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Jean Ross
Jean Iris Ross Cockburn ( ; 7 May 1911 – 27 April 1973) was a British writer, political activist, and film critic. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), she was a war correspondent for the ''Daily Express'' and is thought to have been a press agent for the Comintern. A skilled writer, Ross worked as a film critic for the ''Daily Worker'' and her criticisms of early Soviet cinema were later described as ingenious works of " dialectical sophistry". Throughout her life, she wrote political criticism, anti-fascist polemics, and manifestos for a number of disparate organisations such as the British Workers' Film and Photo League. She was a devout Stalinist and a lifelong member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. During her itinerant youth in the Weimar Republic, Ross was a cabaret singer in Berlin. Her Berlin escapades inspired the heroine in Christopher Isherwood's 1937 novella ''Sally Bowles'' which was later collected in ''Goodbye to Berlin'', a work cited by litera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria grew rapidly and became a major centre of Hellenic civilisation, eventually replacing Memphis, in present-day Greater Cairo, as Egypt's capital. During the Hellenistic period, it was home to the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which ranked among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, as well as the storied Library of Alexandria. Today, the library is reincarnated in the disc-shaped, ultramodern Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Its 15th-century seafront Qaitbay Citadel is now a museum. Called the "Bride of the Mediterranean" by locals, Alexandria is a popular tourist destination and an important industrial centre due to its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. The city extends about along the northern coast of Egypt, and is the largest city on t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Porcupine
William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restrain foreign activity, and raise wages, with the goal of easing poverty among farm labourers and small land holders. Cobbett backed lower taxes, saving, reversing commons enclosures and resisting the 1821 gold standard. He opposed borough-mongers, sinecurists, bureaucratic "tax-eaters" and stockbrokers. His radicalism furthered the Reform Act 1832 and gained him one of two newly created seats in Parliament for the borough of Oldham. His polemics range from political reform to religion, including Catholic emancipation. His best known book is ''Rural Rides'' (1830, in print). He argued against Malthusianism, saying economic betterment could support global population growth. Early life (1763–1791) William Cobbett was born in Farnham, Surrey, on 9 Mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You)
"These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)" is a standard with lyrics by Eric Maschwitz, writing under the pseudonym Holt Marvell, and music by Jack Strachey, both Englishmen. Harry Link, an American, sometimes appears as a co-writer; his input was probably limited to an alternative "middle eight" (bridge) which many performers prefer. It is one of a group of "Mayfair songs", like "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square". Maschwitz wrote the song under his pen name, Holt Marvell, at the behest of Joan Carr for a late-evening revue broadcast by the BBC. The copyright was lodged in 1936. According to the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', British cabaret singer Jean Ross, with whom Maschwitz had a youthful liaison, was the muse for the song. Creation Although Maschwitz's wife Hermione Gingold speculated in her autobiography that the haunting jazz standard was written for either herself or actress Anna May Wong, Maschwitz himself contradicted such claims. Maschwitz inste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford Dictionary Of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and online, with 50,113 biographical articles covering 54,922 lives. First series Hoping to emulate national biographical collections published elsewhere in Europe, such as the '' Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (1875), in 1882 the publisher George Smith (1824–1901), of Smith, Elder & Co., planned a universal dictionary that would include biographical entries on individuals from world history. He approached Leslie Stephen, then editor of the ''Cornhill Magazine'', owned by Smith, to become the editor. Stephen persuaded Smith that the work should focus only on subjects from the United Kingdom and its present and former colonies. An early working title was the ''Biographia Britannica'', the name of an earlier eightee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Berlin Stories
''The Berlin Stories'' is a 1945 anthology by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood consisting of two novels: ''Mr Norris Changes Trains'' (1935) and ''Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939). The two novels are set in Jazz Age Berlin between 1930 and 1933 on the cusp of Adolf Hitler's ascent to power. Berlin is portrayed by Isherwood during this chaotic interwar period as a carnival of debauchery and despair inhabited by desperate people who are unaware of the national catastrophe that awaits them. The first novel in the anthology focuses upon the misadventures of Arthur Norris, a character based upon an unscrupulous businessman named Gerald Hamilton whom Isherwood met in the Weimar Republic. The second novel recounts the travails of various Berlin denizens whose lives are directly or indirectly affected by the Nazis' rise to power. Isherwood based the character of Sally Bowles on teenage cabaret singer Jean Ross, Isherwood's intimate friend during his sojourn in Berlin. The anth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cabaret (musical)
