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Mitford, Nancy

(Encyclopedia)Mitford, Nancy, 1904–73, English novelist and biographer, b. London. She managed a London bookshop during World War II and moved to Paris in 1945. Mitford and her five celebrated and politically div...

Knossos

(Encyclopedia)Knossos or Cnossus both: nŏsˈəs [key], ancient city of Crete, on the north coast, near modern Iráklion. The site was occupied long before 3000 b.c., and it was the center of an important Bronze Ag...

Byatt, A. S.

(Encyclopedia)Byatt, A. S. (Antonia Susan Byatt) bīˈət [key], 1936–, British novelist; sister of Margaret Drabble. Educated at Cambridge, Bryn Mawr College, Pa., and Oxford, she is a noted critic and novelist ...

caricature

(Encyclopedia)caricature, a satirical drawing, plastic representation, or description which, through exaggeration of natural features, makes its subject appear ridiculous. Although 16th-century Northern painters, s...

Wells-Barnett, Ida Bell

(Encyclopedia)Wells-Barnett, Ida Bell, 1862–1931, African-American civil-rights advocate and feminist, b. Holly Springs, Miss. Born a slave, she attended a freedman's school and was orphaned at 16. She moved (188...

Smollett, Tobias George

(Encyclopedia)Smollett, Tobias George smŏlˈĭt [key], 1721–71, Scottish novelist. After studying at Glasgow he came to London in 1739. Failing to get his tragedy The Regicide produced, he shipped as a surgeon's...

Basquiat, Jean-Michel

(Encyclopedia)Basquiat, Jean-Michel bäsˌkē-ätˈ [key], 1960–88, American painter, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. Born into a middle-class Haitian and Puerto Rican family, he was a 1980s art star whose rise and fall were r...

Saxe, Maurice, comte de

(Encyclopedia)Saxe, Maurice, comte de mōrēsˈ kôNt də säks [key], 1696–1750, marshal of France, one of the greatest generals of his age. He was the illegitimate son of Augustus II of Poland and Saxony and Co...

Sennacherib

(Encyclopedia)Sennacherib sĕnăkˈərĭb [key] or Senherib, d. 681 b.c., king of Assyria (705–681 b.c.). The son of Sargon, Sennacherib spent most of his reign fighting to maintain the empire established by his ...

programmed instruction

(Encyclopedia)programmed instruction, method of presenting new subject matter to students in a graded sequence of controlled steps. Students work through the programmed material by themselves at their own speed and...