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Browning, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Browning, Robert, 1812–89, English poet. His remarkably broad and sound education was primarily the work of his artistic and scholarly parents—in particular his father, a London bank clerk of inde...

Bresson, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Bresson, Robert rôbĕrˈ brĕsôNˈ [key], 1901–99, French film director and scriptwriter, b. Bromont-Lamottie, France. Bresson's films tend to be austere, unadorned, and concerned more with intell...

Brown, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Brown, Robert, 1773–1858, Scottish botanist and botanical explorer. In 1801 he went as a naturalist on one of Matthew Flinders's expeditions to Australia, returning (1805) to England with valuable c...

Beverley, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Beverley, Robert bĕvˈərlē [key], 1673–1722, Virginia colonial historian, author of The History and Present State of Virginia (1705). A substantial planter and colonial official, he wrote his boo...

Abbe, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Abbe, Robert ăbˈē [key], 1851–1928, American surgeon, b. New York City, M.D. Columbia, 1874; brother of Cleveland Abbe. He was especially noted as a plastic surgeon and was a pioneer in the use o...

Blair, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Blair, Robert, 1699–1746, English poet and clergyman. His literary reputation rests solely on his didactic, blank-verse poem on death, The Grave (1743). ...

Blake, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Blake, Robert, 1599–1657, English admiral. A merchant, he sat in the Short Parliament (1640) and joined the parliamentary side in the civil war. He defended Bristol, Lyme, and Taunton against royali...

Smillie, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Smillie, Robert smīˈlē [key], 1857–1940, British labor official, b. Belfast, Ireland, of Scottish parents. He was president of the Scottish Miners' Federation from 1894 to 1918 and from 1921 unti...

Smith, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Robert, 1757–1842, U.S. government official, b. Lancaster, Pa. Admitted to the bar in 1786, he practiced law in Baltimore before serving in the Maryland state senate (1793–95) and in the Ba...

Smithson, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Smithson, Robert, 1938–73, American sculptor, b. Passaic, N.J. After first making modular, serial sculpture, Smithson began to design large-scale earthworks (see land art) in the 1960s. Smithson res...