Not so long ago

clipped from www.todayinliterature.com Defending the First Lesbian Novel On this day in 1928 Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, regarded by most as the first lesbian novel, was judged by the British courts to be obscene. Johnathan Cape had published the book at the end of July, to mixed reviews and no immediate outcry. Three weeks later, the editor of the Sunday Express wrote that he "would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel" of "unutterable putrefaction" and "contagion," causing a sales rush and a scurry in all directions. Without being asked, or telling Radclyffe Hall, her nervous publisher sent the book to the Home Office for examination; the authorities then began a series of raids and seizures, resulting in a call to trial; the author responded by renewing her vows to smash "the conspiracy of silence" on the lesbian issue, and to defeat censorship "on behalf of English literature."