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Francis Marion Crawford
Francis Marion Crawford (August 2, 1854 – April 9, 1909) was an American writer noted for his many novels, especially those set in Italy, and for his classic weird and fantastical stories. Early life Crawford was born in Bagni di Lucca, in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, on August 2, 1854. He was the only son of the American sculptor Thomas Crawford and Louisa Cutler Ward. His sister was the writer Mary Crawford Fraser (''aka'' Mrs. Hugh Fraser), and he was the nephew of Julia Ward Howe, the American poet. After his father's death in 1857, his mother remarried to Luther Terry, with whom she had Crawford's half-sister, Margaret Ward Terry, who later became the wife of Winthrop Astor Chanler. He studied successively at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire; Cambridge University; University of Heidelberg; and the University of Rome. In 1879, he went to India, where he studied Sanskrit and edited in Allahabad ''The Indian Herald''. Returning to America in February 1881, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bagni Di Lucca
Bagni di Lucca (formerly Bagno a Corsena) is a comune of Tuscany, Italy, in the Province of Lucca with a population of about 6,100. The comune has 27 named frazioni (wards). History Bagni di Lucca has been known for its thermal springs since the Etruscan and Roman ages. The place was noted for the first time in an official document of 983 AD as "Corsena", with reference to a donation by the Bishop Teudogrimo of the territory of Bagni di Lucca to Fraolmo of Corvaresi. The area is rich in chestnut forests, mentioned by the Roman poet Virgil. Some of the earliest accounts of occupation were by the Lombards. Their leader Alboin occupied the whole Serchio Valley for many years, building guard towers that were later converted to churches. One of them is Pieve di Controne. Between the 10th and 11th centuries, the village became a feudal property of the Suffredinghi, then the Porcareschi, and later the Lupari families. In the 12th century, the commune of Lucca occupied the territory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Critic
''The Critic'' was an American primetime adult animated sitcom revolving around the life of New York film critic Jay Sherman, voiced by Jon Lovitz. It was created by writing partners Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who had previously worked as writers and showrunners on seasons 3 and 4 of ''The Simpsons''. ''The Critic'' had 23 episodes produced, first broadcast on ABC in 1994, and finishing its original run on Fox in 1995. Episodes featured film parodies with notable examples including a musical version of ''Apocalypse Now''; '' Howard Stern's End'' (''Howards End''); ''Honey, I Ate the Kids'' (''Honey, I Shrunk the Kids/ The Silence of the Lambs''); ''The Cockroach King'' (''The Lion King''); ''Abe Lincoln: Pet Detective'' ('' Ace Ventura: Pet Detective''); and ''Scent of a Jackass'' and ''Scent of a Wolfman'' ('' Scent of a Woman'').. The show often referenced popular films such as ''Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory'' and ''The Godfather'', and routinely lampooned actor Marlon Bra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genie
Jinn ( ar, , ') – also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources) – are invisible creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian religious systems and later in Islamic mythology and theology. Like humans, they are accountable for their deeds, can be either believers (''Muslim'') or unbelievers (''kafir''); depending on whether they accept God's guidance. Since jinn are neither innately evil nor innately good, Islam acknowledged spirits from other religions and was able to adapt spirits from other religions during its expansion. Jinn are not a strictly Islamic concept; they may represent several pagan beliefs integrated into Islam. To assert a strict monotheism and the Islamic concept of ''Tauhid'', Islam denies all affinities between the jinn and God, thus placing the jinn parallel to humans, also subject to God's judgment and afterlife. The Quran condemns the pre-Islamic Arabian practise of worshipping the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Tale Of Arabia
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seal Of The Confessional And The Catholic Church
In the Catholic Church, the Seal of Confession (also known as the Seal of the Confessional or the Sacramental Seal) is the absolute duty of priests or anyone who happens to hear a confession not to disclose anything that they learn from penitents during the course of the Sacrament of Penance (confession). Even where the seal of confession does not strictly apply – where there is no specific serious sin confessed for the purpose of receiving absolution – priests have a serious obligation not to cause scandal by the way they speak. History Ecumenical councils Canon 21 of the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215), binding on the whole church, laid down the obligation of secrecy in the following words: Gratian, who compiled the edicts of previous Catholic Ecumenical Councils and the principles of church law, published the '' Decretum'' about 1151. It includes the following declaration of the law as to the seal of confession: "Let the priest who dares to make known the sins of hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sicilian Mafia
The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia-terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily and dating to at least the 19th century. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organisational structure and code of conduct and honor and present themselves to the public under a common brand. The basic group is known as a "family", "clan", or ''cosca''. Each family claims sovereignty over a territory, usually a town or village or a neighbourhood (''borgata'') of a larger city, in which it operates its rackets. Its members call themselves " men of honour", although the public often refers to them as ''mafiosi''. By the 20th century, following wide-scale emigration from Sicily, mafiosi established gangs in North and South America which replicate the traditions and methods of their Sicilian ancestors. The Mafia's co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saracinesca
