Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Guinevere

(Encyclopedia)Guinevere gwĭnˈəvĭrˌ, gwĕnˈ– [key], in Arthurian legend, wife of King Arthur. Her illicit and tragic love for Sir Launcelot, which foreshadowed the downfall of Arthur's kingdom, ends with her...

Anti-Saloon League

(Encyclopedia)Anti-Saloon League, U.S. organization working for prohibition of the sale of alcoholic liquors. Founded in 1893 as the Ohio Anti-Saloon League at Oberlin, Ohio, by representatives of temperance societ...

Coriolanus

(Encyclopedia)Coriolanus (Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus) kôrˌēəlāˈnəs [key], Roman patrician. He is said to have derived his name from the capture of the Volscian city Corioli. According to legend he was expelle...

Colum, Padraic

(Encyclopedia)Colum, Padraic päˈdrĭk kŏlˈəm [key], 1881–1972, Irish-American author, b. Longford, Ireland. He was active in the Irish literary renaissance and helped to found the Abbey Theatre. His verse in...

Robsart, Amy

(Encyclopedia)Robsart, Amy rŏbˈsärt [key], 1532–60, maiden name of the wife of Robert Dudley, later earl of Leicester, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I of England. When Lady Dudley was found dead at the foot of...

Selkirk, Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Selkirk, Alexander sĕlˈkərk [key], 1676–1721, Scottish sailor whose adventures suggested to Daniel Defoe the story of Robinson Crusoe (1719). In 1704, as a sailing master, Selkirk quarreled with ...

Poole, Ernest

(Encyclopedia)Poole, Ernest po͞ol [key], 1880–1950, American writer, b. Chicago, grad. Princeton, 1902. He was a magazine correspondent in Russia, France, and Germany before and during World War I. His best-know...

Samaroff, Olga

(Encyclopedia)Samaroff, Olga səmäˈrôf [key], 1882–1948, American pianist and educator, whose real name was Hickenlooper, b. San Antonio, Tex.; studied at the Paris Conservatory. Her American debut (1905) was ...

Keneally, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Keneally, Thomas kənēˈlē [key], 1935–, Australian novelist, b. Sydney. For a time a student of religion, and later of law, Keneally has ranged over a wide spectrum of subjects in his many novels...

Graham, Katharine Meyer

(Encyclopedia)Graham, Katharine Meyer, 1917–2001, American publisher, b. New York City, grad. Univ. of Chicago (1938). She first worked as a copy girl at the Washington Post, which was owned by her father, Eugene...