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Swift, Jonathan

(Encyclopedia)Swift, Jonathan, 1667–1745, English author, b. Dublin. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest satirists in the English language. In 1713 Swift became dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl...

Dryden, John

(Encyclopedia)Dryden, John, 1631–1700, English poet, dramatist, and critic, b. Northamptonshire, grad. Cambridge, 1654. He went to London about 1657 and first came to public notice with his Heroic Stanzas (1659),...

Isherwood, Christopher

(Encyclopedia)Isherwood, Christopher ishˈərwo͝od [key], 1904–86, British-American author. After the appearance of his first novel, All the Conspirators (1928), Isherwood went to Germany. The four years he spen...

plastering

(Encyclopedia)plastering, house construction technique involving the application of plaster to walls and ceilings, exterior plasterwork being of a different composition and generally known as stucco. Plaster was us...

Pompeii

(Encyclopedia)Pompeii pŏmpāˈ, Ital. pōmpĕˈē [key], ancient city of S Italy, a port near Naples and at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius. Possibly an old Oscan settlement, it was a Samnite city for centuries before it...

Bosch, Hieronymus

(Encyclopedia)Bosch, Hieronymus, or Jerom Bos hērônˈĭməs, yāˈrôm bôs [key], c.1450–1516, Flemish painter. His surname was originally van Aeken; Bosch refers to 's-Hertogenbosch (popularly called Den Bosc...

vulture

(Encyclopedia)vulture, common name for large birds of prey of temperate and tropical regions. The Old World vultures (family Accipitridae) are allied to hawks and eagles; the more ancient American vultures and cond...

Rijksmuseum

(Encyclopedia)Rijksmuseum rīksˈmyo͞ozēˌəm [key], Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, founded in 1808 by Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland (see under Bonaparte), as the Great Royal Museum in the Royal Palace. I...

Amsterdam, city, Netherlands

(Encyclopedia)Amsterdam ămˈstərdămˌ, Dutch ämstərdämˈ [key], city (2021 pop. 1,157,519), constitutional capital and largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Nort...

Douglas, Kirk

(Encyclopedia)Douglas, Kirk, 1916–2020, American film actor, b. Amsterdam, N.Y., as Issur Danielovitch, later Isadore Demsky. A leading man with a muscular physique and handsome cleft-chin face that made him a na...