Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Golding, William (Sir William Gerald Golding), 1911–93, English novelist, grad. Oxford (B.A. 1934). Praised for his highly imaginative and original writings, Golding was basically concerned with the...

(Encyclopedia) Fouquet or Foucquet, Nicolas fo͞okāˈ [key], 1615–80, superintendent of finance (1653–61) under King Louis XIV of France. His loyalty to Cardinal Mazarin during the Fronde helped to secure his ...

(Encyclopedia) Black Hills, rugged mountains, c.6,000 sq mi (15,540 sq km), enclosed by the Belle Fourche and Cheyenne rivers, SW S.Dak. and NE Wyo., and rising c.2,500 ft (760 m) above the surrounding Great Plains;...

(Encyclopedia) Sills, Beverly, 1929–2007, American coloratura soprano, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., as Belle Silverman. Her childhood career as a radio singer (when she was first nicknamed “Bubbles”) led to voice studie...

(Encyclopedia) Hurston, Zora Neale, 1891?–60, African-American writer, b. Notasulga, Ala. She grew up in the pleasant all-black town of Eatonville, Fla., and graduated from Barnard College, where she studied with ...

(Encyclopedia) Buñuel, Luis lo͞oēsˈ bo͞onyo͞oĕlˈ [key], 1900–83, Spanish film director, b. Calanda, Aragón. In his best films, he used poetic, often bizarre imagery and black humor to question and undermi...

(Encyclopedia) Agnon, S. Y. (Shmuel Yosef Agnon) shmo͞oˈĕl yōˈsəf ägnōnˈ; yōˈzəf [key], 1888–1970, Israeli writer, b. Buczacz, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Buchach, Ukraine), as Samuel Josef Czaczkes....

(Encyclopedia) Wyler, William, 1902–1981, American film director, producer, and writer, b. Mülhausen, Germany (now Mulhouse, France) as Willi Wilder. He came to the United States (1920) at the invitation of Carl ...

(Encyclopedia) Millay, Edna St. Vincent mĭlāˈ [key], 1892–1950, American poet, b. Rockland, Maine, grad. Vassar College, 1917. One of the most popular poets of her era, Millay was admired as much for the bohemi...

(Encyclopedia) philosophy of science, branch of philosophy that emerged as an autonomous discipline in the 19th cent., especially through the work of Auguste Comte, J. S. Mill, and William Whewell. Several of the is...