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Margaret of Scotland, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Margaret of Scotland, Saint, d. 1093, queen consort of Malcolm III and sister of Edgar Atheling. She was married to Malcolm c.1070. A deeply religious woman, she worked to replace the Celtic practices...

Grasso, Ella Tambussi

(Encyclopedia)Grasso, Ella Tambussi tămbyo͞oˈsē [key], 1919–81, U.S. politician, governor of Connecticut (1975–80), b. Windsor Locks, Conn. A Democrat, she was elected to the Connecticut legislature in 1952...

Foster, Hannah Webster

(Encyclopedia)Foster, Hannah Webster, 1759–1840, American novelist, b. Boston. She was one of the earliest American novelists and her epistolary novel, The Coquette (1797), was one of the first of its kind in Ame...

Duniway, Abigail Scott

(Encyclopedia)Duniway, Abigail Scott dŭnˈəwāˌ [key], 1834–1915, American editor and advocate of women's rights, b. near Groveland, Ill. She went to Oregon with her family in 1852 and the next year married Be...

Eve, in the Bible

(Encyclopedia)Eve [Heb.,=life], in the Bible, the first woman, wife of Adam and the mother of Cain, Abel, and Seth. Fashioned from Adam's rib, she was beguiled by the serpent into eating the forbidden fruit of the ...

Prévost, Marcel

(Encyclopedia)Prévost, Marcel märsĕlˈ prāvōˈ [key], 1862–1941, French novelist. His novels deal chiefly with feminine questions, portraying severely what Prévost regarded as the moral frailty of modern wo...

Richardson, Dorothy M.

(Encyclopedia)Richardson, Dorothy M., 1882–1957, English novelist. Her important work is Pilgrimage (12 vol., 1915–38; omnibus ed. 1938), a novel that records in great detail the inner experience of one woman. ...

Pandora, in Greek mythology

(Encyclopedia)Pandora păndôrˈə [key], in Greek mythology, first woman on earth. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create her as vengeance upon man and his benefactor, Prometheus. The gods endowed her with every charm,...

Orcutt, Maureen

(Encyclopedia)Orcutt, Maureen, 1907–2007, American amateur golf champion and sportswriter, b. New York City. The daughter of a journalist and a woman golfer, she began playing golf at the age of seven. A superb l...

Beatrice Portinari

(Encyclopedia)Beatrice Portinari bēˈətrĭs, Ital. bāätrēˈchā pōrtēnäˈrē [key], 1266–90, Florentine woman believed to be the Beatrice of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and Vita nuova. He first saw Be...