Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Wilson, Colin

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Colin, 1931–2013, English writer, b. Leicester. Born into a working-class family and largely self-educated, Wilson in many of his books exhorts humankind to expand its powers and realize its...

Malory, Sir Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Malory, Sir Thomas mălˈərē [key], d. 1471, English author of Morte d'Arthur. It is almost certain that he was Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revell, Warwickshire. Knighted in 1442, he served in the ...

Rowling, J. K.

(Encyclopedia)Rowling, J. K. (Joanne Kathleen Rowling) rōlˈibreve;ing [key], 1965–, English author known for her popular children's books. While unemployed she completed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone...

Horsley, Sir Victor Alexander Haden

(Encyclopedia)Horsley, Sir Victor Alexander Haden, 1857–1916, English surgeon and neurologist. A specialist in surgery of the endocrine glands and the nervous system, he devised a noted operation for spinal-cord ...

Calverley, Charles Stuart

(Encyclopedia)Calverley, Charles Stuart, 1831–84, English poet and translator. Expelled from Oxford for a youthful prank, he earned academic honors at Cambridge. He became famous for the wit and erudition of his ...

Seelye, Laurenus Clark

(Encyclopedia)Seelye, Laurenus Clark, 1837–1924, American educator and Congregational clergyman, b. Bethel, Conn., grad. Union College, 1857, and studied at Andover Theological Seminary and in Germany; brother of...

Rich, Adrienne

(Encyclopedia)Rich, Adrienne, 1929–2012, American poet, b. Baltimore, grad. Radcliffe, 1951. From the 1970s her exquisitely wrought verse became looser and more personal as her works increasingly reflected femini...

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm

(Encyclopedia)Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm frēˈdrĭkh vĭlˈhĕlm nēˈchə [key], 1844–1900, German philosopher, b. Röcken, Prussia. The son of a clergyman, Nietzsche studied Greek and Latin at Bonn and Leipz...

Green, Hetty

(Encyclopedia)Green, Hetty, 1835–1916, American financier, b. Henrietta Howland Robinson, New Bedford, Mass. She inherited a large fortune from her father and invested it so shrewdly that she was considered the g...

Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mandé

(Encyclopedia)Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mandé lwē zhäk mäNdāˈ dägârˈ [key], 1789–1851, French scene painter and physicist, inventor of the daguerreotype, a photograph produced on a silver-coated copper pla...