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The Ides Of March (novel)
''The Ides of March'' is an epistolary novel by Thornton Wilder that was published in 1948. In the author's words, it is 'a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic. Historical reconstruction is not among the primary aims of this work'. The novel deals with the characters and events leading to, and culminating in, the assassination of Julius Caesar. Context The novel is divided into four books, each starting earlier and ending later than the previous book. Catullus' poems and the closing section by Suetonius are the only documents in the book that are not imagined; however, many of the events are historical, such as Cleopatra's visit to Rome. Though the novel describes events leading up to Caesar's assassination on 15 March 44 BC, several earlier events are described as if they were contemporary. Thus, the violation of the Bona Dea mysteries by Publius Clodius Pulcher, Caesar's subsequent divorce of his second wife Pompeia, and the circulati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, for the novel ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays ''Our Town'' and ''The Skin of Our Teeth'', and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel ''The Eighth Day (Wilder novel), The Eighth Day''. Early life and education Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Amos Parker Wilder, a newspaper editor and later a U.S. diplomat, and Isabella Thornton Niven. Wilder had four siblings as well as a twin who was stillborn. All of the surviving Wilder children spent part of their childhood in China when their father was stationed in Hong Kong and Shanghai as U.S. Consul General. Thornton's older brother, Amos Wilder, Amos Niven Wilder, became Hollis Professor of Divinity at the Harvard Divinity School. He was a noted poet and was instrumental in developing the field of theopoetics. Their sister Isabel Wilder was an accomplished writer. They ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornelius Nepos
Cornelius Nepos (; c. 110 BC – c. 25 BC) was a Roman Empire, Roman biographer. He was born at Hostilia, a village in Cisalpine Gaul not far from Verona. Biography Nepos's Cisalpine birth is attested by Ausonius, and Pliny the Elder calls him ''Padi accola'' ("a dweller on the River Po (river), Po", ''Naturalis historia'' III.127). He was a friend of Catullus, who dedicates his poems to him (I.3), Cicero and Titus Pomponius Atticus. Eusebius places him in the fourth year of the reign of Augustus, which is supposed to be when he began to attract critical acclaim by his writing. Pliny the Elder notes he died in the reign of Augustus (''Natural History'' IX.39, X.23). Works ''De viris illustribus'' Nepos's ''De viris illustribus'' consisted of parallel lives of distinguished Romans and foreigners, in sixteen books. It originally included "descriptions of foreign and Roman kings, generals, lawyers, orators, poets, historians, and philosophers". However, the sole surviving book ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Fuller
Edmund Maybank Fuller (3 March 1914 – 29 January 2001) was an American educator, editor, novelist, historian, and literary critic. Career Fuller directed plays at Longwood Gardens, taught playwriting at the New School for Social Research, and wrote a history of drama for students at the secondary-school level. His biography of Milton (1944) is enlivened by novelistic techniques which he justified, in an "Author's Note", by appealing to the example of other biographers from Plutarch on down. This led in 1946 to the most important of his novels, ''A Star Pointed North'', a historical novel based on the life of Frederick Douglass which includes as characters William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, and his successor as president, Andrew Johnson. Other novels followed: ''Brothers Divided'' (1951), ''The Corridor'' (1963), and ''Flight'' (1970). In the Douglass novel Fuller is said to have "bridged an aching gap in American history." As a historian and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Naked And The Dead
''The Naked and the Dead'' is a novel written by Norman Mailer. Published by Rinehart & Company in 1948, when he was 25, it was his debut novel. It depicts the experiences of a platoon during World War II, based partially on Mailer's experiences as a cook with the 112th Cavalry Regiment during the Philippines Campaign in World War II. The book quickly became a bestseller, paving the way for other Mailer works such as ''The Deer Park'', '' Advertisements for Myself'', and '' The Time of Our Time''. He believed ''The Naked and the Dead'' to be his most renowned work. It was the first popular novel about the war and is considered one of the greatest English-language novels. It was adapted into a film in 1958. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked ''The Naked and the Dead'' 51st on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Plot The novel is divided into four parts: Wave; Argil and Mold; Plant and Phantom; and Wake. Within these parts are chorus sectio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cry, The Beloved Country
''Cry, the Beloved Country'' is a 1948 novel by South African writer Alan Paton. Set in the prelude to apartheid in South Africa, it follows a black village priest and a white farmer who must deal with news of a murder. American publisher Bennett Cerf remarked at that year's meeting of the American Booksellers Association that there had been "only three novels published since the first of the year that were worth reading… ''Cry, The Beloved Country'', '' The Ides of March'', and '' The Naked and the Dead''.""Reader's Digest: Gossip, news: J. F. Albright reports on A.B.A. meeting", ''The Dallas Morning News'', 30 May 1948, p. 6. It remains one of the best-known works of South African literature. Two cinema adaptations of the book have been made, the first in 1951 and the second in 1995. The novel was also adapted as a musical called '' Lost in the Stars'' (1949), with a book by the American writer Maxwell Anderson and music composed by the German emigre Kurt Weill. Plo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Booksellers Association
