Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Ts'ao Hsüeh-ch'in tsouˈ shyĕˈchĭnˈ [key], 1715–63, Chinese novelist. He is the author of Story of the Stone (or A Dream of Red Mansions), which is considered China's greatest novel. After his ...

(Encyclopedia) bestiary bĕsˈchēĕrˌē [key], a type of medieval book that was widely popular, particularly from the 12th to 14th cent. The bestiary presumed to describe the animals of the world and to show what ...

(Encyclopedia) Saboraim säbōräˈĭm [key] [Heb.,=expositors], in Judaism, title given to the Jewish scholars of the Babylonian academies in the period (6th–7th cent. a.d.) immediately following the Amoraim and ...

(Encyclopedia) Lewis, C. S. (Clive Staples Lewis), 1898–1963, English author, b. Belfast, Ireland. A fellow and tutor of English at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1954, C. S. Lewis was noted equally for hi...

(Encyclopedia) pewter, any of a number of ductile, silver-white alloys consisting principally of tin. The properties vary with the percentage of tin and the nature of the added materials. Lead, when added, imparts a...

(Encyclopedia) Moseley, Henry Gwyn Jeffreys mōzˈlē [key], 1887–1915, English physicist, grad. Trinity College, Oxford, 1910. He began his research under Ernest Rutherford while serving as lecturer at the Univ. ...

(Encyclopedia) Dillard, Annie, 1945–, American writer, b. Pittsburgh, Pa., as Meta Ann Doak, grad. Hollins College (B.A., 1967; M.A., 1968). She has taught writing at Western Washington Univ. and Wesleyan Univ. Th...

(Encyclopedia) Woods, Tiger (Eldrick Woods), 1975–, American golfer, b. Cypress, Calif. The son of an African-American father and a Thai mother, he was a college star at Stanford and became the only three-time (19...

(Encyclopedia) Richardson, Samuel, 1689–1761, English novelist, b. Derbyshire. When he was 50 and a prosperous printer, Richardson was asked to compose a guide to letter writing. The idea of introducing a central ...

(Encyclopedia) Raymond IV, c.1038–1105, count of Toulouse (1093–1105), leader in the First Crusade (see Crusades). He was also count of Saint Gilles and marquis of Provence. The first great prince to take the Cr...