Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Parcells, Bill, 1941–, American football coach, b. Englewood, N.J., as Duane Charles Parcells, nicknamed “the Big Tuna.” He played for Colgate and Wichita State before being drafted (1964) and c...

(Encyclopedia) Bushnell, Horace bo͝oshˈnəl [key], 1802–76, American Congregational minister, b. Bantam, Conn. Bushnell became (1833) pastor of the North Church, Hartford, Conn. He wrote Christian Nurture (1847)...

(Encyclopedia) Wilde, Oscar (Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde), 1854–1900, Irish author and wit, b. Dublin. He is most famous for his sophisticated, brilliantly witty plays, which were the first since the come...

(Encyclopedia) Parnassians pärnăsˈēənz [key], group of 19th-century French poets, so called from their journal the Parnasse contemporain. Issued from 1866 to 1876, it included poems of Leconte de Lisle, Banvill...

(Encyclopedia) Chapman, John Jay, 1862–1933, American essayist and poet, b. New York City, grad. Harvard, 1885. He was admitted to the bar in 1888, but after 10 years abandoned law for literature. Active in the an...

(Encyclopedia) Ficino, Marsilio märsēˈlyō fēchēˈnō [key], 1433–99, Italian philosopher. Under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici, Ficino became the most influential exponent of Platonism in Italy in the 15...

(Encyclopedia) Firbank, Ronald (Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank), 1886–1926, English author. Of a delicate and eccentric nature, Firbank lived the life of a leisured aesthete. His novels, which have appealed to a s...

(Encyclopedia) Herero hərārˈō [key], Bantu people, mainly in Namibia and Botswana. They number about 75,000. A pastoral tribe noted for their large cattle herds, the Herero probably migrated from the region of L...

(Encyclopedia) Pye, John, 1782–1874, English engraver, founder of modern landscape engraving. As an illustrator for popular art annuals, he executed plates for landscapes by J. M. W. Turner, Claude Lorrain, and Ga...

(Encyclopedia) Browning, Orville Hickman, 1806–81, U.S. Secretary of the Interior (1866–69), b. Harrison co., Ky. One of the organizers of the Republican party in Illinois, Browning helped secure his friend Linc...