First page of Radclyffe Hall’s Two and One: Comedy in 3 Acts, ca. 1925. Radclyffe Hall and Una Vincenzo, Lady Troubridge Collection. Harry Ransom Center.
by LIBBY CARR
English author Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) was one of the first authors to make lesbians visible in mainstream literature, and a forerunner of queer authors in the 20th-century. Her 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness was scrutinized in several trials for containing “obscene” content. Despite or partially due to the controversy, The Well of Loneliness became extremely popular and remains a groundbreaking work of lesbian literature. In 1996, the Harry Ransom Center acquired a series of Hall’s published and unpublished works including an undated fragment of a 3-act play entitled Two and One. It is the only dramatic work attributed to Hall, never published and never produced. The addition of this play to Hall’s works allows us to examine her life beyond The Well of Loneliness and beyond all of her known works previously studied. Two and One is an exploration of misogyny and Victorian womanhood, a dynamic compliment to Hall’s better-known work.
