The Well of Loneliness

The Well of Loneliness is a 1928 transgender novel by Radclyffe Hall. It was published in London by Jonathan Cape. The book was banned for violating the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. It stopped being banned in 1949, but by that time Hall was dead. It has been translated into 14 languages.

The book is about an upper-class English lesbian called Stephen Gordon. They find love with Mary Llewellyn, whom they meet while serving as an ambulance driver in World War I. Their happiness together is spoilt by social isolation and rejection. The novel portrays "inversion" (homosexuality) and androgyny as a natural, God-given state and makes a plea: "Give us also the right to our existence".