"Women Alone Stir My Imagination": Lesbianism and the Cultural Tradition

Abstract

In literary history, were all things equal, 1928 might be remembered as a banner year for lesbian publishing. In 1928 Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, and Djuna Barnes's Ladies Almanack were printed. But all things were not equal. Orlando was enthusiastically reviewed and then trivialized and dismissed by all but the expected circles. Hall's Well was banned in England only to become throughout western civilization the archetype of all things lesbian-the "butch," the tears, the despair of it all. Djuna Barnes's frolicsome romp, privately printed for a limited and carefully selected audience, was never seen again until 1972.2