Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Edgeworth, Richard Lovell

(Encyclopedia)Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, 1744–1817, Anglo-Irish educational theorist, b. Bath, England, educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and at Oxford; father of Maria Edgeworth. A member of the literary cote...

Delderfield, R. F.

(Encyclopedia)Delderfield, R. F. (Ronald Frederick Delderfield), 1912–73, English writer, b. London. He did not start writing novels until he was 44, after having been a successful playwright and newspaperman. Hi...

Alkan, Charles Henri Valentin

(Encyclopedia)Alkan, Charles Henri Valentin shärl äNrēˈ väläNtăNˈ ălkăNˈ [key], 1813–88, French pianist and composer; his original surname was Morhange. He was a pianist of great virtuosity and wrote m...

Cosway, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Cosway, Richard kŏzˈwā [key], 1740?–1821, English miniaturist. His work was elegant and modish and became highly popular in his day. There is a collection of his works in Windsor Castle. Perhaps ...

Cinco de Mayo

(Encyclopedia)Cinco de Mayo, May 5, the anniversary of Mexico's victory over France in 1862 in the Battle of Puebla, in which Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza's small, ill-equipped Mexican forces defeated a much larger French...

Coehoorn, Menno van

(Encyclopedia)Coehoorn, Menno van mĕˈnō vän ko͞oˈhôrn [key], 1641–1704, Dutch military engineer and nobleman. He invented a portable bronze siege mortar called the coehorn. He was considered in his day a r...

Seward, Anna

(Encyclopedia)Seward, Anna sēˈwərd [key], 1742–1809, English poet, called the Swan of Lichfield. A member of the Lichfield literary group, which included Thomas Day and Erasmus Darwin, she was acquainted also ...

Praetorius, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Praetorius, Michael prētôrˈēəs [key], 1571–1621, German composer and musicographer, whose name originally was Schultheiss. He was a prolific composer, his Musae Sioniae (9 vol., 1605–11) alon...

toby jug

(Encyclopedia)toby jug tōˈbē [key], small pottery pitcher or mug modeled in the form of a jolly, stout man wearing a cocked hat, a corner of which serves as pourer. The jug is also called fillpot, both names tak...

Orpen, Sir William

(Encyclopedia)Orpen, Sir William, 1878–1931, British portrait and genre painter, b. Ireland. He is best known for his scenes of Irish daily life, his paintings and sketches of life at the front in World War I, an...

Browse by Subject