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Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner

(Encyclopedia)Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner, 1822–88, English jurist and historian, educated at Cambridge. A pioneer in the historical and comparative study of institutions, he viewed the history of laws as the m...

Le Sage, Alain René

(Encyclopedia)Le Sage, Alain René älăNˈ rənāˈ ləsäzhˈ [key], 1668–1747, French novelist and dramatist. His masterpiece, Gil Blas de Santillane (1715–35, tr. by Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Gil B...

Remarque, Erich Maria

(Encyclopedia)Remarque, Erich Maria āˈrĭkh märēˈä rəmärkˈ [key], 1898–1970, German-American novelist, whose original name was Erich Paul Remark. From his experience of trench warfare during World War I,...

Speranski, Mikhail Mikhailovich

(Encyclopedia)Speranski, Mikhail Mikhailovich mēkhəyēlˈ mēkhīˈləvĭch spyĭränˈskē [key], 1772–1839, Russian public official, chief adviser to Czar Alexander I (1808–12). The son of a village priest,...

Perse, St.-John

(Encyclopedia)Perse, St.-John, pseud. of Alexis Saint-Léger Léger, 1887–1975, French poet and diplomat, b. West Indies. Léger, an opponent of appeasement of the Nazis, was enormously influential in France's fo...

D'Ewes, Sir Simonds

(Encyclopedia)D'Ewes, Sir Simonds dyo͞oz [key], 1602–50, English antiquarian, b. Coxden. He collected many old manuscripts and made transcriptions of others with the intention of writing a history of England; th...

coronet

(Encyclopedia)coronet kôrˌənĕtˈ, kŏrˌə– [key], head attire of a noble of high rank, worn on state occasions. It is inferior to the crown. British peers wear their coronets at the coronation of their sover...

chronicle plays

(Encyclopedia)chronicle plays, dramas based upon 16th-century chronicles in English, particularly those of Edward Hall and Raphael Holinshed. These plays became very popular late in the reign of Elizabeth I, when, ...

Foxe, John

(Encyclopedia)Foxe, John, 1516–87, English clergyman, author of the noted Book of Martyrs. He early became a Protestant and, when Mary Tudor became queen, he fled from England to Strasbourg. There was printed (15...

Halsey, William Frederick, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Halsey, William Frederick, Jr. (Bull Halsey) hôlˈsē [key], 1882–1959, American admiral, b. Elizabeth, N.J., grad. Annapolis, 1904. In World War II he led (Jan., 1942) a spectacular carrier raid a...