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Esther Waters
''Esther Waters'' is a novel by George Moore first published in 1894. Overview Set in England from the early 1870s onward, the novel is about a pious young woman from a poor working-class family who, while working as a kitchen maid, is seduced by another employee, becomes pregnant, is deserted by her lover, and against all odds decides to raise her child as a single mother. ''Esther Waters'' is one of a group of Victorian novels that depict the life of a " fallen woman". Written in a naturalistic style similar to that of Émile Zola, the novel stands out among Moore's publications as the book whose immediate success, including William Ewart Gladstone's approval of the novel in the '' Westminster Gazette'', brought him financial security. Continuously revised by Moore (1899, 1917, 1920, 1931), it is often regarded as his best novel. ''Esther Waters'' is dedicated to T. W. Rolleston. Plot summary Esther Waters is born to hard-working parents who are Plymouth Brethren in Bar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shoreham-by-Sea
Shoreham-by-Sea (often shortened to Shoreham) is a coastal town and port in West Sussex, England. The town is bordered to its north by the South Downs, to its west by the Adur Valley and to its south by the River Adur and Shoreham Beach on the English Channel. The town lies in the middle of the ribbon of urban development along the English south coast, approximately equidistant from the city of Brighton and Hove to the east and the town of Worthing to the west. Shoreham covers an area of and has a population of 20,547 (2011 census). History Old Shoreham dates back to pre-Roman times. St Nicolas' Church, inland by the River Adur, is partly Anglo-Saxon in its construction. The name of the town has an Old English origin. The town and port of New Shoreham was established by the Norman conquerors towards the end of the 11th century. St Mary de Haura Church (St Mary of the Haven) was built in the decade following 1103 (the Domesday Book was dated 1086), and around this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (game theory), strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration (an amount wagered), risk (chance), and a prize. The outcome of the wager is often immediate, such as a single roll of dice, a spin of a roulette wheel, or a horse crossing the finish line, but longer time frames are also common, allowing wagers on the outcome of a future sports contest or even an entire sports season. The term "gaming" in this context typically refers to instances in which the activity has been specifically permitted by law. The two words are not mutually exclusive; ''i.e.'', a "gaming" company offers (legal) "gambling" activities to the public and may be regulated by one of many gaming control boards, for example, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was developed from farmland by Henry VIII in 1536, when it became a royal park. It became a parish in its own right in the late 17th century, when buildings started to be developed for the upper class, including the laying out of Soho Square in the 1680s. St Anne's Church was established during the late 17th century, and remains a significant local landmark; other churches are the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory and St Patrick's Church in Soho Square. The aristocracy had mostly moved away by the mid-19th century, when Soho was particularly badly hit by an outbreak of cholera in 1854. For much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation as a base for the sex industry in addition to its night life and its location for the headq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public House
A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was used to differentiate private houses from those which were, quite literally, open to the public as "alehouses", " taverns" and " inns". By Georgian times, the term had become common parlance, although taverns, as a distinct establishment, had largely ceased to exist by the beginning of the 19th century. Today, there is no strict definition, but CAMRA states a pub has four characteristics:GLA Economics, Closing time: London's public houses, 2017 # is open to the public without membership or residency # serves draught beer or cider without requiring food be consumed # has at least one indoor area not laid out for meals # allows drinks to be bought at a bar (i.e., not only table service) The history of pubs can be traced to Roman taverns ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bookmaker
A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds. History The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795. Range of events Bookmakers in many countries focus on accepting bets on professional sports, especially horse racing and association football or Indian Premier League cricket. However, a wider range of bets, including on political elections, awards ceremonies such as the Oscars, and novelty bets are accepted by bookmakers in some countries. Operational procedures By "adjusting the odds" in their favour (paying out amounts using odds that are less than what they determined to be the true odds) or by having a point spread, bookmakers aim to guarantee a profit by achieving a 'balanced book', either by getting an equal number of bets for each possible outcome or (when they are offering odds) by getting the amounts wagered on each outcome to reflect the odds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Kensington, London
