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Maury, Matthew Fontaine

(Encyclopedia)Maury, Matthew Fontaine fŏntānˈ môrˈē [key], 1806–73, American hydrographer and naval officer, b. near Fredericksburg, Va. Appointed a midshipman in 1825, he saw varied sea duty until a stagec...

Berger, Victor Louis

(Encyclopedia)Berger, Victor Louis, 1860–1929, American Socialist leader and congressman, b. Austria-Hungary. After studying at the universities of Budapest and Vienna, he emigrated (1878) to the United States an...

Cabell, Branch

(Encyclopedia)Cabell, Branch (James Branch Cabell) kăˈbəl [key], 1879–1958, American novelist, b. Richmond, Va., grad. William and Mary, 1898. After various experiences as a journalist and a coal miner he bega...

Betjeman, Sir John

(Encyclopedia)Betjeman, Sir John bĕtˈjəmən [key], 1906–84, English poet, b. London. Traditional in rhyme and meter, his verse combined a witty appraisal of the English present with nostalgia for England's pas...

proletariat

(Encyclopedia)proletariat prōlətârˈēət [key], in Marxian theory, the class of exploited workers and wage earners who depend on the sale of their labor for their means of existence. In ancient Rome, the prolet...

Casals, Pablo (Pau)

(Encyclopedia)Casals, Pablo (Pau) päˈblō käsälsˈ, pou [key], 1876–1973, Spanish virtuoso cellist and conductor. Casals is considered the greatest 20th-century master of the cello and a distinguished compose...

Nobel Prizes (table)

(Encyclopedia)Nobel Prizes

Locke, Alain LeRoy

(Encyclopedia)Locke, Alain LeRoy, 1885–1954, American writer, educator, philosopher, and cultural critic, b. Philadelphia, grad. Harvard (A.B., 1907; Ph.D., 1918), first African-American Rhodes Scholar at Oxford ...

Plath, Sylvia

(Encyclopedia)Plath, Sylvia, 1932–63, American poet, b. Boston. Educated at Smith College and Cambridge, Plath published poems even as a child and won many academic and literary awards. Her first volume of poetry...

Bellow, Saul

(Encyclopedia)Bellow, Saul, 1915–2005, American novelist, b. Lachine, Que., as Solomon Bellow, grad. Northwestern Univ., 1937. Born of Russian-Jewish parents, he grew up in the slums of Montreal and Chicago, and ...