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Avebury

(Encyclopedia)Avebury āˈbərē [key], village, Wiltshire, S central England. The village, with a medieval church and Elizabethan manor house, lies within Avebury Circle, a Neolithic circular group of upright ston...

Camden, William

(Encyclopedia)Camden, William kămˈdən [key], 1551–1623, English scholar, chief historian and antiquary of Elizabethan times. His two chief works are Britannia (1586) and Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicaru...

closet drama

(Encyclopedia)closet drama, a play that is meant to be read rather than performed. Precursors of the form existed in classical times. Plato's Apology is often regarded as tragic drama rather than philosophic dialog...

Lucie-Smith, Edward

(Encyclopedia)Lucie-Smith, Edward, 1933–, British poet and art critic, b. Jamaica, grad. Oxford, 1954. He has lived in London since 1951, where he worked as an advertising copywriter (1956–66) and as an editor ...

MacInnes, Colin

(Encyclopedia)MacInnes, Colin məkĭnˈəs [key], 1914–76, English novelist, b. London. Son of the novelist Angela Thirkell, MacInnes was educated in Australia and served in the British intelligence corps during ...

manor house

(Encyclopedia)manor house, dwelling house of the feudal lord of a manor, occupied by him only on occasional visits if he held many manors. Although not built specifically for fortification as castles were, many man...

Maidstone

(Encyclopedia)Maidstone mādˈstən [key], city (1991 pop. 86,067), Kent, SE England, on the Medway River. It is a market city with agricultural, paper, printing, quarrying, brewing, and engineering industries. The...

Stow, John

(Encyclopedia)Stow, John, 1525?–1605, English chronicler and antiquarian. He was a tailor in his youth, but after 1560 he came under the patronage of Archbishop Matthew Parker, whose Society of Antiquaries he joi...

soliloquy

(Encyclopedia)soliloquy, the speech by a character in a literary composition, usually a play, delivered while the speaker is either alone addressing the audience directly or the other actors are silent. It is most ...

Barnes, Djuna

(Encyclopedia)Barnes, Djuna jo͞onˈə [key], 1892–1982, American author, b. Cornwall, N.Y. She is best known for her modernist novel Nightwood (1936), which, in its sense of horror and decay, was likened by T. S...