Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Astell, Mary

(Encyclopedia)Astell, Mary ăsˈtəl [key], 1666–1731, English author and feminist. Her Serious Proposal to the Ladies (2 parts, 1694–97) offered a scheme for a women's college, an idea far in advance of the ti...

King Horn

(Encyclopedia)King Horn, probably the earliest English-language romance, written c.1250 and containing about 1,500 lines. It is by an anonymous author and is based on an earlier work in French. Emphasizing action a...

Blunden, Edmund Charles

(Encyclopedia)Blunden, Edmund Charles, 1896–1974, English author. Beginning his career as a poet of nature, Blunden became a cosmopolitan teacher and writer. His prose works include Undertones of War (1928), an a...

Sewell, Anna

(Encyclopedia)Sewell, Anna so͞oˈəl [key], 1820–78, English author. Her only work, Black Beauty (1877), the story of a horse, became a children's classic and has gone into many reprints. Her mother, Mary Wright...

America, in music

(Encyclopedia)America, in music, a patriotic hymn of the United States. The words (beginning “My country, 'tis of thee”) were written in 1832 by Samuel Francis Smith while he was a theological student in Andove...

Sandwich, Edward Montagu, 1st earl of

(Encyclopedia)Sandwich, Edward Montagu, 1st earl of mŏnˈtəgyo͞o [key], 1625–72, English admiral. He fought in the parliamentary army during the civil war, became (1653) a member of the council of state of the...

Bruna, Dick

(Encyclopedia)Bruna, Dick (Hendrick Magdalenus Bruna), 1927–2017, Dutch children's book author and illustrator, b. Utrecht. The author of more than 120 books, Bruna is best known for his stories about a white rab...

Cædmon

(Encyclopedia)Cædmon kădˈmən [key], fl. 670, English poet. He was reputed by Bede to be the author of early English versions of various Old Testament stories. According to Bede, Cædmon was an ignorant herder w...

Eckermann, Johann Peter

(Encyclopedia)Eckermann, Johann Peter yōhänˈ pāˈtər ĕkˈərmän [key], 1792–1854, German scholar and author. He assisted Goethe in various literary labors, was professor of English and German at the Univ. ...

Browse by Subject