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October 11, 2025

“This trivial and vulgar occasion”: P.R. Stephensen’s Lampoons of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness

Key Points

Stephensen's lampoons critique Hall's The Well of Loneliness, exposing aspects of the obscenity controversy.
Each lampoon serves as a defense of publishing rights and freedom of expression in the face of censorship.
The literary lineage from Milton to Hall is invoked to argue against heteronormative conceptions of progeny.
Despite their humorous tone, the lampoons illustrate the risks of government censorship on artistic expression.

Abstract

Abstract: Within two years after the publication of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928), P.R. Stephensen wrote three lampoons, published in England, that took as their subject matter Hall’s novel: The Sink of Solitude (1928), The Well of Sleevelessness: A Tale for the Least of These Little Ones (1929), and Policeman of the Lord: A Political Satire (1933). Each lampoon exposes a different dimension of the obscenity controversy surrounding The Well of Loneliness . In addition, through the explicit references to Areopagitica in the first lampoon, these texts extend a literary lineage from John Milton to Hall, summoning an alternative to metaphorical heteronormative conceptions of progeny, and even lending divine sanction to this lineage. Despite their frivolity, these lampoons are serious defenses of publishing rights and the rights of a reading public to choose its own written entertainment. They also illustrate the dangerous artistic sterility that government censorship represents.

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