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Jane Porter
Jane Porter (3 December 1775 – 24 May 1850) was an English historical novelist, dramatist and literary figure. Her bestselling novels, ''Thaddeus of Warsaw'' (1803) and ''The Scottish Chiefs'' (1810) are seen as among the earliest historical novels in a modern style and among the first to become bestsellers. They were abridged and remained popular among children well into the twentieth century. Life Jane Porter was born in Durham, England, the third of five children of the Irishman William Porter and Jane (''née'' Blenkinsop) of Durham. Tall and beautiful as she grew up, young Jane Porter's grave air earned her the nickname ''Il Penseroso'', after John Milton's poem. After her father's death, Jane's family moved to Edinburgh, where she studied at a charity school under the schoolmaster George Fulton. Her family was acquainted with Sir Walter Scott. After stints in Durham and Ireland, the Porter family moved to London in the 1790s, where the sisters entered a circle of famous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Durham, England
Durham ( , locally ), is a cathedral city and civil parish on the River Wear, County Durham, England. It is an administrative centre of the County Durham District, which is a successor to the historic County Palatine of Durham (which is different to both the ceremonial county and district of County Durham). The settlement was founded over the final resting place of St Cuthbert. Durham Cathedral was a centre of pilgrimage in medieval England while the Durham Castle has been the home of Durham University since 1832. Both built in 11th-century, the buildings were designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986. HM Prison Durham is also located close to the city centre and was built in 1816. Name The name "Durham" comes from the Brythonic element , signifying a hill fort and related to -ton, and the Old Norse , which translates to island.Surtees, R. (1816) ''History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham'' (Classical County Histories) The Lord Bishop of Durh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Ker Porter
Sir Robert Ker Porter, KCH (1777–1842) was a Scottish artist, author, diplomat and traveller. Known today for his accounts of his travels in Russia, Spain, and Persia, he was one of the earliest panorama painters in Britain, was appointed historical painter to Tsar Alexander I of Russia and served as British consul in Venezuela. Early life Porter was born in Durham in 1777, one of the five children of the Scot William Porter, an army surgeon. His sisters were the writers Jane Porter and Anna Maria Porter. His father died in 1779, and the following year his mother took him to Edinburgh, although he attended Durham School. He decided that he wanted to become a painter of battle scenes, and in 1790 his mother took him to see Benjamin West, who thought enough of his sketches to procure him admission as a student at the Royal Academy. In 1792 he received a silver palette from the Society of Arts for a drawing entitled ''The Witch of Endor''. In 1793, he was commissioned to paint ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dixon Denham
Dixon Denham (1 January 17869 June 1828) was an English soldier, explorer of West Central Africa, and ultimately Governor of Sierra Leone. Early life Dixon Denham was born at Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, London on New Year's Day, 1786, the son of James Denham, a haberdasher, and his wife Eleanor, née Symonds.Fyfe, C.: Denham, Dixon, in Harrison, B. (ed.) (2004). ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Vol. 15. Oxford University Press. The youngest of their three sons, Denham was educated at Merchant Taylors' School from 1794 to 1800; on leaving he was articled to a solicitor, but joined the army in 1811.Cunningham, G. G. (1837). ''Lives of eminent and illustrious Englishmen''. Vol. VII, 1837. Fullarton, Glasgow. Military career Initially in the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers, and later the 54th Foot, Denham served in the campaigns in Portugal, Spain, France, and Belgium, receiving the Waterloo Medal. Endnotes: *See ''Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios (24 July 1783 – 17 December 1830) was a Venezuelan military and political leader who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire. He is known colloquially as '' El Libertador'', or the ''Liberator of America''. Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas in the Captaincy General of Venezuela into a wealthy criollo family. Before he turned ten, he lost both parents and lived in several households. Bolívar was educated abroad and lived in Spain, as was common for men of upper-class families in his day. While living in Madrid from 1800 to 1802, he was introduced to Enlightenment philosophy and met his future wife María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaysa. After returning to Venezuela, in 1803 del Toro contracted yellow fever and died. From 1803 to 1805, Bolívar embarked on a grand tour that ended in Rome, where he swore to end ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter The Great
Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from to 1721 and subsequently the Russian Empire until his death in 1725, jointly ruling with his elder half-brother, Ivan V until 1696. He is primarily credited with the modernisation of the country, transforming it into a European power. Through a number of successful wars, he captured ports at Azov and the Baltic Sea, laying the groundwork for the Imperial Russian Navy, ending uncontested Swedish supremacy in the Baltic and beginning the Tsardom's expansion into a much larger empire that became a major European power. He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernised and based on the Enlightenment. Peter's reforms had a lasting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586, it is the second oldest university press after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics known as the Delegates of the Press, who are appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates of the Press are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho. For the last 500 years, OUP has primarily focused on the publication of pedagogical texts and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samson Penley
Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution of the monarchy. He is sometimes considered as an Israelite version of the popular Near Eastern folk hero also embodied by the Sumerian Enkidu and the Greek Heracles. The biblical account states that Samson was a Nazirite, and that he was given immense strength to aid him against his enemies and allow him to perform superhuman feats, including slaying a lion with his bare hands and massacring an entire army of Philistines using only the jawbone of a donkey. However, if Samson's long hair were cut, then his Nazirite vow would be violated and he would lose his strength. Samson is betrayed by his lover Delilah, who, sent by the Philistines officials to entice him, orders a servant to cut his hair while he is sleeping and turns him over to hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean (4 November 178715 May 1833) was a celebrated British Shakespearean stage actor born in England, who performed, among other places, in London, Belfast, New York, Quebec, and Paris. He was known for his short stature, tumultuous personal life, and controversial divorce. Biography Early life Kean was born in Westminster, London. His father was probably Edmund Kean, an architect's clerk, and his mother was an actress, Anne Carey, daughter of the 18th-century composer and playwright Henry Carey. Kean made his first appearance on the stage, aged four, as Cupid in Jean-Georges Noverre's ballet of ''Cymon''. As a child his vivacity, cleverness and ready affection made him a universal favorite, but his harsh circumstances and lack of discipline, both helped develop self-reliance and fostered wayward tendencies. About 1794 a few benevolent persons paid for him to go to school, where he did well; but finding the restraint intolerable, he shipped as a cabin boy at Po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Lithuania ruled by a common Monarchy, monarch in real union, who was both King of Poland and List of Lithuanian monarchs, Grand Duke of Lithuania. It was one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th- to 17th-century Europe. At its largest territorial extent, in the early 17th century, the Commonwealth covered almost and as of 1618 sustained a multi-ethnic population of almost 12 million. Polish language, Polish and Latin were the two co-official languages. The Commonwealth was established by the Union of Lublin in July 1569, but the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had been in a ''de facto'' personal union since 1386 with the marriage of the Polish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thaddeus Of Warsaw
''Thaddeus of Warsaw'' is an 1803 novel written by Jane Porter. It comprises four volumes. The story was derived from eyewitness accounts of British soldiers and Polish refugees fleeing the failed revolts against the foreign occupation of Poland in the 1790s. It was thought by Olga S. Phillips (1940), author of Isaac Nathan's biography, that the character of Thaddeus was based on Nathan's father Menachem Mona Polack (Moses Monash the Pole) who was thought to be the illegitimate son of King Stanisław August Poniatowski and his Jewish mistress Elżbieta Szydłowska. Phillips claims that Jane Porter used to call Isaac Nathan 'Thaddeus' when touching his face as a child. The work is a hybrid: the first third relates developments and battles within Poland, the remainder of the books serve as a novel of manners describing how Thaddeus, having befriended a British soldier in the Russian army and learned from his mother that he himself is half English, flees to London to seek help for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Houghton EC8 P8343 817pc - Title Page
Houghton may refer to: Places Australia * Houghton, South Australia, a town near Adelaide * Houghton Highway, the longest bridge in Australia, between Redcliffe and Brisbane in Queensland * Houghton Island (Queensland) Canada * Houghton Township, Ontario, a former township in Norfolk County, Ontario New Zealand * Houghton Bay South Africa * Houghton Estate, a suburb of Johannesburg United Kingdom *Hanging Houghton, Northamptonshire *Houghton, Cambridgeshire * Houghton, Cumbria *Houghton, East Riding of Yorkshire *Houghton, Hampshire *Houghton, Norfolk *Houghton Saint Giles, Norfolk * Houghton, Northumberland, a location in the United Kingdom * Houghton, Pembrokeshire *Houghton, West Sussex *Houghton-le-Side, Darlington * Houghton-le-Spring, Sunderland * Houghton Park, Houghton-le-Spring *Houghton Bank, Darlington *Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire *Houghton on the Hill, Leicestershire *Houghton on the Hill, Norfolk *Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire *New Houghton, Derbyshire * Litt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Stuart
The House of Stuart, originally spelt Stewart, was a royal house of Scotland, England, Ireland and later Great Britain. The family name comes from the office of High Steward of Scotland, which had been held by the family progenitor Walter fitz Alan (c. 1150). The name Stewart and variations had become established as a family name by the time of his grandson Walter Stewart. The first monarch of the Stewart line was Robert II, whose male-line descendants were kings and queens in Scotland from 1371, and of England and Great Britain from 1603, until 1714. Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought up in France where she adopted the French spelling of the name Stuart. In 1503, James IV married Margaret Tudor, thus linking the royal houses of Scotland and England. Elizabeth I of England died without issue in 1603, and James IV's great-grandson (and Mary's only son) James VI of Scotland succeeded to the thrones of England and Ireland as James I in the Union of the Crowns. The Stuarts were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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