Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

263 results found

Nodier, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Nodier, Charles shärl nôdyāˈ [key], 1780–1844, French novelist and poet. From 1824 he was librarian of the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris. His salon was the nucleus of the beginning romanti...

Don Juan

(Encyclopedia)Don Juan dŏn wän, jo͞oˈən, Span. dōn hwän [key], legendary profligate. He has a counterpart in the legends of many peoples, but the Spanish version of the great libertine has become the most un...

Liard

(Encyclopedia)Liard lēˈärdˌ [key], river, 755 mi (1,215 km) long, rising in the Pelly Mts., SE Yukon, Canada, and flowing SE into N British Columbia, passing through the main range of the Rocky Mts., thence nor...

Maclise, Daniel

(Encyclopedia)Maclise, Daniel məklēsˈ [key], 1811–70, British painter and illustrator, b. Ireland. His character sketches contributed (1830–38) to Fraser's Magazine under the pseudonym Alfred Croquis were la...

Hsia Kuei

(Encyclopedia)Hsia Kuei shyä gwā [key], c.1180–1230, Chinese painter of the Sung dynasty. Little is known of his life. He and his contemporary Ma Yüan were regarded as the greatest landscape painters of the da...

ship of the line

(Encyclopedia)ship of the line, large, square-rigged warship, carrying from 70 to 140 guns on two or more completely armed gun decks. In the great naval wars of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th cent., ships of the li...

Winnipeg, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Winnipeg, Lake, third largest lake of Canada, 9,465 sq mi (24,514 sq km), 264 mi (425 km) long and from 25 to 68 mi (40–109 km) wide, S central Man., Canada, N of Winnipeg. It is a remnant of glacia...

Radisson, Pierre Esprit

(Encyclopedia)Radisson, Pierre Esprit pyĕr ĕsprēˈ rädēsôNˈ [key], c.1632–1710, French explorer and fur trader in North America. He arrived in Canada in 1651. His journals, first published as the Voyages o...

Spalding, Albert Goodwill

(Encyclopedia)Spalding, Albert Goodwill, 1849–1915, American baseball player and business executive, b. Byron, Ill. He played as an amateur for the Rockford, Ill., Forest Citys (1866–68) and then was paid unoff...

Stewart, Martha

(Encyclopedia)Stewart, Martha, 1941–, American entrepeneur and tastemaker, b. Jersey City, N.J., as Martha Helen Kostyra, grad. Barnard College (1963). Moving to Westport, Conn., she started (1976) a successful c...

Browse by Subject