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Goncourt, Edmond Louis Antoine Huot de

(Encyclopedia)Goncourt, Edmond Louis Antoine Huot de zhül älfrĕdˈ [key], 1830–70, French authors. Brothers, they were known, for their close association in art and literature, as “les deux Goncourt.” They...

De Palma, Brian

(Encyclopedia)De Palma, Brian, 1940–, American film director, b. Newark, N.J. Heavily influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, he is especially known for bloody, shocking, and suspenseful thrillers. Sometimes accused of v...

Graves, Robert Ranke

(Encyclopedia)Graves, Robert Ranke, 1895–1985, English poet, novelist, and critic; son of Alfred Percival Graves. He established his reputation with Good-bye to All That (1929), an outspoken book on his war exper...

Quine, W. V.

(Encyclopedia)Quine, W. V. (Willard Van Orman Quine) kwīn [key], 1908–2000, American philosopher and mathematical logician, b. Akron, Ohio, grad. Oberlin, 1930. He studied at Harvard (Ph.D., 1932) under Alfred N...

Highsmith, Patricia

(Encyclopedia)Highsmith, Patricia, 1921–95, American novelist, b. Fort Worth, Tex., as Mary Patricia Plangman, grad. Barnard College (B.A. 1942). She first traveled to Europe in 1949 and moved there in 1963, livi...

Hunter, Evan

(Encyclopedia)Hunter, Evan, 1926–2005, American novelist, b. New York City as Salvatore A. Lambino, grad. Hunter Coll. (1950). He achieved both success and acclaim with the publication of his third novel, The Bla...

Haushofer, Karl

(Encyclopedia)Haushofer, Karl kärl housˈhōfər [key], 1869–1946, German geographer, theorist of Nazi geopolitics, including the doctrines that the state is a living organism and that race and territory are lin...

Walker, James John

(Encyclopedia)Walker, James John, 1881–1946, American politician, b. New York City. Dapper and debonair, Jimmy Walker, having tried his hand at song writing, engaged in Democratic politics and in 1909 became a me...

Louis XIII, king of France

(Encyclopedia)Louis XIII, 1601–43, king of France (1610–43). He succeeded his father, Henry IV, under the regency of his mother, Marie de' Medici. He married Anne of Austria in 1615. Even after being declared o...

Las Vegas

(Encyclopedia)Las Vegas läs vāˈgəs [key], city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United ...