100 Years of The Well of Loneliness is an AHRC-funded research project that aims to discover what Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928), one of the most controversial novels in LGBTQ+ history, has meant to readers over the past century.

Published and banned as obscene in the UK in 1928, The Well of Loneliness has offered support and affirmation to generations of readers across the world. However, the so-called ‘Lesbian Bible’ has also alienated, offended, and divided readerships, and it continues to inspire debates about gender and sexuality, freedom of speech, and the identity-shaping power of literary fiction. Our project aims to capture the novel’s influence in all its complexity, asking: what has the book meant to different audiences over the past century, and what could it mean for readers today?

Directed by leading scholars of twentieth-century literature and LGBTQ+ culture, in collaboration with Victoria Iglikowski-Broad, a specialist in diverse histories from The National Archives, and the award-winning filmmaker Campbell X, the project will trace the extent of The Well‘s social and cultural impact.

Through major academic publications, public events, and a short film by Campbell X ,100 Years will transform understandings of modernist culture and LGBTQ+ history. By combining research methods including oral history, reception studies, archival research, translation studies, visual culture studies, and engaged research with communities, the project will examine how The Well has been received and reimagined by a diverse range of readerships.

The project will also enhance engagement practices in the heritage and archive sector. It will involve sustained collaboration between the project team, The National Archives and Bishopsgate Institute in London, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The project’s insights into engagement practice will be disseminated through a heritage toolkit, co-produced with The National Archives, and a knowledge exchange event with heritage, archive, and museum specialists.

Working together, we will develop creative practices and engagement methods that facilitate conversations about controversial and contentious histories, value different points of view, and promote understanding, solidarity, and learning.

If you would like to contact us about our project, please email the team at thewellofloneliness100@gmail.com.