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Levi, Primo

(Encyclopedia)Levi, Primo prēˈmō lāˈvē [key], 1919–87, Italian writer. A chemist of Jewish descent, Levi was sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz during World War II. His first memoir, If This Is a M...

Lewis, Jerry

(Encyclopedia)Lewis, Jerry, 1926–2017, extremely popular and influential American comedian, b. Newark, N.J. as Jerome Levitch. The son of vaudevillians, he entered show business early and entertained in the “bo...

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft

(Encyclopedia)Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797–1851, English author; daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. In 1814 she fell in love with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, accompanied him abroad, and ...

Cromer, Evelyn Baring, 1st earl of

(Encyclopedia)Cromer, Evelyn Baring, 1st earl of ēvˈlĭn bârˈĭng krōˈmər [key], 1841–1917, British administrator in Egypt. Appointed (1877) first British commissioner of the Egyptian public debt office, h...

Goodyear, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Goodyear, Charles, 1800–1860, American inventor, b. New Haven, Conn., originator of vulcanized rubber. He failed in his earlier business ventures and was in jail for debt when he began his experimen...

Hemings, Sally

(Encyclopedia)Hemings, Sally, 1773–1835, African-American slave owned by Thomas Jefferson, b. Charles City co., Va.; her original name was probably Sarah. Her father was John Wayles, Jefferson's father-in-law; he...

Waters, Muddy

(Encyclopedia)Waters, Muddy, 1915–83, African-American blues singer and guitarist, b. Rolling Fork, Miss., as McKinley Morganfield. As a teenager he began singing and playing traditional country blues on harmonic...

Carter, Angela

(Encyclopedia)Carter, Angela, 1940–92, English writer. She was a newspaper reporter before studying at the Univ. of Bristol (B.A., 1965), where she explored medieval literature, Freud, surrealism, and feminism, a...

Blitzstein, Marc

(Encyclopedia)Blitzstein, Marc (Marcus Samuel Blitzstein), 1905–64, American composer, pianist, and librettist, b. Philadelphia. After attending the Univ. of Pennsylvania and the Curtis Institute of Music, he stu...

Noguchi, Isamu

(Encyclopedia)Noguchi, Isamu ēsäˈmo͞o nōgo͞oˈchē [key], 1904–88, American sculptor, b. Los Angeles. The son of a Japanese poet father and an American mother, he was a student of Gutzon Borglum and won Gug...