Mary Benson (campaigner) Mary Benson (campaigner) Mary Benson (8 December 1919 – 19 June 2000) was a South African civil rights campaigner and author. Born in 1919 in Pretoria, Benson served in the South African Women's Army during World War II. After the war, she was secretary to film director David Lean. Benson became acquainted with the author Alan Paton, and read his novel "Cry, the beloved country" (1948), whose main theme was racial discrimination in South Africa. This affected her greatly, and she became a campaigner for the rights of black people there. She worked with Michael Scott (who, in 1946, was
The Well-Beloved Pierston's search for the ideal woman, through three generations of a Portland family. A cottage housing what is now part of Portland Museum, on the Isle of Portland, founded by Marie Stopes, a friend of Hardy and his wife, was an inspiration for the book. The cottage acted as the home of Avice, the novel's heroine. The Well-Beloved The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament is a novel by Thomas Hardy, serialized in 1892, and published as a book in 1897. The main setting of the novel, the Isle of Slingers, is based on the Isle of Portland in Dorset,