Migliori Libri di Radclyffe Hall

New to Penguin Modern Classics, the seminal work of gay literature that sparked an infamous legal trial for obscenity and went on to become a bestseller. The Well of Loneliness tells the story of tomboyish Stephen, who hunts, wears trousers and cuts her hair short – and who gradually comes to realise that she is attracted to women. Charting her romantic and professional adventures during the First World War and beyond, the novel provoked a furore on first publication in 1928 for its lesbian heroine and led to a notorious legal trial for obscenity. Hall herself, however, saw the book as a pioneer work and today it is recognised as a landmark work of gay fiction. This Penguin edition includes a new introduction by Maureen Duffy. ‘The archetypal lesbian novel’ – Times Literary Supplement ‘One of the first and most influential contributions of gay and lesbian literature’ – New Statesman Radclyffe Hall was born in 1880. After an unhappy childhood, she inherited her father’s estate and from then on was free to travel and live as she chose. She fell in love and lived with an older woman before settling down with Una Troubridge, a married sculptor. Hall wrote many books but is best known for The Well of Loneliness, first published in 1928. She died in 1943 and is buried in Highgate Cemetery in London. Maureen Duffy was born in 1933 and educated at Kings College London. She became a full-time writer in the 1960s, and has since written numerous screenplays, poetry and novels. A lifelong campaigner for gay rights and animal rights, Duffy is also president of the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society.

Unica figlia di una madre gentile e distratta, Sidonia è una ragazzina fuori dal comune, brillante, determinata a fare sempre di testa propria. Da quando ha tre anni, e via via che passa il tempo, viene investita da vere e proprie passioni, per lo più artistiche: come se ne affievolisce una ne compare subito un’altra a prenderne il posto. Questi doni – poesia, canto, pittura, danza, scultura e musica – piombano nella vita di Sidonia sconvolgendo la quotidianità sua, della madre sempre con la testa sui libri di egittologia e di Miss Baker, la sua governante. È talmente dotata per ciascuna di queste arti da sembrare ogni volta la reincarnazione di uomini o donne che sono stati i simboli di quei talenti. A venirle in soccorso nella concitazione delle sue giornate piene di lezioni ed esercizi, incontriamo l’inflessibile Lady Frances, la migliore amica della madre; una famiglia italiana e un insegnante d’arte. Il destino finale che le sarà riservato arriverà come una sorpresa sia per lei che per i lettori. “La vita del sabato” – con cui Fandango Libri prosegue nella ripubblicazione di tutta l’opera di una delle più importanti scrittrici britanniche di inizi Novecento – è il terzo romanzo scritto da Radclyffe Hall e, sotto il velo della commedia, ci offre il cangiante paesaggio di uno spirito eccezionale, malinconico, enigmatico, nostalgico.

Radclyffe Hall was 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. At the mercy of a violent mother and sexually abusive stepfather, her life changed when at the age of eighteen she inherited her father’s estate of GBP100,000. She was free to travel, pursue women and write – most notably The Well of Loneliness, her famous novel about ‘congenital inverts’, which was declared ‘inherently obscene’ by the Home Secretary and banned. In this brilliantly written, witty and satirical biography Diana Souhami brings a fresh and irreverent eye to the life of this intriguing and troubled woman.