West Kensington, formerly North End, is an area in the ancient parish of Fulham, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, England, 3.4 miles (5.5 km) west of Charing Cross. It covers most of the London postal area of W14, including the area around Barons Court tube station, and is defined as the area between Lillie Road and Hammersmith Road to the west, Fulham Palace Road to the south, Hammersmith to the north and West Brompton and Earl's Court to the east. The area is bisected by the major London artery the A4, locally known as the Talgarth Road. Its main local thoroughfare is the North End Road. It is predominantly a dense residential area with the Queen's Club in its midst and is bordered by the Lillie Bridge railway depot, the now defunct Earls Court Exhibition Centre site, Olympia Exhibition Centre and the commercial centres at Fulham and Hammersmith Broadway. Name "West Kensington" is an early marketing construct, a ploy by two Victorian developers who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Love Letter
A love letter is an expression of love in written form. However delivered, the letter may be anything from a short and simple message of love to a lengthy explanation and description of feelings. History One of the oldest references to a love letter dates to Indian mythology of more than 5000 years ago. Mentioned in the Bhagavatha Purana, book 10, chapter 52, it is addressed by princess Rukmini to king Krishna and carried to him by her Brahmin messenger Sunanda. Examples from Ancient Egypt range from the most formal, and possibly practical – "The royal widow . . . Ankhesenamun wrote a letter to the king of the Hittites, Egypt's old enemy, begging him to send one of his sons to Egypt to marry her" – to the down-to-earth: Let me "bathe in thy presence, that I may let thee see my beauty in my tunic of finest linen, when it is wet". A fine expression of literary skill can be found in Imperial China: when a heroine, faced with an arranged marriage, wrote to her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illegitimacy
Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce. Conversely, ''illegitimacy'', also known as ''bastardy'', has been the status of a child born outside marriage, such a child being known as a bastard, a love child, a natural child, or illegitimate. In Scots law, the terms natural son and natural daughter bear the same implications. The importance of legitimacy has decreased substantially in Western countries since the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s and the declining influence of conservative Christian churches in family and social life. Births outside marriage now represent a large majority in many countries of Western Europe and the Americas, as well as in many former European colonies. In many Western-influenced cultures, stigma based on parents' marital status, and use of the word ''bastard'', are now widely considered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Dulwich
East Dulwich is an area of South East London, England in the London Borough of Southwark. It forms the eastern part of Dulwich, with Peckham to the east and Camberwell to the north. This South London suburb was first developed in the nineteenth century on land owned by the College of God's Gift. It was originally part of the much larger, historic parish of Camberwell, which later became the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell, and included Camberwell, Peckham, Dulwich, Nunhead, and other London districts. History Saxon Dulwich The earliest record of East Dulwich comes from 967 when Edgar the Peaceful granted Dilwihs to a thane named Earl Aelfheah. Dilwihs meant "meadow where the dill grew". At the time East Dulwich was likely just a hamlet or group of small farms centered around what is today known as Goose Green. Medieval East Dulwich In 1066 King William I of England conquered England and Dulwich became property of the new Norman dynasty after taking the land from Ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workhouse
In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' is from 1631, in an account by the mayor of Abingdon reporting that "we have erected wthn our borough a workhouse to set poorer people to work". The origins of the workhouse can be traced to the Statute of Cambridge 1388, which attempted to address the labour shortages following the Black Death in England by restricting the movement of labourers, and ultimately led to the state becoming responsible for the support of the poor. However, mass unemployment following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the introduction of new technology to replace agricultural workers in particular, and a series of bad harvests, meant that by the early 1830s the established system of poor relief was proving to be unsustainable. The New Poor Law of 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baby-farming
Baby farming is the historical practice of accepting custody of an infant or child in exchange for payment in late-Victorian Britain and, less commonly, in Australia and the United States. If the infant was young, this usually included wet-nursing (breast-feeding by a woman not the mother). Some baby farmers "adopted" children for lump-sum payments, while others cared for infants for periodic payments. Description Though baby farmers were paid in the understanding that care would be provided, the term "baby farmer" was used as an insult, and improper treatment was usually implied. Illegitimacy and its attendant social stigma were usually the impetus for a mother's decision to put her children "out to nurse" with a baby farmer, but baby farming also encompassed foster care and adoption in the period before they were regulated by British law. Wealthier women would also put their infants out to be cared for in the homes of villagers. Claire Tomalin gives a detailed account of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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