Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Seurat, Georges zhôrzh söräˈ [key], 1859–91, French neoimpressionist painter. He devised the pointillist technique of painting in tiny dots of pure color. His method, called divisionism, was a s...

(Encyclopedia) Büchner, Georg gāˈôrk bükhˈnər [key], 1813–37, German dramatist. He was a student of medicine and a political agitator. He died at the age of 24, leaving a powerful drama, Danton's Death (183...

(Encyclopedia) Ely, Richard Theodore ēˈlē [key], 1854–1943, American economist, b. Ripley, N.Y., grad. Columbia, 1876, Ph.D. Heidelberg, 1879. He taught at Johns Hopkins (1881–92), the Univ. of Wisconsin (189...

(Encyclopedia) Grace, 1929–82, princess consort of Monaco, b. Philadelphia as Grace Patricia Kelly. She acted on stage and television in New York, and made her film debut in 1951. Cool, blonde, and patrician, she ...

(Encyclopedia) Munro, Alice, 1931–, Canadian writer, b. Wingham, Ont., as Alice Ann Laidlaw. Much acclaimed as one of the finest contemporary short-story writers, Munro is known for quiet, insightfully realistic, ...

(Encyclopedia) Nijinsky, Vaslav vəsläfˈ nyĭzhēnˈskē [key], 1890–1950, Russian ballet dancer and choreographer; brother of Bronislava Nijinska. Nijinsky is widely considered the greatest dancer of the 20th c...

(Encyclopedia) bond, in finance, usually a formal certificate of indebtedness issued in writing by governments or business corporations in return for loans. It bears interest and promises to pay a certain sum of mon...

(Encyclopedia) Crane, Hart (Harold Hart Crane), 1899–1932, American poet, b. Garrettsville, Ohio. He published only two volumes of poetry during his lifetime, but those works established Crane as one of the most o...

(Encyclopedia) Thomson, James, 1700–1748, Scottish poet. Educated at Edinburgh, he went to London, took a post as tutor, and became acquainted with such literary celebrities as Gay, Arbuthnot, and Pope. His most f...

(Encyclopedia) Gielgud, Sir John (Arthur John Gielgud) gĭlˈgo͝od [key], 1904–2000, English actor, director, and producer. A grandnephew of Ellen Terry, Gielgud made his debut at the Old Vic in 1921. His intelli...