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The Cricket On The Hearth
''The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home'' is a novella by Charles Dickens, published by Bradbury and Evans, and released 20 December 1845 with illustrations by Daniel Maclise, John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield and Edwin Henry Landseer. Dickens began writing the book around 17 October 1845 and finished it by 1 December. Like all of Dickens's Christmas books, it was published in book form, not as a serial. Dickens described the novel as "quiet and domestic ..innocent and pretty." It is subdivided into chapters called "Chirps", similar to the "Quarters" of ''The Chimes'' or the "Staves" of ''A Christmas Carol''. It is the third of Dickens's five Christmas books, preceded by ''A Christmas Carol'' (1843) and ''The Chimes'' (1844), and followed by ''The Battle of Life'' (1846) and ''The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain'' (1848). Background In July 1845, Dickens contemplated forming a periodical focusing on the concerns of the home. It was to be called ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guardian Angel (spirit)
A guardian angel is a type of angel that is assigned to protect and guide a particular person, group or nation. Belief in tutelary beings can be traced throughout all antiquity. The idea of angels that guard over people played a major role in Ancient Judaism. In Christianity, the hierarchy of angels was extensively developed in the 5th century by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The theology of angels and tutelary spirits has undergone many changes since the 5th century. The belief is that guardian angels serve to protect whichever person God assigns them to. The idea of a guardian angel is central to the 15th-century book ''The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage'' by Abraham of Worms, a German Cabalist. In 1897, this book was translated into English by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (1854–1918), a co-founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, who styled the guardian angel as the Holy Guardian Angel. Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), the founder of the eso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism. Born to an upper-middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's 1887 execution. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empire's Tsarist government, he devoted the following years to a law degree. He moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior Marxist activist. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye in Siberia for three years, where he married ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna Hall, Susanna, and twins Hamnet Shakespeare, Hamnet and Judith Quiney, Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perkins Institution For The Blind
Perkins School for the Blind, in Watertown, Massachusetts, was founded in 1829 and is the oldest school for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind. Perkins manufactures its own Perkins Brailler, which is used to print embossed, tactile books for the blind; and the Perkins SMART Brailler, a braille teaching tool, at the Perkins Solutions division housed within the Watertown campus's former Howe Press. History Founded in 1829, Perkins was the first school for the blind established in the United States. The school was originally named the New England Asylum for the Blind and was incorporated on March 2, 1829. The name was eventually changed to Perkins School For the Blind. John Dix Fisher first considered the idea of a school for blind children based upon his visits to Paris at the National Institute for the Blind and was inspired to create such a school in Boston, but it was founded by Samuel Gridley Howe, who had also stu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laura Bridgman
Laura Dewey Lynn Bridgman (December 21, 1829 – May 24, 1889) was the first deaf-blind American child to gain a significant education in the English language, twenty years before the more famous Helen Keller; Laura's friend Anne Sullivan became Helen Keller's aide. Bridgman was left deaf-blind at the age of two after contracting scarlet fever. She was educated at the Perkins Institution for the Blind where, under the direction of Samuel Gridley Howe, she learned to read and communicate using Braille and the manual alphabet developed by Charles-Michel de l'Épée. For several years, Bridgman gained celebrity status when Charles Dickens met her during his 1842 American tour and wrote about her accomplishments in his ''American Notes''. Her fame was short-lived, however, and she spent the remainder of her life in relative obscurity, most of it at the Perkins Institute, where she passed her time sewing and reading books in Braille. Early years Bridgman was born in Hanover, New Ham ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Notes
''American Notes for General Circulation'' is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America from January to June 1842. While there he acted as a critical observer of North American society, almost as if returning a status report on their progress. This can be compared to the style of his '' Pictures from Italy'' written four years later, where he wrote far more like a tourist. His American journey was also an inspiration for his novel ''Martin Chuzzlewit''. Having arrived in Boston, he visited Lowell, New York, and Philadelphia, and travelled as far south as Richmond, as far west as St. Louis and as far north as Quebec. The American city he liked best was Boston – "the air was so clear, the houses were so bright and gay. ..The city is a beautiful one, and cannot fail, I should imagine, to impress all strangers very favourably." Further, it was close to the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind where Dickens encountered Laura Bridgman, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plums
A plum is a fruit of some species in ''Prunus'' subg. ''Prunus''''.'' Dried plums are called prunes. History Plums may have been one of the first fruits domesticated by humans. Three of the most abundantly cultivated species are not found in the wild, only around human settlements: ''Prunus domestica'' has been traced to East European and Caucasian mountains, while ''Prunus salicina'' and '' Prunus simonii'' originated in China. Plum remains have been found in Neolithic age archaeological sites along with olives, grapes and figs. According to Ken Albala, plums originated in Iran. They were brought to Britain from Asia. An article on plum tree cultivation in Andalusia (southern Spain) appears in Ibn al-'Awwam's 12th-century agricultural work, ''Book on Agriculture''. Etymology and names The name plum derived from Old English ''plume'' "plum, plum tree", borrowed from Germanic or Middle Dutch, derived from Latin ' and ultimately from Ancient Greek ''proumnon'', itself belie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bonbon
A bonbon is a small chocolate confection. They are usually filled with liqueur or other sweet alcoholic ingredients, and sold wrapped in coloured foil. Ingredients Through the Western world, bonbons are usually small candies but vary by region in their ingredients, flavours, and shape. In France, bonbons have been made with a fruit centre, and may contain brittle, nougat, dragée, or caramel. Other possible fillings include butterscotch, fondant, fudge, ganache, gianduja, marzipan, praline, and truffle. According to French law, a french: bonbon de chocolat, label=none must be at least 25% chocolate and can come in several forms: * a bite-sized chocolate; * an arrangement of different chocolates; * a mixture of chocolate and other edible ingredients. Specifically in the United States, the phrase "Bon Bon" refers to The Hershey Company's trademarked name for a frozen confection made from vanilla ice cream and covered in chocolate. Etymology and history The word "bonbon" arose f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray (; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was a British novelist, author and illustrator. He is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1848 novel '' Vanity Fair'', a panoramic portrait of British society, and the 1844 novel ''The Luck of Barry Lyndon'', which was adapted for a 1975 film by Stanley Kubrick. Biography Thackeray, an only child, was born in Calcutta, British India, where his father, Richmond Thackeray (1 September 1781 – 13 September 1815), was secretary to the Board of Revenue in the East India Company. His mother, Anne Becher (1792–1864), was the second daughter of Harriet Becher and John Harman Becher, who was also a secretary (writer) for the East India Company. His father was a grandson of Thomas Thackeray (1693–1760), headmaster of Harrow School."THACKE ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy'', ''Waverley'', ''Old Mortality'', '' The Heart of Mid-Lothian'' and ''The Bride of Lammermoor'', and the narrative poems '' The Lady of the Lake'' and '' Marmion''. He had a major impact on European and American literature. As an advocate, judge and legal administrator by profession, he combined writing and editing with daily work as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. He was prominent in Edinburgh's Tory establishment, active in the Highland Society, long a president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820–1832), and a vice president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1827–1829). His knowledge of history and literary facility equipped him to establish the historical novel genre as an exemplar of Europ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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