Hall sought not so much to transform how people perceived her, but to transform her own relationship to society. With Mabel Batten, Hall balanced country living and urban social-cultural pursuits – a structure that establishes a circuit of creative professionals who were not exploring the fringe of societal norms but instead were invested in the most aspirational aspects of British national, religious, and class-oriented systems.⁴For context on these circles see Paul Hopwood, “Polite Patriotism: The Edwardian Gentleman in English Music, 1904 to 1914,” Nineteenth-Century Music Review 16, no. 3 (2019): 383–416. Batten had “sufficient taste and good judgement” according to Troubridge to midwife Hall’s transition from lyrical poet to novelist, as well as the network to validate her sponsorship.⁵Lady Una Troubridge, The Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall (London: Hammond Hammond, 1961), 39; Baker, Our Three Selves, 58. The patronage circuits established during this time assisted in gathering support instrumental during the trials she is famous for.⁶Sally Cline, Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John (London: Faber & Faber, 1997).

Hall participated in the Edwardian England star machine: A lyricist would typically publish a volume of verses—often at their own expense initially, as Hall did with Twixt Earth and Stars.⁷Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall, A Sheaf of Verses: Poems (London: John and Edward Bumpus Ltd., 1908); Lovat Dickson, Radclyffe Hall at The Well of Loneliness: A Sapphic Chronicle (London: Collins, 1975), 36. If the verses had strong rhythm and emotional resonance, they were seized upon by established music composers.⁸Dickson, Radclyffe Hall at The Well of Loneliness, 36, 42; Cline, A Woman Called John, 88. Success meant that these songs were performed across multiple tiers of society. Una Troubridge notes that Hall’s work was widely featured in concerts that were “predecessors of the B.B.C.” and were purchased by “enthusiastic amateurs who performed in the home!”⁹These claims are unsubstantiated by a cursory search of the indexes of the Athenaeum from 1906–1913. Troubridge, Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall, 28–29. Despite achieving national celebrity and massive sheet-music sales, the financial reality for a lyricist was structurally exploitative and Hall was not exempt.¹⁰Richard Dellamora, Radclyffe Hall: A Life in the Writing (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 51, citing Letter from Chappell & Co. Ltd., 13 June 1918, Lovat Dickson Collection, MG30, D237, vol. 4, folder 11. The publishers argued that lyrics were largely interchangeable and offered only a flat fee—in Hall’s case, twenty guineas for a massive wartime hit. Hall realised that her work was trapped in a context that offered prestige but no financial control. It was at these meetings with publishers that Hall was encouraged to write novels – though whether Hall was excited or intimidated by this prospect is a matter of debate.¹¹Troubridge, Life and Death of Radclyffe Hall, 41; Baker, Our Three Selves, 58.

During this period Hall also developed much of her signature physical presentation. Mainly, she swapped the “fluffy confections” of her mother’s style with her father’s wardrobe of tweeds, starched collars and studded cuffs.¹²Souhami, Trials of Radclyffe Hall. Prior to the Malvern years her sporting clothes involved skirts and habits, in Malvern she switches to breeches – though only in private and during sport. In public the long skirts remained. Hall presented in a way that maintained strict boundaries in order to maintain a truthfulness to her masculinity without demanding to be identified as a man. According to Hall directly, reported via Dickson and Baker, Hall ranted about the case of ‘Colonel Barker’, a woman who claimed to be a man, deceiving a wife and several business partners.¹³Baker, Our Three Selves, 234, quoting letter from Radclyffe Hall to Audrey Heath, 27 February 1929. From today’s view of gender and sexuality – Hall claimed masculinity separately from her biological sex. On the other hand, Colonel Barker, in his claim of manhood, acts in a kind of falsehood, a lack of authenticity and therefore, reliable character.

The photographic archives of artists and writers in Britain, the US and parts of Europe at the time are filled with women sitting for portraits in their tailored suit jackets and uniform tops.¹⁴Jaime E. Hovey, “Gallantry and Its Discontents: Joan of Arc and Virtuous Transmasculinity in Radclyffe Hall and Vita Sackville-West,” Feminist Modernist Studies 1, no. 1–2 (2018): 113–137. Hall was not necessarily following a trend, but she did sit squarely in the most forward-facing, fashionable version of it. In Malvern the masculinity presented sat at the inner edge of acceptability. A style in line with the times that was authentic to herself.