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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...

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...

exploration

(Encyclopedia)exploration, travel to a part of the earth that is relatively unknown to the traveler's culture, historically often motivated by a desire for colonization, conquest, or trade. See also space explorati...

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...

La Tour, Georges de

(Encyclopedia)La Tour, Georges de zhôrzh də lä to͞or [key], 1593–1652, French painter. By 1618 he was settled at Lunéville, in his native Lorraine. He bore the title of painter to the king in 1639. La Tour p...

Kazin, Alfred

(Encyclopedia)Kazin, Alfred kāˈzĭn [key], 1915–98, American critic, b. New York City, grad. College of the City of New York (B.S., 1935) and Columbia (M.A., 1938). Kazin was one of the outstanding literary cri...