Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Wilson, Sir Angus, 1913–91, English novelist, b. South Africa. As a novelist, he attempted to delineate a society in which traditional values have lost their force and human relationships are corrup...

(Encyclopedia) Barnes, Djuna jo͞onˈə [key], 1892–1982, American author, b. Cornwall, N.Y. She is best known for her modernist novel Nightwood (1936), which, in its sense of horror and decay, was likened by T. S...

(Encyclopedia) Grant, Cary, 1904–86, British movie actor, b. Bristol as Archibald Alexander Leach. He began on stage in 1923 and made his first film in 1932. An almost immediate hit, Grant was a leading star until...

(Encyclopedia) Wilkins, Sir George Hubert, 1888–1958, British explorer, b. Australia. He made a number of trips to Antarctica and to the Arctic. Valuable experience gained when he accompanied Vilhjalmur Stefansson...

(Encyclopedia) Douglas, Kirk, 1916–2020, American film actor, b. Amsterdam, N.Y., as Issur Danielovitch, later Isadore Demsky. A leading man with a muscular physique and handsome cleft-chin face that made him a na...

(Encyclopedia) Dallas, George Mifflin, 1792–1864, American statesman, vice president of the United States (1845–49), b. Philadelphia; son of Alexander James Dallas. He read law, was admitted (1813) to the bar, a...

(Encyclopedia) Gordon, Charles George, 1833–85, British soldier and administrator. He served in the Crimean War, went to China in the expedition of 1860, taking part in the capture of Beijing, and in 1863 took ove...

(Encyclopedia) Durham, John George Lambton, 1st earl of dûrˈ əm [key], 1792–1840, British statesman. A stormy liberal career in Parliament (1813–32), which earned him the nickname Radical Jack, culminated in ...

(Encyclopedia) Kaelin, William George, Jr., 1957–, American oncologist, b. New York City, M.D. Duke Univ., 1982. He has spent his entire career at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Mass., and also is a pro...

(Encyclopedia) Frazer, Sir James George, 1854–1941, Scottish classicist and anthropologist, b. Glasgow, educated at the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge. He is known especially for his masterpiece, The Golden...