Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

wallpaper

(Encyclopedia)wallpaper was used in Europe in the 16th and 17th cent. as an inexpensive substitute for costly hangings. The French developed marbled papers, introduced from the East via Italy and used at first for ...

Morris, Robert, 1734–1806, American merchant

(Encyclopedia)Morris, Robert, 1734–1806, American merchant, known as the “financier of the American Revolution,” and signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Liverpool, England. Morris emigrated to Ameri...

Doves Press

(Encyclopedia)Doves Press dŭvs [key], one of the leaders in the revival of the art and craft of making books that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th cent. It was founded at Hammersmith, London, in 1900 by T....

Greenock

(Encyclopedia)Greenock grēnˈək, grĭnˈ–, grĕnˈ– [key], city, Inverclyde, W Scotland, on t...

Plath, Sylvia

(Encyclopedia)Plath, Sylvia, 1932–63, American poet, b. Boston. Educated at Smith College and Cambridge, Plath published poems even as a child and won many academic and literary awards. Her first volume of poetry...

Gudrun

(Encyclopedia)Gudrun ko͝oˈ– [key], in Germanic literature. 1 Heroine of the Icelandic epic, the Volsungasaga. 2 Heroine and title person of an anonymous Middle High German epic written shortly after and strongl...

Ball, John

(Encyclopedia)Ball, John, d. 1381, English priest and social reformer. He was one of the instigators of the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 (see under Tyler, Wat). He was an itinerant for many years, acting independently ...

Byatt, A. S.

(Encyclopedia)Byatt, A. S. (Antonia Susan Byatt) bīˈət [key], 1936–, British novelist; sister of Margaret Drabble. Educated at Cambridge, Bryn Mawr College, Pa., and Oxford, she is a noted critic and novelist ...

Betzig, Robert Eric

(Encyclopedia)Betzig, Robert Eric, 1960–, American physicist, b. Ann Arbor, Mich., Ph.D. Cornell, 1988. Betzig worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1988 to 1996, when he become vice president of research and...

Eggleston, William

(Encyclopedia)Eggleston, William (William Joseph Eggleston, Jr.), 1939–, American photographer credited with establishing color photography as an art form, b. Memphis Tenn. His early work in black and white was i...