Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Bridget, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Bridget, Saint, 453?–523?, Irish holy woman. She is often called St. Brigid, St. Bride, or St. Bridget of Kildare. Little is known of her, but she did found a great monastery at Kildare. She is buri...

Leicester, Robert Dudley, earl of

(Encyclopedia)Leicester, Robert Dudley, earl of lĕsˈtər [key], 1532?–1588, English courtier and favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. A younger son of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, he was early brought into th...

Taylor, Zachary

(Encyclopedia)Taylor, Zachary zăkˈərē [key], 1784–1850, 12th President of the United States (1849–50), b. Orange co., Va. He was raised in Kentucky. Taylor joined the army in 1808, became a captain in 1810,...

Craddock, Charles Egbert

(Encyclopedia)Craddock, Charles Egbert, pseud. of Mary Noailles Murfree nō-īˈ [key], 1850–1922, American novelist, b. near Murfreesboro, Tenn. She wrote her best works about the mountain people of Tennessee, m...

Corelli, Marie

(Encyclopedia)Corelli, Marie məkīˈ [key], 1855–1924, English novelist. Her popular, highly moralistic books, written in flamboyant, pretentious prose, include A Romance of Two Worlds (1886), Thelma (1887), Bar...

Hawick

(Encyclopedia)Hawick hôˈîk [key], town, Scottish Borders, S Scotland, on the Teviot River. The largest S...

Hogg, Thomas Jefferson

(Encyclopedia)Hogg, Thomas Jefferson, 1792–1862, friend and biographer of Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was dismissed in 1811 from Oxford for defending Shelley's atheism. Authorized by Mary Shelley to write a life of ...

Fools, Feast of

(Encyclopedia)Fools, Feast of, burlesque religious festival of the Middle Ages. It occurred during the Christmas and New Year's revels, on or near New Year's Day. In many places a Lord of Misrule ruled over the rev...

Mount Holyoke College

(Encyclopedia)Mount Holyoke College hōlˈyōk [key], at South Hadley, Mass.; for women; chartered 1836, opened 1837 as Mount Holyoke Female Seminary under Mary Lyon, rechartered as Mount Holyoke College 1893. Ther...

Netscher, Caspar

(Encyclopedia)Netscher, Caspar käsˈpär nĕchˈər [key], 1639–84, Dutch portrait and genre painter, b. Heidelberg. He moved to Holland, where he studied with Ter Borch. Netscher was especially adept in the ren...