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Ginsberg, Allen

(Encyclopedia)Ginsberg, Allen gĭnzˈbûrg [key], 1926–97, American poet, b. Paterson, N.J., grad. Columbia, 1949. An outspoken member of the beat generation, Ginsberg is best known for Howl (1956), a long poem a...

Frank, Anne

(Encyclopedia)Frank, Anne, 1929–45, German diarist, b. Frankfurt as Anneliese Marie Frank. In order to escape Nazi persecution, her family emigrated (1933) to Amsterdam, where her father Otto became a business ow...

Dorr, Thomas Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Dorr, Thomas Wilson, 1805–54, leader of Dorr's Rebellion (1842) in Rhode Island, b. Providence. After studying law under Chancellor Kent in New York he practiced in Providence. Although born of a we...

Barnes, Julian Patrick

(Encyclopedia)Barnes, Julian Patrick, English author, 1946–. During the 1970s and 80s he was a critic and editor for the New Statesman and New Review, a correspondent for The New Yorker, and a writer and editor f...

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...

Hazlitt, William

(Encyclopedia)Hazlitt, William, 1778–1830, English essayist. The son of a reform-mindeed Unitarian minister, he abandoned the idea of entering the clergy and took up painting, philosophy, and later journalism. He...

Williams, Tennessee

(Encyclopedia)Williams, Tennessee (Thomas Lanier Williams), 1911–83, American dramatist, b. Columbus, Miss., grad. State Univ. of Iowa, 1938. One of America's foremost 20th-century playwrights and the author of m...

Carson, Kit

(Encyclopedia)Carson, Kit (Christopher Houston Carson), 1809–68, American frontiersman and guide, b. Madison co., Ky. In 1811 he moved with his family to the Missouri frontier. After his father's death, he was ap...

Tea Party

(Encyclopedia)Tea Party, in the early 21st cent., U.S. political movement that arose in reaction to the economic crisis of 2008 and the government rescue and aid measures for the financial, automobile, and other in...

Jerome, Jerome Klapka

(Encyclopedia)Jerome, Jerome Klapka, 1859–1927, English humorist and playwright. His Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) and Three Men in a Boat (1889) gave him his reputation for genial humor. Of his dramatic...