The Trials of Radclyffe Hall by Diana Souhami (interesting novels to read txt) 📕

Cape’s letter and a copy of the book on the afternoon of Monday 20 August. His reply reached Cape by hand on Wednesday 22 August. ‘One’s mind reels’, wrote Radclyffe Hall. ‘In a few hours my book had been read & carefully considered! Over 500 pages – large format – 180,000 words.’ But Joynson-Hicks had done more than consider the book. He had, in that short time, made sure that his colleagues who held high judicial office would manipulate the law to get it banned.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Archibald Bodkin, was away. Joynson-Hicks sent the book by messenger to Bodkin’s deputy, Sir George Stephenson. He was at home in Newick in Surrey. Joynson-Hicks asked him whether, if Cape was prosecuted for obscene libel, a jury would convict. Sir George replied the same day:

The book has been widely and favourably reviewed in the press. It is described as ‘sincere, courageous, high minded and beautifully expressed.’ The fact however remains that it is in effect a plea not only for the toleration but for the recognition of sexual perversion amongst women. With regard to the contention which might be made on behalf of the authoress that she did not intend to corrupt her readers, intent is immaterial, the question for the jury being ‘whether the tendency of the matter charged as an obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influence and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall’. (see Hicklin L. R. 3QB 371)

In my view this book would tend to corrupt the minds of young persons if it fell into their hands and its sale is undesirable. It is of course impossible for me to say more than that I think a jury ought to convict if proceedings are taken. Whether they would do so or not is another matter. My view however is that there would be a reasonable prospect of a conviction. Incidentally it would appear to be clear that the authoress is herself what is known as a homo-sexualist, or as she prefers to describe it an ‘invert’.

I may say that I have informally consulted the Chief Magistrate [Sir Chartres Biron] upon this matter; he has read the book and tells me that he would have no hesitation in granting process. I should add that before instituting any proceedings in this matter I should consider it my duty to take the directions of the Attorney General [Sir Thomas Inskip].

I do not understand that I am asked to express my views upon the question of policy to prosecute. A prosecution would undeniably give the book a further advertisement and it may well be that the Secretary of State would think it desirable to avail himself of the offer made in the letter of the publisher Messers Jonathan Cape to the Home Office to withdraw the book from circulation.

I return your files.

G.S.

Joynson-Hicks then had a ‘long private conference with the Lord Chancellor. We came to the conclusion that the book is both obscene and indecent.’ He drafted a letter to Cape, which Sir George Stephenson checked and sharpened. The Well of Loneliness, he wrote, was ‘inherently obscene’; it dealt with and supported a depraved practice; its tendency was to corrupt; it was ‘gravely detrimental to the public interest. I am advised, moreover, that the book can be suppressed by criminal proceedings. I prefer, however, to believe that in view of your letter you will accept my decision and withdraw the book, and this I now ask you to do.’

‘If they decline, proceed at once’, Joynson-Hicks wrote to Sir George.

Cape appeared to comply with the Home Secretary’s wishes. He feared the expense of the law and the effect of adverse publicity on his publishing house. His letter of capitulation was published in The Times:

Sir,

We have to-day received a request from the Home Secretary asking us to discontinue publication of Miss Radclyffe Hall’s novel ‘The Well of Loneliness’. We have already expressed our readiness to fall in with the wishes of the Home Office in this matter, and we have therefore stopped publication.

I have the honour to be your obedient servant,

Jonathan Cape

But Cape had also to fall in with the wishes of Radclyffe Hall, who was as determined as the Home Secretary. He contrived a devious strategy. Five thousand copies of the book were already in circulation, or available from shops and libraries. No order had been given to destroy these, no criminal proceedings were imminent. The scandal was creating a huge demand. The printer was about to run a third reprint. Cape cancelled this, but told the printer to make moulds of the type as quickly as possible and to deliver them to him. His plan was to ship these moulds to Paris and to get the book printed there.

John and Una were supposed to be up at five-thirty the following day to set off for Paris, Bagnoles and Italy. All was cancelled. They hurried to Mrs Leonard who failed to predict what would happen next. Mrs Smith, their current housekeeper, and Cartwright the maid left as planned for their holidays. ‘All day at telephone, letters, wires etc.,’ Una wrote in her diary.

21

Sapphism and censorship

The writer Arnold Bennett went to the Garrick Club on the day Joynson-Hicks told Cape to withdraw The Well of Loneliness. He saw James Douglas in the lounge talking to Sir Chartres Biron, Chief Magistrate of the Bow Street police court. ‘I set violently on Jimmy at once about his attack on Radclyffe Hall’s sapphic novel. Jimmy was very quiet and restrained but Biron defended Jimmy with real heat; so I went on attacking. I told Jimmy to come in and lunch with me. He did. He said there was an imp in me.’

Sir Chartres Biron had already been ‘informally consulted’ by the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions on how to suppress the book. His real heat was to flare again two months later. He was the presiding magistrate when the