The British composer and bon-vivant Gerald Berners, the 14th Lord Berners, wrote a roman à clef girls' school story entitled The Girls of Radcliff Hall, in which he depicts himself and his circle of friends, including Cecil Beaton and Oliver Messel, as lesbian schoolgirls at a school named "Radcliff Hall". The novel was written under the pseudonym "Adela Quebec" and published and distributed privately; the indiscretions to which it alluded created an uproar among Berners's intimates and acquaintances, making the whole affair highly discussed in the 1930s. Cecil Beaton attempted to have all the copies destroyed. The novel subsequently disappeared from circulation, making it extremely rare. The story is, however, included in the Berners anthology Collected Tales and Fantasies.
Read more about this topic: Radclyffe Hall
Famous quotes containing the word girls:
“For little boys are rancorous
When robbed of any myth,
And spiteful and cantankerous
To all their kin and kith.
But little girls can draw conclusions
And profit from their lost illusions.”
—Phyllis McGinley (19051978)