''Cabaret'' is a 1966 musical theatre, musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and book by Joe Masteroff. The musical was based on John Van Druten's 1951 play ''I Am a Camera'' which was adapted from ''Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood which drew upon his experiences in the poverty-stricken Weimar Republic and his intimate friendship with nineteen-year-old cabaret singer Jean Ross. Set in 1929–1930 Berlin during the twilight of the Jazz Age as the Nazi Party, Nazis are ascending to power, the musical focuses on the hedonistic nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub and revolves around American writer Clifford Bradshaw's relations with English cabaret performer Sally Bowles. A subplot involves the doomed romance between German boarding house owner Fräulein Schneider and her elderly suitor Herr Schultz, a Anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany, Jewish fruit vendor. Overseeing the action ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the United States Library of Congress in 1965. Early life Spender was born in Kensington, London, to journalist Harold Spender and Violet Hilda Schuster, a painter and poet, of German Jewish heritage. He went first to Hall School in Hampstead and then at 13 to Gresham's School, Holt and later Charlecote School in Worthing, but he was unhappy there. On the death of his mother, he was transferred to University College School (Hampstead), which he later described as "that gentlest of schools". Spender left for Nantes and Lausanne and then went up to University College, Oxford (much later, in 1973, he was made an honorary fellow). Spender said at various times throughout his life that he never passed any exam. Perhaps his closest friend and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goodbye To Berlin
''Goodbye to Berlin'' is a 1939 novel by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood set during the waning days of the Weimar Republic. The novel recounts Isherwood's 1929–1932 sojourn as a pleasure-seeking British expatriate on the eve of Adolf Hitler's ascension as Chancellor of Germany and consists of a "series of sketches of disintegrating Berlin, its slums and nightclubs and comfortable villas, its odd maladapted types and its complacent burghers." The novel's plot recounts factual events in Isherwood's life, and most of the novel's characters were based upon actual persons. The insouciant flapper Sally Bowles was based on teenage cabaret singer Jean Ross who became Isherwood's intimate friend during his sojourn and, after an unplanned pregnancy, she had a near-fatal abortion which the shy gay author facilitated. While Ross recovered from the abortion procedure, the political situation rapidly deteriorated in Germany. As Berlin's daily scenes featured "poverty, unemplo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sally Bowles
Sally Bowles () is a fictional character created by English-American novelist Christopher Isherwood and based upon 19-year-old cabaret singer Jean Ross. The character debuted in Isherwood's 1937 novella ''Sally Bowles'' published by Hogarth Press, and commentators have described the novella as "one of Isherwood's most accomplished pieces of writing." The work was republished in the 1939 novel ''Goodbye to Berlin'' and in the 1945 anthology ''The Berlin Stories''. In the 1937 novella, Sally is a British flapper who moonlights as a cabaret singer in Weimar culture, Weimar-era Berlin during the twilight of the Jazz Age. She is depicted by Isherwood as a "self-indulgent upper-middle-class British tourist who could escape Berlin whenever she chose." By day, she is an aspiring film actress hoping to work for the UFA GmbH, the German film production company. By night, she is a mediocre chanteuse at an underground club called ''The Lady Windermere'' located near the Tauentzienstraße. She ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts. Definition The Italian term is a feminine of ''novello'', which means ''new'', similarly to the English word ''news''. Merriam-Webster defines a novella as "a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel". No official definition exists regarding the number of pages or words necessary for a story to be considered a novella, a short story or a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association defines a novella's word count to be between 17,500 and 40,000 words. History The novella as a literary genre began developing in the Italian literature of the early Renaissance, principally Giovanni Boccaccio, author of ''The Decameron'' (1353). ''The Decameron'' featured 100 tales (named nov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel which inspired the musical ''Cabaret''; ''A Single Man'' (1964), adapted as a film by Tom Ford in 2009; and '' Christopher and His Kind'' (1976), a memoir which "carried him into the heart of the Gay Liberation movement". Biography Early life and work Isherwood was born in 1904 on his family's estate in Cheshire near Stockport in the north-west of England. He was the elder son of Francis Edward Bradshaw Isherwood (1869–1915), known as Frank, a professional soldier in the York and Lancaster Regiment, and Kathleen Bradshaw Isherwood, nee Machell Smith (1868–1960), the only daughter of a successful wine merchant. He was the grandson of John Henry Isherwood, squire of Marple Hall and Wyberslegh Hall, Cheshire, and he included ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic (german: Deutsche Republik, link=no, label=none). The state's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar, which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English, the republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" (a term introduced by Adolf Hitler in 1929) not commonly used until the 1930s. Following the devastation of the First World War (1914–1918), Germany was exhausted and sued for peace in desperate circumstances. Awareness of imminent defeat sparked a revolution, the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, formal surrender to the Allies, and the proclamation of the Weimar Republic on 9 November 1918. In its i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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