''Saracinesca'' is a novel by F. Marion Crawford, first published as a serial in ''Blackwood's Magazine'' and then as a book in New York ('' Macmillan'') and Edinburgh (''Blackwood'') in 1887. Set chiefly in Rome of twenty years earlier, the novel paints a rich picture of the period, detailing the spiritual and economic problems of the aristocracy at a time when its influence and status were under attack from the emerging forces of modernity. This romance tells the tale of Giovanni Saracinesca and his courting of Corona d'Astradente, complete with intrigue and sword fights (Crawford was an expert fencer). It can be categorized as a work of historical fiction in that it relates a time when the author was only a child, and also in the sense that the particulars of that time and place are carefully delineated. In a sense, Crawford had been researching for this book all his life: his parents had witnessed the brief 1848 revolution, and his cousin, in her memoirs of Crawford, insisted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Gissing
George Robert Gissing (; 22 November 1857 – 28 December 1903) was an English novelist, who published 23 novels between 1880 and 1903. His best-known works have reappeared in modern editions. They include ''The Nether World'' (1889), ''New Grub Street'' (1891) and '' The Odd Women'' (1893). Biography Early life Gissing was born on 22 November 1857 in Wakefield, Yorkshire, the eldest of five children of Thomas Waller Gissing, who ran a chemist's shop, and Margaret (née Bedford). His siblings were: William, who died aged twenty; Algernon, who became a writer; Margaret; and Ellen.Pierre Coustillas,Gissing, George Robert (1857–1903) (), ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', online), Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 17 June 2012. His childhood home in Thompson's Yard, Wakefield, is maintained by The Gissing Trust. Gissing was educated at Back Lane School in Wakefield, where he was a diligent and enthusiastic student. His serious interest in books began at the age o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Marion Crawford
Francis Marion Crawford (August 2, 1854 – April 9, 1909) was an American writer noted for his many novels, especially those set in Italy, and for his classic weird and fantastical stories. Early life Crawford was born in Bagni di Lucca, in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, on August 2, 1854. He was the only son of the American sculptor Thomas Crawford and Louisa Cutler Ward. His sister was the writer Mary Crawford Fraser (''aka'' Mrs. Hugh Fraser), and he was the nephew of Julia Ward Howe, the American poet. After his father's death in 1857, his mother remarried to Luther Terry, with whom she had Crawford's half-sister, Margaret Ward Terry, who later became the wife of Winthrop Astor Chanler. He studied successively at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire; Cambridge University; University of Heidelberg; and the University of Rome. In 1879, he went to India, where he studied Sanskrit and edited in Allahabad ''The Indian Herald''. Returning to America in February 1881, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Macmillan Company
Macmillan Inc. is a defunct American book publishing company. Originally established as the American division of the British Macmillan Publishers, the two were later separated and acquired by other companies, with the remnants of the original American division of Macmillan present in McGraw-Hill Education's Macmillan/McGraw-Hill textbooks, Gale's Macmillan Reference USA division, and some trade imprints of Simon & Schuster that were transferred when both companies were owned by Paramount Communications. The German publisher Holtzbrinck, which bought the British Macmillan in 1999, purchased US rights to the Macmillan name in 2001 and rebranded its American division with it in 2007. History Brett family George Edward Brett opened the first Macmillan office in the United States in 1869 and Macmillan sold its U.S. operations to the Brett family, George Platt Brett Sr. and George Platt Brett Jr. in 1896, resulting in the creation of an American company, Macmillan Publishing. Even wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, the BSO performs most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at Tanglewood. Since its founding, the orchestra has had 17 music directors, including George Henschel, Serge Koussevitzky, Henri Rabaud, Pierre Monteux, Charles Munch, Erich Leinsdorf, William Steinberg and James Levine. Andris Nelsons is the current music director of the BSO. Seiji Ozawa has the title of BSO music director laureate. Bernard Haitink had held the title of principal guest conductor of the BSO from 1995 to 2004, then conductor emeritus until his death in 2021. The orchestra has made gramophone recordings since 1917 and has occasionally played on soundtrack recordings for films, including ''Schindler's List''. History Early year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Henschel
Sir Isidor George Henschel (18 February 185010 September 1934) was a German-born British baritone, pianist, conductor, and composer. His first wife Lillian was also a singer. He was the first conductor of both the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Biography Henschel was born at Breslau, in Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia (now Wrocław, Poland) and educated as a pianist, making his first public appearance in Berlin in 1862. He subsequently took up singing, initially and briefly as a ''basso profundo'' but developing a fine baritone voice. In 1868, he sang the part of Hans Sachs in a concert performance of ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'' at Munich. With one minor and unplanned exception, he never sang on stage, confining himself to concert appearances. He was a close friend of Johannes Brahms, whom he met in May 1874 at the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in Cologne, where Henschel sang the role of Harapha in Handel's oratorio ''Samson''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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