The Master of the House is a novel written by Radclyffe Hall and published in 1932 — her first published work after her 1928 The Well of Loneliness. [1] It depicts the life of carpenter Christophe Benedit, as well as of the other inhabitants of the small French town of St-Loup-sur-Mer.
Una Troubridge — Hall's partner — described the novel as being about a "modern Christ figure"; [2] the University of London has noted speculation that Hall wrote it as "expiation" for having inspired Beresford Egan's "blasphemous" cartoon of Hall being crucified. [3]
The Spectator considered that it was "a solid, full story", with "a high seriousness of purpose", but faulted Hall's use of symbolism, claiming that this makes the story "totter dangerously". [4]
Hall's biographers have been divided over the novel's quality, with Sally Cline (in her 1997 Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Called John) describing it as Hall's "greatest novel", [5] and Richard Dellamora (in his 2011 Radclyffe Hall: A Life in the Writing) stating that it "disappoint(ed ...) nearly everyone" and "diminished both Hall's reputation and the size of her [readership]" [6]
It was republished in 2013 by Wylie Press ( ISBN 978-1473311886).
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