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Astley's Amphitheatre
Astley's Amphitheatre was a performance venue in London opened by Philip Astley in 1773, considered the first modern circus ring. It was burned and rebuilt several times, and went through many owners and managers. Despite no trace of the theatre remaining today, a memorial plaque was unveiled in 1951 at its site at 225 Westminster Bridge Road. History The Amphitheatre opened in 1773. The structure was burned down in 1794, then rebuilt in less than seven months before being destroyed by fire again in 1803. The Amphitheatre was again rebuilt, this time in the style of rival Charles Hughes's Royal Circus with lavish decorations and reputedly the largest stage in London. With increasing prosperity and rebuilding after successive fires, it grew to become Astley's Royal Amphitheatre and this was the home of the circus. The location of the theatre was Westminster Bridge Road in Lambeth. The theatre continued to be popular long after Astley's death in 1814. His brother John succeed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Houghton 57-1633 - Astley's Amphitheatre, 1808 - Cropped
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 * Little Hou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adah Isaacs Menken
Adah Isaacs Menken (June 15, 1835August 10, 1868) was an American actress, painter and poet, and was the highest earning actress of her time.Palmer, Pamela Lynn"Adah Isaacs Menken" ''Handbook of Texas Online,'' published by the Texas State Historical Association, accessed August 10, 2012. She was best known for her performance in the hippodrama '' Mazeppa'', with a climax that featured her apparently nude and riding a horse on stage. After great success for a few years with the play in New York and San Francisco, she appeared in a production in London and Paris, from 1864 to 1866. After a brief trip back to the United States, she returned to Europe. She became ill within two years and died in Paris at the age of 33. Menken told many versions of her origins, including her name, place of birth, ancestry, and religion, and historians have differed in their accounts. Most have said she was born a Louisiana Creole Catholic, with European and African ancestry. A celebrity who created s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hard Times (novel)
''Hard Times: For These Times'' (commonly known as ''Hard Times'') is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirises the social and economic conditions of the era. ''Hard Times'' is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Also, unlike all but one of his other novels, ''Hard Times'' has neither a preface nor illustrations. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town, in some ways similar to Manchester, though smaller. Coketown may be partially based on 19th-century Preston. One of Dickens's reasons for writing ''Hard Times'' was that sales of his weekly periodical ''Household Words'' were low, and it was hoped the novel's publication in instalments would boost circulation – a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Old Curiosity Shop
''The Old Curiosity Shop'' is one of two novels (the other being ''Barnaby Rudge'') which Charles Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York readers stormed the wharf when the ship bearing the final instalment arrived in 1841. ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' was printed in book form in 1841. The plot follows the life of Nell Trent and her grandfather, both residents of The Old Curiosity Shop in London. Queen Victoria read the novel in 1841 and found it "very interesting and cleverly written". Plot Background The events of the book seem to take place around 1825. In Chapter 29, Miss Monflathers refers to the death of Lord Byron, who died on 19 April 1824. When the inquest rules (incorrectly) that Quilp committed suicide, his corpse is ordered to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart, a practice banned in 1823. Nell's grandfather, after his breakdown, fears that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and millions of books. In addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating a free and open Internet. , the Internet Archive holds over 35 million books and texts, 8.5 million movies, videos and TV shows, 894 thousand software programs, 14 million audio files, 4.4 million images, 2.4 million TV clips, 241 thousand concerts, and over 734 billion web pages in the Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive allows the public to upload and download digital material to its data cluster, but the bulk of its data is collected automatically by its web crawlers, which work to preserve as much of the public web as possible. Its web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains hundreds of bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sketches By Boz
''Sketches by "Boz," Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People'' (commonly known as ''Sketches by Boz'') is a collection of short pieces Charles Dickens originally published in various newspapers and other periodicals between 1833 and 1836. They were re-issued in book form, under their current title, in February and August 1836, with illustrations by George Cruikshank. The first complete one volume edition appeared in 1839. The 56 sketches concern London scenes and people, and the whole work is divided into four sections: "Our Parish", "Scenes", "Characters" and "Tales". The material in the first three sections consists of non-narrative pen-portraits, but the last section comprises fictional stories. The History of "Boz" The sketch "Mr Minns and his Cousin" (originally titled "A Dinner at Poplar Walk"), was the first work of fiction Dickens ever published. It appeared in ''The Monthly Magazine'' in December 1833. Although Dickens continued to place pieces in that magaz ... [...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 ref ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emma (novel)
''Emma'' is a novel about youthful hubris and romantic misunderstandings, written by Jane Austen. It is set in the fictional country village of Highbury and the surrounding estates of Hartfield, Randalls and Donwell Abbey, and involves the relationships among people from a small number of families. The novel was first published in December 1815, with its title page listing a publication date of 1816. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian–Regency England. ''Emma'' is a comedy of manners. Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." In the first sentence, she introduces the title character as "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition... had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." Emma is spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jane Austen
Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her use of biting irony, along with her realism and social commentary, have earned her acclaim among critics, scholars and readers alike. With the publication of '' Sense and Sensibility'' (1811), ''Pride and Prejudice'' (1813), '' Mansfield Park'' (1814), and '' Emma'' (1816), she achieved modest success but only little fame in her lifetime since the books were published anonymously. She wrote two other novels—'' Northanger Abbey'' and '' Persuasion'', both published posthu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Illustrated London News
''The Illustrated London News'' appeared first on Saturday 14 May 1842, as the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. Founded by Herbert Ingram, it appeared weekly until 1971, then less frequently thereafter, and ceased publication in 2003. The company continues today as Illustrated London News Ltd, a publishing, content, and digital agency in London, which holds the publication and business archives of the magazine. History 1842–1860: Herbert Ingram ''The Illustrated London News'' founder Herbert Ingram was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1811, and opened a printing, newsagent, and bookselling business in Nottingham around 1834 in partnership with his brother-in-law, Nathaniel Cooke.Isabel Bailey"Ingram, Herbert (1811–1860)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 17 September 2014] As a newsagent, Ingram was struck by the reliable increase in newspaper sales when they featured pictures and shocking stories. Ingram b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diameter
In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints lie on the circle. It can also be defined as the longest chord of the circle. Both definitions are also valid for the diameter of a sphere. In more modern usage, the length d of a diameter is also called the diameter. In this sense one speaks of diameter rather than diameter (which refers to the line segment itself), because all diameters of a circle or sphere have the same length, this being twice the radius r. :d = 2r \qquad\text\qquad r = \frac. For a convex shape in the plane, the diameter is defined to be the largest distance that can be formed between two opposite parallel lines tangent to its boundary, and the is often defined to be the smallest such distance. Both quantities can be calculated efficiently using rotating calipers. For a curve of constant width such as the Reuleaux triangle, the width and diameter are the same becau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orchestra Pit
An orchestra pit is the area in a theater (usually located in a lowered area in front of the stage) in which musicians perform. Orchestral pits are utilized in forms of theatre that require music (such as opera and ballet) or in cases when incidental music is required. The conductor is typically positioned at the front of the orchestral pit facing the stage. Construction In the pit, the walls are specially designed to provide the best possible acoustics, ensuring that the sound of the orchestra flows through the entire venue without overwhelming the performance on stage. Many orchestra pits are also designed to have reasonably low decibel levels, allowing musicians to work without fears of damaging their hearing. Typically, a small platform in the pit accommodates the conductor, so that he or she can be seen by all of the musicians, who may sit in chairs or on bleachers, depending on the design of the pit. All sorts of musicians sit here, from the conductor to the bass player. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
