The Well of Loneliness. by RADCLYFFE-HALL, Marguerite - 1928: With a commentary by Havelock Ellis.

London: Jonathan Cape,, 1928. The highly controversial lesbian novel, in the uncommon dust jacket Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt, top edge black, others uncut. With the dust jacket. Extremities lightly rubbed, spine ends bruised, contents tanned with occasional foxing, overall an excellent copy in the uncommon dust jacket, soiled with some loss to extremities, neat tape repairs to verso. First edition, first impression, with "whip" on page 50, line 13. This famous and highly controversial lesbian novel went through only two small printings in Britain due to its controversial publication. It was the focus of vicious criticism from the editor of the Sunday Express, James Douglas, who vilified Hall's work as pornographic "moral poison". Government officials pressured Jonathan Cape into withdrawing the novel and when Cape slyly leased the rights to a Parisian press, who smuggled copies into Britain, those too were seized by the police and the publisher was prosecuted at trial. The Well of Loneliness "was subsequently banned in England … This led to the order of the chief magistrate, Sir Chartres Biron, that all copies be destroyed, and that literary merit presented no grounds for defence. Despite protests from literary figures such as Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, and John Buchan, Biron's judgement was upheld by a Court of Appeal" (ODNB). It was not republished until 1949. First editions in the dust jacket are distinctly uncommon.