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Ormonde, James Butler, 12th earl and 1st duke of

(Encyclopedia)Ormonde, James Butler, 12th earl and 1st duke of ôrˈmənd [key], 1610–88, Irish statesman, most powerful royalist influence in Ireland during the English civil war. A ward of the crown after the d...

Franko, Ivan

(Encyclopedia)Franko, Ivan ēˈvän fränˈkō [key], 1856–1916, Ukrainian writer and nationalist. His realistic novels Boryslav Laughs (1881–82) and Boa Constrictor (1878, tr. 1961) portray the harsh existence...

Montrose, James Graham, 5th earl and 1st marquess of

(Encyclopedia)Montrose, James Graham, 5th earl and 1st marquess of mŏntrōzˈ [key], 1612–50, Scottish nobleman and soldier. He succeeded to the earldom in 1626 and, feeling slighted by Charles I, joined the Cov...

Mauriac, François

(Encyclopedia)Mauriac, François fräNswäˈ mōryäkˈ [key], 1885–1970, French writer. Mauriac achieved success in 1922 and 1923 with Le Baiser au lépreux and Genitrix (tr. of both in The Family, 1930). Genera...

mystery

(Encyclopedia)mystery or mystery story, literary genre in which the cause (or causes) of a mysterious happening, often a crime, is gradually revealed by the hero or heroine; this is accomplished through a mixture o...

Ophites

(Encyclopedia)Ophites ōˈfīts [key] [Gr.,=believers in the serpent], group of Gnostic sects notorious for extreme cultism and inverted morality. Certain of these sects were known as Naasseni. Almost all that is k...

Marcel, Gabriel

(Encyclopedia)Marcel, Gabriel märsĕlˈ [key] 1889–1973, French philosopher, dramatist, and critic, b. Paris. A leading Christian existentialist, he became a Roman Catholic in 1929. He called himself a “concr...

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...

Margaret Tudor

(Encyclopedia)Margaret Tudor, 1489–1541, queen consort of James IV of Scotland; daughter of Henry VII of England and sister of Henry VIII. Her marriage (1503) to James was accompanied by a treaty of “perpetual ...

Alfonso III, king of Aragón and count of Barcelona

(Encyclopedia)Alfonso III, 1265–91, king of Aragón and count of Barcelona (1285–91), son and successor of Peter III. He was forced to grant wide privileges to the cortes of the Aragonese nobles. At first he su...