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Mrs. Siddons
Sarah Siddons (''née'' Kemble; 5 July 1755 – 8 June 1831) was a Welsh actress, the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century. Contemporaneous critic William Hazlitt dubbed Siddons as "tragedy personified". She was the elder sister of John Philip Kemble, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton, and Elizabeth Whitlock, and the aunt of Fanny Kemble. She was most famous for her portrayal of the Shakespearean character, Lady Macbeth, a character she made her own, as well as for fainting at the sight of the Elgin Marbles in London. The Sarah Siddons Society, founded in 1952, continues to present the Sarah Siddons Award annually in Chicago to a distinguished actress. Background The 18th-century marked the 'emergence of a recognisably modern celebrity culture' and Siddons was at the heart of it. Portraits depicted actresses in aristocratic dress, the recently industrialised newspapers spread actresses' names and images and gossip about their private lives spread thr ...
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Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes. He is credited (with Richard Wilson) as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy. Youth and training He was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woollen goods, and his wife Mary, the sister of the Reverend Humphry Burroughs. One of Gainsborough's brothers, Humphrey, had a faculty for mechanics and was said to have invented the method of condensing steam in a separate ve ...
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Elgin Marbles
The Elgin Marbles (), also known as the Parthenon Marbles ( el, Γλυπτά του Παρθενώνα, lit. "sculptures of the Parthenon"), are a collection of Classical Greek marble sculptures made under the supervision of the architect and sculptor Phidias and his assistants. They are original parts of the Parthenon and other sacred and ceremonial structures built on the Acropolis of Athens in the 5th century BCE. The collection is on display in the British Museum, in the purpose-built Duveen Gallery. The presence of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum is the subject of international controversy. From 1801 to 1812, agents of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed about half of the surviving sculptures of the Parthenon, as well as sculptures from the Propylaea and Erechtheion,''Encyclopædia Britannica'', "Elgin Marbles", 2008, O.Ed. and had them transported by sea to Britain. Elgin argued as his authority for this that he had obtained an official decree (a firman) fro ...
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David Garrick
David Garrick (19 February 1717 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil and friend of Samuel Johnson. He appeared in a number of amateur theatricals, and with his appearance in the title role of Shakespeare's '' Richard III'', audiences and managers began to take notice. Impressed by his portrayals of Richard III and a number of other roles, Charles Fleetwood engaged Garrick for a season at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in the West End. He remained with the Drury Lane company for the next five years and purchased a share of the theatre with James Lacy. This purchase inaugurated 29 years of Garrick's management of the Drury Lane, during which time it rose to prominence as one of the leading theatres in Europe. At his death, three years after his retirement from Drury Lane and the stage, he was given a lavish public funeral ...
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Venice Preserv'd
''Venice Preserv'd'' is an English Restoration play written by Thomas Otway, and the most significant tragedy of the English stage in the 1680s. It was first staged in 1682, with Thomas Betterton as Jaffeir and Elizabeth Barry as Belvidera. The play was soon printed and enjoyed many revivals through to the 1830s. In 2019, the Royal Shakespeare Company staged a modern adaptation, ''Venice Preserved'', at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. Plot Jaffeir, a noble but impoverished Venetian, has secretly married Belvidera, the daughter of a proud senator named Priuli, who has cut off her inheritance. Jaffeir's friend Pierre, a foreign soldier, stokes Jaffeir's resentment and entices him into a plot against the Senate of Venice. Pierre's own reasons for plotting against the Senate revolve around another senator (the corrupt, foolish Antonio) paying for relations with Pierre's mistress, Aquilina. Despite Pierre's complaints, the Senate does nothing about it, explaining that Antonio ...
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Thomas Otway
Thomas Otway (3 March 165214 April 1685) was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for ''Venice Preserv'd'', or ''A Plot Discover'd'' (1682). Life Otway was born at Trotton near Midhurst, the parish of which his father, Humphrey Otway, was at that time curate. Humphrey later became rector of Woolbeding, a neighbouring parish, where Thomas Otway was brought up and expected to commit to priesthood. He was educated at Winchester College, and in 1669 entered Christ Church, Oxford, as a commoner, but left the university without a degree in the autumn of 1672. At Oxford he made the acquaintance of Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland, through whom, he says in the dedication to '' Caius Marius'', he first learned to love books. In London he made acquaintance with Aphra Behn, who in 1672 cast him as the old king in her play, ''Forc'd Marriage, or The Jealous Bridegroom'', at the Dorset Garden Theatre. However, due to severe stage fright, he gave an abysmal performan ...
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Sarah Siddons As Euphrasia In The Grecian Daughter, 1782
Sarah (born Sarai) is a biblical matriarch and prophetess, a major figure in Abrahamic religions. While different Abrahamic faiths portray her differently, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all depict her character similarly, as that of a pious woman, renowned for her hospitality and beauty, the wife and half-sister of Abraham, and the mother of Isaac. Sarah has her feast day on 1 September in the Catholic Church, 19 August in the Coptic Orthodox Church, 20 January in the LCMS, and 12 and 20 December in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the Hebrew Bible Family According to Book of Genesis 20:12, in conversation with the Philistine king Abimelech of Gerar, Abraham reveals Sarah to be both his wife and his half-sister, stating that the two share a father but not a mother. Such unions were later explicitly banned in the Book of Leviticus (). This would make Sarah the daughter of Terah and the half-sister of not only Abraham but Haran and Nahor. She would also have been the aun ...