The American Booksellers Association (ABA) is a non-profit trade association founded in 1900 that promotes independent bookstores in the United States. ABA's core members are key participants in their communities' local economy and culture, and to assist them ABA creates relevant programs; provides education, information, business products, and services; and engages in public policy and industry advocacy. The Association actively supports and defends free speech and the First Amendment rights of all Americans, without contradiction of equity and inclusion, through the American Booksellers for Free Expression. A volunteer board of 13 booksellers governs the Association. Previously headquartered in White Plains, New York, ABA became a fully remote organization in 2024. In 1947, ABA launched the American Booksellers Association Convention and Trade Show, later known as BookExpo America (though ABA had held conventions as early as 1901). Winter Institute and Children's Institute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bennett Cerf
Bennett Alfred Cerf (May 25, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was an American writer, publisher, and co-founder of the American publishing firm Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his weekly television appearances for over 17 years on the panel game show ''What's My Line?'' Early life and education Cerf was born on May 25, 1898, in Manhattan, New York City, to a Jewish family of Alsatian and German ethnicity. Cerf's father Gustave Cerf was a lithographer; his mother, Frederika Wise, was heiress to a tobacco-distribution fortune. She died when Bennett was 16; shortly afterward, her brother Herbert moved into the Cerf household and became a strong literary and social influence on the teenager. Cerf graduated from Townsend Harris Hall Prep School in Hamilton Heights in 1916, the same public school as publisher Richard Simon, author Herman Wouk, and playwright Howard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calpurnia (wife Of Caesar)
Calpurnia was either the third or fourth wife of Julius Caesar, and the one to whom he was married at the time of his assassination. According to contemporary sources, she was a good and faithful wife, in spite of her husband's infidelity; and, forewarned of the attempt on his life, she endeavored in vain to prevent his murder. Biography Background Born 76 BC, Calpurnia was the daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, consul in 58 BC. Her half-brother was Lucius Calpurnius Piso, who would become consul in 15 BC. Marriage Calpurnia married Julius Caesar late in 59 BC, during the latter's consulship.Plutarch, "The Life of Caesar", 13, 14; "The Life of Pompeius", 47. She was about seventeen years old, and was likely younger than her stepdaughter, Julia. About this time, Julia married (Pompey) Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, a former protégé of Sulla, who had been consul in 70 BC, and recently become one of Caesar's closest political allies. Prior to their marriage, Caesar had b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porcia (wife Of Brutus)
Porcia ( – June 43 BC), occasionally spelled Portia, especially in 18th-century English literature, was a Roman Republic, Roman woman who lived in the 1st century BC. She was the daughter of Cato the Younger, Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (Cato the Younger) and his first wife Atilia. She is best known for being the second wife of Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Assassination of Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar's assassins, and appears primarily in the Writings of Cicero, letters of Cicero. Biography Early life Porcia was born around 73 BC. She had an affectionate nature, was interested in philosophy, and was "full of an understanding courage."Plutarch, ''Marcus Brutus'', 13.4. Plutarch describes her as being prime of youth and beauty. When she was still very young, her father divorced her mother for adultery. At a young age she was married first to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, her father's political ally, between 58 BC and 53 BC. Porcia's father was a member of the Optimat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assassination
Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are ordered by both individuals and organizations, and are carried out by their accomplices. Acts of assassination have been performed since ancient times. A person who carries out an assassination is called an assassin. Etymology ''Assassin'' comes from the Italian and French Assissini, believed to derive from the word '' hashshashin'' (), and shares its etymological roots with '' hashish'' ( or ; from ').''The Assassins: a radical sect in Islam'' – Bernard Lewis, pp. 11–12 It referred to a group of Nizari Ismailis known as the Order of Assassins who worked against various political targets. Founded by Hassan-i Sabbah, the Assassins were active in the Near East from the 11th to the 13th centuries. The group killed members of the Ab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus Junius Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC) was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, which was retained as his legal name. He is often referred to simply as Brutus. Early in his political career, Brutus opposed Pompey, who was responsible for Brutus' father's death. He also was close to Caesar. However, Caesar's attempts to evade accountability in the law courts put him at greater odds with his opponents in the Roman elite and the senate. Brutus eventually came to oppose Caesar and sided with Pompey against Caesar's forces during the ensuing civil war (49–45 BC). Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48, after which Brutus surrendered to Caesar, who granted him amnesty. With Caesar's increasingly monarchical and autocratic behaviour after the civil war, several senators who later called themselves ''liberatores'' (liber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Servilia (mother Of Brutus)
Servilia ( 100 BC – after 42 BC) was a Roman matron from a distinguished family, the Servilii Caepiones. She was the daughter of Quintus Servilius Caepio and Livia, thus the maternal half-sister of Cato the Younger. She married Marcus Junius Brutus, with whom she had a son, the Brutus who, along with others in the Senate, assassinated Julius Caesar. After her first husband's death in 77 BC, she married Decimus Junius Silanus, and with him had a son and three daughters. She gained fame as the mistress of Julius Caesar, whom her son Brutus and son-in-law Gaius Cassius Longinus would assassinate in 44 BC. Her affair with Caesar seems to have been publicly known in Rome at the time. Plutarch stated that she in turn was madly in love with Caesar. The relationship between the two probably started in 59 BC, after the death of Servilia's second husband although Plutarch implied it began when they were teenagers. Biography Early life Servilia was a patrician who could trace her li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
