Laura Doan has done a great deal of original archival research
that throws considerable light on gender identity and performance in the 1920s. In doing so, she debunks a number of assumptions that many of us who work on Hall have uncritically passed on, particularly as regards how Hall and her work were initially received. One important ramification of Doan's argument is that the British public was not unreflectively hostile to masculinity in women -- both homophobia and notions about masculinity in women as connected with something indecent or unnatural had to be inculcated into the British public through a very energetic public campaign. This is a point that those of us today who fight against homophobia and straitjacketing gender roles might find encouraging, and it deviates from the standard assumption that Radclyffe Hall and her protagonist, Stephen Gordon, scared the socks off of the mainstream British reading public from the outset. A must for anyone studying sexuality in twentieth-century Britain, and an addition to anyone's understanding of British modernism.

Doan examines how the Well of Loneliness trial and the appearance of its author Hall helped codify an image of "lesbian" for audiences in the late 1920s. The image of the 1920s "modern" woman in other British organizations is also examined. Some interesting photos but more academic than other recent books on lesbian images/history.