe to Evguenia: "If you're anyone's slave you're going to be mine." Souhami should have quoted the entire sentence. In "Your John" we read the following, taken from one of Radclyffe's actual letters: "I'm sorry if she's a very sick woman, but I'm not going to have you anyone's slave. If you're going to be anyone's slave you're going to be mine, only I'd hate to have you my slave-I prefer to have that the other way round." Souhami quoted only the first part of Radclyffe's sentence. Where Radclyffe inserted a comma, Souhami inserted a period, making it appear as though nothing came after that. That's deceptive on Souhami's part. It not only gives the wrong impression, it's a complete misrepresentation of Radclyffe Hall as a person. The Radclyffe Hall contained in "Your John" bears a strong resemblence to Stephen Gordon. But you don't encounter that Radclyffe Hall in Souhami's biography. That Radclyffe mostly resembles a tyrant. There are essentially two Radclyffe Halls: the one you think you know after reading Souhami's biography, and the one you believe you personally do know after reading her love letters contained in "Your John". The choice is your's as to which Radclyffe Hall you'd rather know. On a more personal note about Radclyffe, she is rightly viewed as a courageous woman for having written "The Well Of Loneliness" at a time when inversion (lesbianism) was perceived as obscene. The fact that Radclyffe became a brilliant and multifaceted writer despite having to overcome a rather severe form of dyslexia says a lot about the woman, and she further deserves our respect for that as well. To me, what she accomplished in spite of the obstacles she had to overcome is nothing short of extraordinary and inspirational.

Dalarin

Diana Souhami is an excellent writer and researches her subject thoroughly but this is a dark tale about horrible people, Radclyffe Hall and Una Trowbridge. She casts an uncritical eye over the behaviour of Radclyffe, her relationships, infidelities and just plain nastiness. One just has to wonder what drives some people!
I chose to read this book because I'd heard years ago about Hall's "ground-breaking" book on lesbianism, The Well of Loneliness, and the impact its theme had in the 1920s, and wanted to know more.
As a snapshot of life in the early twentieth century it is fascinating.

Sudert

I thought I knew a lot about Radclyffe Hall until I read this book. The author provides intimate details about John's double life, tracking down every possible resource to provide the reader with a more well rounded view of Hall. Buy it; you'll be glad you did.

Nejind

You can just hear the biographer giggling in the background. Oh, the bad behavior is off the charts.

DABY

"Trials of Radclyffe Hall" is not a pretty tale, but it offers a window of edification regarding mores in the early 20th century. The book's title is laced with heavy irony, referring both to Hall's identification with Oscar Wilde and to the fact that her miseries came equally from both her persecutors and her lovers.

A contemporary reviewer of Hall's only well-known book, "The Well of Loneliness", remarked that he hoped that it would pave the way for better books. "Homosexuality", he wrote, "is after all as rich in comedy as in tragedy...." Diana Souhami would have amended that by adding, "and equally rich in cruelty." This biography is an expose' of people who lived as pseudo-aristocrats, cushioned by inherited wealth, dismissive of the poor, abusive to servants, and wending their way from soirees to salons. They were equally sympathetic to opera singers and to the politics of Mussolini and his thugs in Italy.

Nevertheless, Radclyffe Hall was not a completely unsympathetic figure. A true example of a transgendered identity, Hall was determined to live life as she wanted to. As a child she dreamed of living like a heroic male figure, protecting women and speaking for life's "misfits". She grew to have Tory sensibilities, believing in order and control, disapproving of striking workers and suffragettes. But she wanted to validate the rights of the "inverts" who suffered for nothing but their innate predispositions.

In the end, Hall showed her better nature by falling in love with, and caring for the welfare of, a "common" Russian nurse called Evgenia Souline. The last third of the biography, which details Hall's obsession with Evgenia and her struggles with her committed relationship with Una Trowbridge, is the most riveting part of the book. As Radclyffe Hall's health begins to fail, the focus of the biography shifts to Trowbridge (who had fastened on to Hall in order to share her lifestyle). So many times, Souhami writes "John cried..." , and John's (Radclyffe Hall's) sufferings are palpable for the reader. Not so with Una Trowbridge. These final chapters are a withering indictment of Trowbridge, painting her as a miserly, spiteful martinet. Books often benefit from memorable villains, and Una Trowbridge is one of the most loathsome hypocrites you will ever meet in print.

Diana Souhami writes this book in well-measured, declarative sentences. She lets the actions of her subjects speak for themselves. In a prefatory note, Souhami confesses that she struggled to decide what to call Radclyffe Hall... whose given name was Marguerite. Since Hall preferred to be called "John" in her adult relationships, that is what Souhami uses for the greater part of the book. Since Hall was also dyslexic, Souhami elected not to correct the often grievous spelling errors in Hall's letters and manuscripts.

Souhami went on to write a book about two famous acquaintances of Hall's, the painter Romaine Brooks and her companion, Natalie Barney.

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