100 Years of The Well of Loneliness

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 contested books in LGBTQ+ history, has meant to readers over the past one hundred years. Recognised as the 'Lesbian Bible', The Well has resonated with almost a century of LGBTQ+ readers, including trans and non-binary people. Both at the moment of publication and in more recent times, the novel has also fuelled controversies about sex, gender, and sexuality; freedom of expression and censorship; and the identity-shaping potential of fiction. Our project aims to capture the novel in all its complexity, asking: what has the book meant to different audiences over the decades, and what could it mean for readers today?

Directed by leading scholars of twentieth-century literature and LGBTQ+ culture (Dr Elizabeth English, Professor Jana Funke, Dr Sarah Parker, and Dr Hannah Roche) in collaboration with Victoria Iglikowski-Broad, a specialist in diverse histories from The National Archives, and with award-winning filmmaker Campbell X, the project will work towards the centenary of the publication and ban of The Well in 2028. 100 years after Hall’s narrative began to move, inform, inspire, disturb, and disgust readers, the project will, for the first time, trace the extent of its social and cultural impact over the past century.

By combining research methods including oral history, reception studies, archival research, translation studies, visual culture studies, and engaged research with communities), we will investigate how the novel has resonated with readers across generations and examine how it has been received, reworked, and translated in different cultural and national contexts. 100 Years will generate major academic publications and outputs as well as a short film by Campbell X to transform understandings of modernist culture and LGBTQ+ history to reconsider The Well’s impact and legacy.

The project will also enhance engagement practices in the heritage and archive sector. It involves sustained collaboration between the project team, and The National Archives and Bishopsgate Institute in London as well as the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Austin in Texas, to develop creative practices and engagement methods that can facilitate conversations about controversial and contentious histories, value different points of view, and promote understanding, solidarity, learning, and connection among different audiences.

100 Years will transform understandings of The Well and provide new methods for engaging audiences with contentious sources, enabling archives and heritage institutions to open up dialogue and bridge divisions between different generations, identities, and communities. 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 aimed at heritage, archive, and museum specialists.

If you would like to get in touch with us about our project, please email us at thewellofloneliness100@gmail.com.