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Dot, A Drama In Three Acts
''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). Plot John Peerybingle, a slow but honest carrier, lives contentedly with his beloved wife Dot and their infant son. A teenage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature'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 age 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father John Dickens, John was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years, he returned to school before beginning his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years; wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and nonfiction articles; lectured and performed Penny reading, readings extensively; was a tireless letter writer; and campaigned vigor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English writer and magistrate known for the use of humour and satire in his works. His 1749 comic novel ''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'' was a seminal work in the genre. Along with Samuel Richardson, Fielding is seen as the founder of the traditional English novel. He also played an important role in the history of law enforcement in the United Kingdom, using his authority as a magistrate to found the Bow Street Runners, London's first professional Police, police force. Early life Henry Fielding was born on 22 April 1707 at Sharpham Park, the seat of his mother's family in Sharpham, Somerset. He was the son of Lt.-Gen. Edmund Fielding and Sarah Gould, daughter of Sir Henry Gould. A scion of the Earl of Denbigh, his father was nephew of William Fielding, 3rd Earl of Denbigh. Educated at Eton College, Fielding began a lifelong friendship with William Pitt the Elder. His mother died when he was 11. A suit for custod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surrey Theatre
The Surrey Theatre, London began life in 1782 as the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy, one of the many circuses that provided entertainment of both horsemanship and drama ( hippodrama). It stood in Blackfriars Road, near the junction with Westminster Bridge Road, just south of the River Thames in what is now the London Borough of Southwark. History The ''Royal Circus'' was opened on 4 November 1782 by the composer and songwriter, Charles Dibdin (who coined the term "circus" for that usage), aided by Charles Hughes, a well-known equestrian performer. The entertainments were at first performed by children with the goal of its being a nursery for young actors. Delphini, a celebrated buffo, became manager in 1788 and produced a spectacle including a real stag-hunt. Other animal acts followed, including the popular dog act ''Gelert and Victor'', lecture pieces, pantomimes and local spectacles. The popular comedian John Palmer then managed the theatre until ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Richard Smith
Albert Richard Smith (24 May 181623 May 1860) was an English physician, author, entertainer, and mountaineer. Biography Literary career Smith was born at Chertsey, Surrey. The son of a surgeon, he studied medicine in London and in Paris, and his first literary effort was an account of his life in Paris, which appeared in the ''Mirror''. He gradually abandoned his medical work in favour of writing. Though a journalist rather than a literary figure, he was one of the most popular writers of his time, and a favourite humorist. He was one of the early contributors to '' Punch'' 1842, and was also a regular contributor to Richard Bentley's ''Miscellany'', in whose pages his first and best book, the novel ''The Adventures of Mr Ledbury'', appeared in 1842. His other novels were ''The Fortunes of the Scattergood Family'' (1845), ''The Marchioness of Brinvilliers: The Poisoner of the Seventeenth Century'' (1846), ''The Struggles and Adventures of Christopher Tadpole'' (1848), and ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both authoritarian communism and fascism), and support of democratic socialism. Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella ''Animal Farm'' (1945) and the Utopian and dystopian fiction, dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and ''Homage to Catalonia'' (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as George Orwell bibliograph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of Vladimir Lenin, his death in 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. As the founder and leader of the Bolsheviks, Lenin led the October Revolution which established the world's first socialist state. His government won the Russian Civil War and created a one-party state under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism. Born into a middle-class family in Simbirsk in the Russian Empire, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics after Aleksandr Ulyanov, his brother was executed in 1887 for plotting to assassinate Alexander III of Russia, the tsar. He was expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in student prote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 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. Shakespeare 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, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in Lon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeastern United States. It has an area of and a population of 675,647 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the third-largest city in the Northeastern United States after New York City and Philadelphia. The larger Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area has a population of 4.9 million as of 2023, making it the largest metropolitan area in New England and the Metropolitan statistical area, eleventh-largest in the United States. Boston was founded on Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by English Puritans, Puritan settlers, who named the city after the market town of Boston, Lincolnshire in England. During the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War, Boston was home to several seminal events, incl ... [...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 s ... [...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, forty-five years before the more famous Helen Keller; Bridgman’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 ... [...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 Bridg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plums
A plum is a fruit of some species in ''Prunus'' subg. ''Prunus''''.'' Dried plums are often called prunes, though in the United States they may be labeled as 'dried plums', especially during the 21st century. Plums are likely to have been one of the first fruits domesticated by humans, with origins in East European and Caucasian mountains and China. They were brought to Britain from Asia, and their cultivation has been documented in Andalusia, southern Spain. Plums are a diverse group of species, with trees reaching a height of when pruned. The fruit is a drupe, with a firm and juicy flesh. China is the largest producer of plums, followed by Romania and Serbia. Japanese or Chinese plums dominate the fresh fruit market, while European plums are also common in some regions. Plums can be eaten fresh, dried to make prunes, used in jams, or fermented into wine and distilled into brandy. Plum kernels contain cyanogenic glycosides, but the oil made from them is not commerci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
