The Well of Loneliness is a 1928 lesbian novel by the British author Radclyffe Hall that follows the life of Stephen Gordon, an Englishwoman from an upper-class family. Her "sexual inversion" (homosexuality) is apparent from an early age. She finds love with Mary Llewellyn, whom she meets while serving as an ambulance driver in World War I, but their happiness together is marred by social isolation and rejection. The novel portrays inversion as a natural, God-given state and makes an explicit plea: "Give us also the right to our existence". Although its only sexual reference consists of the words "and that night, they were not divided", a British court judged it obscene because it defended "unnatural practices between women". In the United States the book survived legal challenges. Publicity over The Well's legal battles increased the visibility of lesbians in British and American culture. Gordon's expressions of self-hatred have been faulted for inspiring shame, but the book was for decades the best-known lesbian novel in English, and often the first source of information about lesbianism that young people could find.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_Loneliness

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1556:

The thirteen Stratford Martyrs were burned at the stake near London for their Protestant beliefs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratford_Martyrs

1864:

American Civil War: Union Army General William T. Sherman's frontal assault against the Army of Tennessee failed, but that did not stop Sherman's advance on Atlanta. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kennesaw_Mountain

1905:

The crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin began a mutiny against their oppressive officers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_battleship_Potemkin

1927:

Prime Minister of Japan Tanaka Giichi led a conference to discuss Japan's plans for China, out of which came the Tanaka Memorial, a strategic document detailing these plans (now believed to be a forgery). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanaka_Memorial

2007:

As a result of an ongoing conflict between drug dealers and police in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, a large military and civil police operation killed 19 people and injured several others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexo_do_Alem%C3%A3o_massacre

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

standee: 1. Somebody who is forced to stand, for example, on a crowded bus. 2. A free-standing, rigid print (usually life-sized), for instance of a celebrity, often displayed for advertising and promotional purposes; a cut-out. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/standee

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

If there is anything worthwhile doing for the sake of culture, then it is touching on subject matters and situations which link people, and not those that divide people. There are too many things in the world which divide people, such as religion, politics, history, and nationalism. If culture is capable of anything, then it is finding that which unites us all. And there are so many things which unite people. It doesn't matter who you are or who I am, if your tooth aches or mine, it's still the same pain. Feelings are what link people together, because the word "love" has the same meaning for everybody. Or "fear", or "suffering". We all fear the same way and the same things. And we all love in the same way. That's why I tell about these things, because in all other things I immediately find division.   --Krzysztof Kieślowski https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Krzysztof_Kie%C5%9Blowski