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Smith, Dame Maggie

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Dame Maggie (Dame Margaret Natalie Cross), 1934–, English actress. Smith first appeared on stage in Twelfth Night (1952). With her precise, sometimes rapid-fire, articulation and her meticulo...

Freeman, Douglas Southall

(Encyclopedia)Freeman, Douglas Southall sŭᵺˈôl, –əl [key], 1886–1953, American editor and historian, b. Lynchburg, Va. ...

Derby, Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley, 14th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Derby, Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley, 14th earl of därˈbē [key], 1799–1869, British statesman. Although a Whig, he entered (1827) government as George Canning's undersecretary for the colo...

Isozaki, Arata

(Encyclopedia)Isozaki, Arata äräˈtä ēˌsōzäˈkē [key], 1931–, Japanese architect, b. Oita. One of his nation's most important contemporary architects, he has an international reputation and has designed n...

Berenson, Bernard

(Encyclopedia)Berenson, Bernard bĕrˈənsən [key], 1865–1959, American art critic and connoisseur of Italian art, b. Lithuania, grad. Harvard, 1887. An expert and an arbiter of taste, he selected for art collec...

illustration

(Encyclopedia)illustration, any type of picture or decoration used in conjunction with a text to embellish its appearance or to clarify its meaning. Illustration is as old as writing, with both originating in the p...

Comstock Lode

(Encyclopedia)Comstock Lode, richest known U.S. silver deposit, W Nevada, on Mt. Davidson in the Virginia Range. It is said to have been discovered in 1857 by Ethan Allen Grosh and Hosea Ballou Grosh, sons of a Pen...

chaos theory

(Encyclopedia)chaos theory, in mathematics, physics, and other fields, a set of ideas that attempts to reveal structure in aperiodic, unpredictable dynamic systems such as cloud formation or the fluctuation of biol...

Gothic romance

(Encyclopedia)Gothic romance, type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th cent. in England. Gothic romances were mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and the...

Genet, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Genet, Jean zhənāˈ [key], 1910–86, French dramatist. Deserted by his parents as an infant, Genet spent much of his early life in reformatories and prisons. Between 1940 and 1948 he wrote several...