The Girls of Radcliff Hall
Encyclopedia
The Girls of Radcliff Hall is a roman à clef
novel in the form of a lesbian
girls' school story
written in the 1930s
by the British composer and bon-vivant Gerald Berners, the 14th Lord Berners, under the pseudonym
"Adela Quebec", published and distributed privately in 1932. Berners depicts himself and his circle of friends, including Cecil Beaton
and Oliver Messel
, as lesbian schoolgirls at a school named "Radcliff Hall" (punning on the name of the famous lesbian writer
). The indiscretions alluded to in the novel created an uproar among Berners's intimates and acquaintances, making the whole affair highly discussed in the 1930s. Cecil Beaton attempted to have all the copies destroyed. The novel subsequently disappeared from circulation, making it extremely rare. The story is not included in the Berners anthology Collected Tales and Fantasies, which was reprinted in 2000.
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
novel in the form of a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
girls' school story
School story
The school story is a fiction genre centering on older pre-adolescent and adolescent school life, at its most popular in the first half of the twentieth century. While examples do exist in other countries, it is most commonly set in English boarding schools and mostly written in girls and boys sub...
written in the 1930s
1930s
File:1930s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson show the effects of the Great Depression; Due to the economic collapse, the farms become dry and the Dust Bowl spreads through America; The Battle of Wuhan during the Second Sino-Japanese...
by the British composer and bon-vivant Gerald Berners, the 14th Lord Berners, under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"Adela Quebec", published and distributed privately in 1932. Berners depicts himself and his circle of friends, including Cecil Beaton
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE was an English fashion and portrait photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre...
and Oliver Messel
Oliver Messel
Oliver Hilary Sambourne Messel was an English artist and one of the foremost stage designers of the 20th century....
, as lesbian schoolgirls at a school named "Radcliff Hall" (punning on the name of the famous lesbian writer
Radclyffe Hall
Radclyffe Hall was an English poet and author, best known for the lesbian classic The Well of Loneliness.- Life :...
). The indiscretions alluded to in the novel created an uproar among Berners's intimates and acquaintances, making the whole affair highly discussed in the 1930s. Cecil Beaton attempted to have all the copies destroyed. The novel subsequently disappeared from circulation, making it extremely rare. The story is not included in the Berners anthology Collected Tales and Fantasies, which was reprinted in 2000.
Editions
- "Adela Quebec", "The Girls of Radcliff Hall", privately printed, 1932
- Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson Berners, Lord Berners, (ed. John Byrne), "The Girls of Radcliff Hall", 2000, ISBN 0907435130, 1893450066