Scope and Contents
This manuscript collection of the British novelist Radclyffe Hall and her companion of
28 years, Una Vincenzo, Lady Troubridge, is added to material previously received at the
Ransom Center, including a typescript of Hall's
The Sixth
Beatitude and letters of Hall and Troubridge to Evguenia Souline, 1934-1942,
which are cataloged separately. This accretion includes holograph notebooks and
typescript drafts of Hall's works, as well as business papers, photographs, scrapbooks,
and piano-vocal scores; and Troubridge's day books and diaries, correspondence,
translations, drafts and galleys of her biography of Hall, and photograph and clippings
albums. After Hall's death in 1943, this material remained in Troubridge's possession
and was bequeathed to her friend Nicola Rossi-Lemeni upon her death in 1963. The
collection is organized in two groups, beginning with the works of Radclyffe Hall
followed by the papers of Una Troubridge.
Radclyffe Hall
Material for Hall is grouped in two series: Series I. Works, and Series II. Career and
Personal Papers. Hall's works are organized in three subseries: the largest is the
Novels subseries, which is followed by Short Stories and Sketches, and Other Works. The
novels are arranged in alphabetical order by title and include both published and
unpublished works. Chief among the published works is
Adam's
Breed which won the Femina Vie Heureuse prize and the James Tait Black
Memorial Prize in 1927. But Hall is best known for her lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness, which is well-represented by
holograph notebooks and typescripts, along with papers related to the court case banning
the book in Britain. Her unfinished and unpublished novels include The Cunningham Code,
Emblem Hurlstone, and Michael West. In addition, holograph notebooks for an untitled work are
present in which Otfried Bergen is the main character.
A small amount of correspondence, usually of a research or business nature, is scattered
throughout the works. Many of these letters were written on Hall's behalf by Troubridge.
Hall's published and unpublished short stories and sketches in Subseries B are also
arranged alphabetically. Filed before the stories is a holograph notebook List of stories sent to Miss Heath referring to Audrey
Heath, Hall's agent of many years. The individual titles in Hall's published volume of
five short stories,
Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself, are
present along with sketches for two untitled works. Other works in Subseries C include
untitled drafts, lectures, letters to the editor, drafts of her memoirs, and poems.
Numerous vocal scores are also present, arranged alphabetically.
Series II contains career and personal papers including biographical material written by
Hall, scrapbooks containing clippings covering the
Adam's Breed
awards and the notoriety of The Well of Loneliness,
and publishing contracts for her works. Hall and Troubridge's love of animals
and their dog breeding avocation are documented in newspaper clippings of dog shows,
kennel registrations, and photographs. In addition, a photograph album belonging to
Hall's father and her writing portfolio are also present.
Una Troubridge
Una Troubridge's papers are arranged in four series: Series I. Day Books and Diaries,
Series II. Writings, Series III. Personal Papers, and Series IV. Writings of Others.
Series I begins with Troubridge's sixty-volume set of day books written from the last
days of 1930 to June 21, 1943, just months before Hall's death. These books chronicle
the day-to-day activities of Hall and Troubridge, reporting everything from mundane
weather reports to details of significant events. Written mostly from their home in Rye,
Sussex, they also cover other locations during their travels, especially Italy.
Troubridge's diaries, which provided basic information for the more detailed day books,
cover the years 1934, 1935, 1941, and 1942.
Troubridge's writing in Series II include holograph notebooks on various topics, drafts
and galley proofs of
Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall
published in 1961, and her translations of works by Colette and Matilde Serao.
Letters between Evguenia Souline and Troubridge, especially 1950-1951, are present in
the correspondence found in Series III, Personal Papers. These letters describe
Souline's continual requests for financial assistance in addition to her annual annuity.
Correspondence between Troubridge and her solicitor, Harold Rubinstein detail
Troubridge's monetary outlays to Souline and other financial standings. Of importance is
a letter To the Executors of my Will written by
Troubridge in February 1944 and revised in September 1944 regarding the nature of their
relationship with Souline and instructions for the destruction of her diaries. A letter
from Home Secretary J. Chuter Ede, written in 1946 in response to Troubridge's request
for permission to publish a memorial edition of
The Well,
states that republishing the book could invite court proceedings. The copy of
The Well given to Ede by Troubridge in July 1946 was
received with collection and has been transferred to the HRC Library. Also present are
two letters from Troubridge's daughter, Andrea Turnbull, written ca. 1950 from Ethiopia.
The remaining material in this Series includes photographs of Una and her husband Ernest
Troubridge as children and as newlyweds. Photographs of their daughter Andrea as a child
are also present. The history of Una's family, the Taylors, is documented in a scrapbook
and the Taylor family tree.
The last Series, Writings of Others, contains a bound holograph manuscript
The Wicked Voice by Vernon Lee (Violet Paget) from the
library of Hugh Walpole.
In addition to the historic copy of
The Well of Loneliness
mentioned above, which also contains a list of those
who opposed its suppression written by Hall on the flyleaf, a few published
books were also received with the collection, including a book of devotions, The Garden of the Soul, inscribed J from V April 1912, Colette's Lettres à Marguerite
Moreno, and a book of poems, Through Woodland and
Meadow. These have been transferred to the HRC Library.
In general, the collection is extensively water damaged, suffering rust and mold
deterioration. Two photograph albums are restricted pending conservation treatment: the
album of Hall's father (Box 25) and Troubridge's family album (Box 36). Readers are
asked to employ caution in using other fragile material in the collection.