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Pulitzer, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Pulitzer, Joseph po͝oˈlĭtsər, pyo͞oˈ– [key], 1847–1911, American newspaper publisher and politician, b. Hungary. He emigrated to the United States in 1864, served a year in the Union army in...

Reiner, Carl

(Encyclopedia) Reiner, Carl, 1922-2020, American comedian, television producer, actor, and film director, b. Bronx, N.Y. The son of a watchmaker, Reiner initially wo...

Columbia, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Columbia kəlŭmˈbēə [key]. 1 City (2020 pop. 104,681), Howard co., central Md., between W...

Amis, Sir Kingsley

(Encyclopedia)Amis, Sir Kingsley āˈmĭs [key], 1922–95, English novelist. He attended St. John's College, Oxford (B.A., 1949) and for some 20 years taught at Oxford, Swansea, and Cambridge and in the United Sta...

Morrison, Toni

(Encyclopedia)Morrison, Toni, 1931–2019, American writer, b. Lorain, Ohio, as Chloe Ardelia (later Anthony) Wofford; B.A. Howard Univ., 1953, M.F.A. Cornell, 1955. Her fiction is noted for its poetic language, lu...

transcontinental railroad

(Encyclopedia)transcontinental railroad, in U.S. history, rail connection with the Pacific coast. In 1845, Asa Whitney presented to Congress a plan for the federal government to subsidize the building of a railroad...

naturalism, in literature

(Encyclopedia)naturalism, in literature, an approach that proceeds from an analysis of reality in terms of natural forces, e.g., heredity, environment, physical drives. The chief literary theorist on naturalism was...

literary frauds

(Encyclopedia)literary frauds, manuscripts that are presented to the public as works of famous authors but that are actually forgeries or imitations. Literary frauds are perpetrated for various reasons—occasional...

Baraka, Amiri

(Encyclopedia)Baraka, Amiri amērē bəräˈkə [key], 1934–2014, American poet, playwright, and political activist, b. Newark, N.J., as Everett LeRoy Jones, studied at Rutgers Univ., Howard Univ. In college he a...

Spenser, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Spenser, Edmund, 1552?–1599, English poet, b. London. He was the friend of men eminent in literature and at court, including Gabriel Harvey, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Robert Sidney,...