Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Sheppard, Jack, 1702–24, English criminal. Raised in a workhouse, he ran away with Bess Lyon, known as Edgeworth Bess, who, with another girl known as Poll Maggott, incited him to a short but specta...

(Encyclopedia) Stafford, Jean, 1915–79, American writer, b. Covina, Calif., grad. Univ. of Colorado, 1936. Her literary reputation rests primarily on her exquisitely wrought short stories. Both these and her novel...

(Encyclopedia) Remizov, Aleksey Mikhailovich əlyĭksyāˈ mēkhīˈləvĭch rĕˈmēzəf [key], 1877–1957, Russian novelist, short-story writer, and painter. Remizov's emphasis on style, especially his ornamentat...

(Encyclopedia) Strauss, Emil āmēlˈ shtrous [key], 1866–1960, German novelist. His writings exemplify the transition from naturalism to impressionism by containing elements of both. His novel Freund Hein (1902) ...

(Encyclopedia) Robinson, Edward G., 1893–1973, American movie actor, b. Bucharest, Romania, as Emmanuel Goldberg. He made his stage debut in New York City in 1915. A short, tough-looking man, Robinson played both ...

(Encyclopedia) Mackenzie, Sir Alexander, 1764?–1820, Canadian fur trader and explorer, b. Scotland. His family took him to the colony of New York in 1774, and later he was sent to Canada. He entered (c.1779) a Mon...

(Encyclopedia) owl, common name for nocturnal birds of prey found on all continents. Owls superficially resemble short-necked hawks, except that their eyes are directed forward and are surrounded by disks of radiati...

(Encyclopedia) Scotland Yard, headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police. The term is often used, popularly, to refer to one branch, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Named after a short street in Lon...

(Encyclopedia) Platonov, Andrei ändrāˈ plŏˈtənûf [key], 1899–1951, Russian novelist and short-story writer. Platonov's writing focuses on the threat industrialization poses to human and spiritual values. Hi...

(Encyclopedia) Procrustes prōkrŭsˈtēz [key], in Greek mythology, cruel highwayman. He forced passersby to lie on a very long bed and then stretched them to fit it. Some said that he also had a very short bed; to...