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Long Barn
Long Barn, located in the village of Sevenoaks Weald, Kent, is a Grade II* listed building and a Grade II* registered garden. Reputedly the birthplace of William Caxton, the house was later the home of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. During their ownership, the house is also notable for famous residents such as Douglas Fairbanks and Charles Lindbergh. History Long Barn is thought to date in part from the mid-fourteenth century, at which time this substantial house was divided into farm workers' accommodation. The printer William Caxton is said to have been born at the house. By the nineteenth century it had been restored and extended by the addition of a long barn, hence the name of the house, which was moved to the site from the field below. Restoration work was started by the Thompsons and later continued by the diplomat Harold Nicolson and his wife, writer Vita Sackville-West, who lived there until 1931. A formal garden was begun by Sackville-West and Nicolson when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Caxton
William Caxton ( – ) was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, in 1476, and as a printer (publisher), printer to be the first English retailer of printed books. His parentage and date of birth are not known for certain, but he may have been born between 1415 and 1424, perhaps in the Weald or wood land of Kent, perhaps in Hadlow or Tenterden. In 1438 he was apprenticed to Robert Large, a wealthy London silk Mercery, mercer. Shortly after Large's death, Caxton moved to Bruges, Belgium, a wealthy cultured city in which he was settled by 1450. Successful in business, he became governor of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London; on his business travels, he observed the new printing industry in Cologne, which led him to start a printing press in Bruges in collaboration with Colard Mansion. When Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV, married the Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, they moved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bloomsbury Group
The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strachey. This loose collective of friends and relatives was closely associated with the University of Cambridge for the men and King's College London for the women, and they lived, worked or studied together near Bloomsbury, London. According to Ian Ousby, "although its members denied being a group in any formal sense, they were united by an abiding belief in the importance of the arts."Ousby, p. 95 Their works and outlook deeply influenced literature, aesthetics, criticism, and economics as well as modern attitudes towards feminism, pacifism, and Human sexuality, sexuality. A well-known quote, attributed to Dorothy Parker, is "they lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles". Origins All male members of the Bloomsbury Gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Spencer Morrow Lindbergh (June 22, 1906 – February 7, 2001) was an American writer and aviator. She was the wife of decorated pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh, with whom she made many exploratory flights. Raised in Englewood, New Jersey, and later New York City, Anne Morrow graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1928. She married Charles in 1929, and in 1930 became the first woman to receive a U.S. glider pilot license. Throughout the early 1930s, she served as radio operator and copilot to Charles on multiple exploratory flights and aerial surveys. Following the 1932 kidnapping and murder of their first-born infant child, Anne and Charles moved to Europe in 1935 to escape the American press and hysteria surrounding the case, where their views shifted during the preliminary time of World War II towards an alleged sympathy for Nazi Germany and a concern for the United States’ ability to compete with Germany in the war with their opposing air ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lindbergh Kidnapping
On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (born June 22, 1930), the 20-month-old son of aviators Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields (Amwell and Hopewell, New Jersey), Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, United States. On May 12, the child's corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road. In September 1934, a German immigrant carpenter named Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested for the crime. After a trial that lasted from January 2 to February 13, 1935, he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Despite his conviction, he continued to profess his innocence, but all appeals failed and he was executed in the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison on April 3, 1936. Newspaper writer H. L. Mencken called the kidnapping and trial "the biggest story since the Resurrection of Jesus, Resurrection". Legal scholars have referred to the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. His father was absent and his mother struggled financially — he was sent to a workhouse twice before age nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19, he was signed to the Fred Karno company, which took him to the United States. He was scouted for the film industry and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Violet Trefusis