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Bertie Greatheed
Bertie Greatheed (1759–1826) was an English dramatist, slave owner and landowner. Life Greatheed was born on 19 October 1759, the son of the MP Samuel Greatheed of Guy's Cliffe, near Warwick, and his wife Lady Mary Bertie, daughter of Peregrine Bertie, 2nd Duke of Ancaster. After the deaths of his parents, he inherited Guy's Cliffe Estate in Warwick, which had been bought by his father, and the Caribbean plantation on St Kitts near the capital, Basseterre, which had been established by his grandfather, John Greatheed. He also inherited land in Lincolnshire through his mother's family. The majority of his income in his earlier life came from the St Kitts plantation, although he also had some income from his land holdings in Warwick. He invested his wealth in the development of the Georgian spa town at Leamington Priors, which later became known as Leamington Spa. He owned building plots on either side of what is now the Parade in Leamington, and was a partner in the Royal P ...
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Peregrine Bertie, 2nd Duke Of Ancaster And Kesteven
Peregrine Bertie, 2nd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven (29 April 16861 January 1742), styled The Honourable Peregrine Bertie between 1686 and 1704, Lord Willoughby de Eresby between 1704 and 1715 and Marquess of Lindsey between 1715 and 1723, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1708 until 1715 when he was called to the House of Lords. Early life Bertie was the second and eldest surviving son of Robert Bertie, Lord Willoughby de Eresby (subsequently 4th Earl of Lindsey) and his first wife Mary Wynn, daughter of Sir Richard Wynn, 4th Baronet. He became Lord Willoughby and heir to other titles on the death of his elder brother in 1704. Career At the 1708 British general election Lord Willoughby was returned as a Member of Parliament for Lincolnshire with his father's support. Although his father was a Whig, Willoughby acted as a Tory. He sat on a drafting committee for the Boston church bill, and a committee of inquiry into the laws excluding placemen. He a ...
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Warwick
Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined with Leamington Spa and Whitnash. It has ancient origins and an array of historic buildings, notably from the Medieval, Stuart and Georgian eras. It was a major fortified settlement from the early Middle Ages, the most notable relic of this period being Warwick Castle, a major tourist attraction. Much was destroyed in the Great Fire of Warwick in 1694 and then rebuilt with fine 18th century buildings, such as the Collegiate Church of St Mary and the Shire Hall. The population was estimated at 37,267 at the 2021 Census. History Neolithic Human activity on the site dates back to the Neolithic, when it appears there was a sizable settlement on the Warwick hilltop. Artifacts found include more than 30 shallow pits containing early Neolithic flints and pottery an ...
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Guy's Cliffe
Guy's Cliffe (variously spelled with and without an apostrophe and a final "e") is a hamlet and former civil parish on the River Avon, Warwickshire, River Avon and the Coventry Road between Warwick and Leek Wootton, in the parish of Leek Wootton and Guy's Cliffe, in the Warwick District, Warwick district, in Warwickshire, England, near Old Milverton. In 1961 the parish had a population of 2. Civil parish It is in the civil parish of Leek Wootton and Guy's Cliffe; the latter was ecclesiastically on the same boundaries a minor chapelry. The secular version of the unit (i.e. civil parish) was, for a time, the least populous third-tier local authority in England; from 1 April 1986 it was merged with Leek Wootton to become "Leek Wootton and Guy's Cliffe" civil parish. Guy's Cliffe became a parish in 1858. The name Guy's Cliffe originates from the name of the country house and estate that the land belonged to, which in turn was named after the cliff which the house itself was built on ...
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Kemble Family
Kemble is the name of a family of English actors, who reigned over the English stage for many decades. The most famous were Sarah Siddons (1755–1831) and her brother John Philip Kemble (1757–1823), the two eldest of the twelve children of Roger Kemble (1721–1802), a strolling player and manager of the Warwickshire Company of Comedians, who in 1753 married an actress, Sarah Ward. Roger Kemble was born in Hereford, and was a grand-nephew of Father John Kemble, a recusant Catholic priest, who was hanged in that city in 1679. Three younger children of Roger, Stephen Kemble (1758–1822), Charles Kemble (1775–1854), and Elizabeth Whitlock (1761–1836), were also actors, while Ann Hatton was a novelist. Popular culture In George Henry Harlow's famous painting '' The Court for the Trial of Queen Katharine'' he depicted many of the Kemble family members. The subject of the painting comes from Henry VIII, Act II, Scene iv, and the refutation of Cardinal Wolsey, charged with obt ...
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The Papers Of The Bibliographical Society Of America
The Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) is the oldest learned society in North America dedicated to the study of books and manuscripts as physical objects. Established in 1904, the society promotes bibliographical research and issues bibliographical publications. It holds its annual meeting in New York City in late January, during which time an annual address is presented by a guest speaker followed by three papers from young scholars selected as part of the society's New Scholars Program. It also sponsors lectures, an annual fellowship program, and three prizes for work published in the fields of printing and publishing history. In addition, the society publishes the quarterly ''Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America''. The first issue of what was then called ''The Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of America'' was published in May 1907. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in bibliography, including bibliographers, collectors, librarians, professors, ...
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