Loneliness

Loneliness, failed or unfulfilling relationships, the search for love and the right person – these are part of the Human Sexuality Collection, too. In the world of literature, perhaps no one has been lonelier than lesbians.

Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, published in 1928, met immediately with censorship challenges that exhausted the author; but the volume, one of the earliest to feature a lesbian heroine, earned its place as an icon of gay and lesbian literature. For decades it was the best known lesbian novel, and often the first source of information on the subject that individuals could find. The tragic life of the main character, a woman named Stephen by upper-class parents who wanted a boy, illustrated the exclusion and misery that lay in store for such gender and sexual misfits.

As a mark of this one title’s significance, Cornell has acquired three and a half shelves of its different editions, allowing scholars the chance to trace its changing face and marketing over the decades. Only a selection of them fit here!

The illustrated Sink of Solitude satirized Well in print the same year it was published. The Well of Horniness, written by performance artist Holly Hughes, premiered on March 3, 1983 at the WOW Café Theatre in New York City. Brave Smiles … another lesbian tragedy, by the theater collective The Five Lesbian Brothers, pokes fun at the long tunnel of gloom awaiting lesbians. The lyrics to the lead song go:

Brave smiles, try to hold your chin high.
Brave smiles, shoulders straight and don’t cry.
Life is hard, it may be so, it all depends on you.
A brave smile can help to pull you through.

Like Well itself, Brave Smiles was popular with audiences hungry for witty representations of lesbians and has seen a long production history. Shown here is the invitation to its first production at the WOW Café Theatre in 1993.

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