Violet Trefusis (''née'' Keppel; 6 June 1894 – 29 February 1972) was an English socialite and author. She is chiefly remembered for her lengthy affair with the writer Vita Sackville-West that both women continued after their respective marriages. It was featured in novels by both parties; in Virginia Woolf's novel '' Orlando: A Biography''; and in many letters and memoirs of the period roughly from 1912 to 1922. She may have been the inspiration for aspects of the character Lady Montdore in Nancy Mitford's ''Love in a Cold Climate'' and of Muriel in Harold Acton's ''The Soul's Gymnasium'' (1982). Trefusis herself wrote many novels, as well as non-fiction works, both in English and in French. Although some of her books sold well, others went unpublished, and her overall critical heritage remains lukewarm. Early life Born Violet Keppel, she was the daughter of Alice Keppel, who was married to George Keppel, a son of the 7th Earl of Albemarle. Members of the Keppel family tho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rosamund Grosvenor
The name Rosamund (, also spelled Rosamond and Rosamunde) is a feminine given name and can also be a family name (surname). Originally it combined the Germanic elements ''hros'', meaning ''horse'', and ''mund'', meaning "protection". Later, it was influenced by the Latin phrases ''rosa munda'', meaning "pure rose", and ''rosa mundi'', meaning "rose of the world". Ultimately quoting ''Dives et pauper'', London, 1493. "Rosamunda" is the Italian, "Rosamunde" is the German and "Rosemonde" the French form of the name. People named Rosamund include: * Rosamund (wife of Alboin) (''fl.'' sixth century), second wife of Alboin, King of the Germanic Lombards * Rosamund Bartlett, American writer, scholar, translator and lecturer specializing in Russian literature * Rosamund Clifford (before 1150–c. 1176), medieval beauty and longtime mistress of King Henry II * Rosamund Greenwood (1907–1997), British actress * Rosamund John (1913–1998), English actress * Rosamund Kwan (born 1962), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Campbell (poet)
Ignatius Royston Dunnachie Campbell, better known as Roy Campbell (2 October 1901 – 23 April 1957), was a South African poet, literary critic, literary translator, war poet, and satirist. Born into a White South African family of Scottish descent in Durban, Colony of Natal, Campbell was sent to England to attend Oxford University. Instead, Campbell drifted into London's literary bohemia. Following his marriage to bohemian Mary Garman, Campbell wrote the well-received poem ''The Flaming Terrapin'' which brought the Campbells into the highest circles of British literature. After supporting racial equality during a stay in South Africa as editor of the literary magazine ''Voorslag'', Campbell returned to England and became involved with the Bloomsbury Group. Campbell ultimately decided that the Bloomsbury Group was snobbish, promiscuous, nihilistic, and anti-Christian. Campbell lampooned them in a mock-epic poem called ''The Georgiad'', which damaged Campbell's reputation in l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Walpole
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (13 March 18841 June 1941) was an English novelist. He was the son of an Anglican clergyman, intended for a career in the church but drawn instead to writing. Among those who encouraged him were the authors Henry James and Arnold Bennett. His skill at scene-setting and vivid plots, as well as his high profile as a lecturer, brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s but has been largely neglected since his death. After his debut novel, first novel, ''The Wooden Horse'', in 1909, Walpole wrote prolifically, producing at least one book every year. He was a spontaneous story-teller, writing quickly to get all his ideas on paper, seldom revising. His first novel to achieve major success was his third, ''Mr Perrin and Mr Traill'', a tragicomic story of a fatal clash between two schoolmasters. During the First World War he served ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ''Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit. His biography ''Queen Victoria'' (1921) was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Early life and education Youth Strachey was born on 1 March 1880 at Stowey House, Clapham Common, London, the fifth son and eleventh child of Lieutenant General Sir Richard Strachey, an officer in the British colonial armed forces, and his second wife, the former Jane Grant, who became a leading supporter of the women's suffrage movement. He was named "Giles Lytton" after an early sixteenth-century Gyles Strachey and the first Earl of Lytton, who had been a friend of Richard Strachey's when he was Viceroy of India in the late 1870s. The Earl of Lytton was also Lytton Strachey's godfather.Charles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clive Bell
Arthur Clive Heward Bell (16 September 1881 – 17 September 1964) was an English art critic, associated with formalism and the Bloomsbury Group. He developed the art theory known as significant form. Biography Origins Bell was born in East Shefford, Berkshire, in 1881, the third of four children of William Heward Bell (1849–1927) and Hannah Taylor Cory (1850–1942). He had an elder brother (Cory), an elder sister (Lorna, Mrs Acton), and a younger sister (Dorothy, Mrs Hony). His father was a civil engineer who built his fortune in the family coal mines in Wiltshire in England and Merthyr Tydfil in Wales – "a family which drew its wealth from Welsh mines and expended it on the destruction of wild animals." They lived at Cleeve House, Seend, near Devizes, Wiltshire, where Squire Bell's many hunting trophies were displayed. Marriage and other liaisons Bell was educated at Marlborough College and at Trinity College, Cambridge, studying history. In 1902 he gained an Earl of ... [...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] |
