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Wessex Tales
''Wessex Tales'' is an 1888 collection of tales written by English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, many of which are set before Hardy's birth in 1840. In the various short stories, Hardy writes of the true nature of nineteenth-century marriage and its inherent restrictions, the use of grammar as a diluted form of thought, the disparities created by the role of class status in determining societal rank, the stance of women in society and the severity of even minor diseases causing the rapid onset of fatal symptoms prior to the introduction of sufficient medicinal practices. A focal point of all the short stories is that of social constraints acting to diminish one's contentment in life, necessitating unwanted marriages, repression of true emotion and succumbing to melancholia due to constriction within the confines of 19th-century perceived normalcy. Contents Initially, in 1888, the collection contained five stories, all previously published in periodicals: *"The Three Stran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Trevor
William Trevor Cox (24 May 1928 – 20 November 2016) was an Irish novelist, playwright, and short story writer. One of the elder statesmen of the Irish literary world, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary writers of short stories in the English language. Trevor won the Whitbread Prize three times and was nominated five times for the Booker Prize, the last for his novel '' Love and Summer'' (2009), which was also shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award in 2011. His name was also mentioned in relation to the Nobel Prize in Literature. Trevor won the 2008 International Nonino Prize in Italy. In 2014, he was bestowed with the title of Saoi within Aosdána. He resided in England from 1954 until his death in 2016, at the age of 88. Biography He was born as William Trevor Cox in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland, to a middle-class, Anglo-Irish Protestant (Church of Ireland) family. He moved several times to other provincial locations, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1888 Short Story Collections
Events January * January 3 – The great telescope (with an objective lens of diameter) at Lick Observatory in California is first used. * January 12 – The Schoolhouse Blizzard hits Dakota Territory and the states of Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas and Texas, leaving 235 dead, many of them children on their way home from school. * January 13 – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C. * January 19 – The Battle of the Grapevine Creek, the last major conflict of the Hatfield–McCoy feud in the Southeastern United States. * January 21 – The Amateur Athletic Union is founded by William Buckingham Curtis in the United States. * January 26 – The Lawn Tennis Association is founded in England. February * February 27 – In West Orange, New Jersey, Thomas Edison meets with Eadweard Muybridge, who proposes a scheme for sound film. March * March 8 – The Agriculture College of Utah (later Utah State University) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Group Of Noble Dames
''A Group of Noble Dames'' is an 1891 collection of short stories written by English author Thomas Hardy. The stories are contained by a frame narrative in which ten members of a club each tell one story about a noble dame in the 17th or 18th century. Hardy included this work with his "Romances and fantasies". Contents Part I—Before Dinner *''The First Countess of Wessex'' by the local historian *'' Barbara of the House of Grebe'' by the old surgeon *''The Marchioness of Stonehenge'' by the rural dean *''Lady Mottisfont'' by the sentimental member Part II—After Dinner *''The Lady Icenway'' by the churchwarden *''Squire Petrick’s Lady'' by the crimson maltster *''Anna, Lady Baxby'' by the colonel *''The Lady Penelope'' by the man of family *''The Duchess Of Hamptonshire'' by the quiet gentleman *''The Honourable Laura'' by the spark Publication All ten stories were published in serial magazines before Hardy collected them into book form. "The Duchess of Hamptonshire" and "The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an English actor. He has received List of awards and nominations received by Ben Kingsley, various accolades throughout Ben Kingsley on screen and stage, his career spanning five decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards and two Laurence Olivier Awards. Kingsley was appointed Knight Bachelor in 2002 for services to the Cinema of the United Kingdom, British film industry. He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010 and received the Britannia Awards, Britannia Award in 2013. Born to an English mother and an Indian Gujarati people, Gujarati father with roots in Jamnagar, Kingsley began his career in theatre, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967 and spending the next 15 years appearing mainly on stage. His starring roles included productions of ''As You Like ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nick Brimble
Nicholas Brimble (born 22 July 1944) is an English actor whose long career has spanned theatre, television, film, and voice work. Early life Brimble was born in Bristol. His father was a schoolteacher who was also a keen amateur actor, an activity in which Nick was involved on occasions as a child. For several summers his father also managed a French/Czech high-wire act, the White Devils, and in July 1961 organised their blindfolded high-wire crossing of Cheddar Gorge. When the act toured Britain, the Brimble family travelled with them. At the end of the 1961 season's tour of Britain, Brimble travelled through France with the White Devils, helping as they set up and performed in towns as they went, and returning for the start of the autumn school term. He attended Bristol Grammar School. In his first year he played Miranda in a school production of ''The Tempest''. Brimble's parents gave him a season ticket to the Bristol Old Vic, where he saw every play from the age of 11 unt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Jones (director)
David Hugh Jones (19 February 1934 – 19 September 2008) was an English stage, television and film director. Life and career Jones was born in Poole, Dorset, the son of John David Jones and his wife Gwendolen Agnes Langworthy (Ricketts), and was educated at Taunton School and Christ's College, Cambridge. Originally a television director, he first worked for BBC producer Huw Wheldon working on the ''Monitor (UK TV series), Monitor'' arts television series from 1958 to 1964. His first London stage production was a triple-bill of T. S. Eliot, T.S. Eliot's ''Sweeney Agonistes'', W. B. Yeats, W.B. Yeats's ''Purgatory (drama), Purgatory'' and Samuel Beckett's ''Krapp's Last Tape'' at the Mermaid Theatre in 1961. He directed his first production for the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Arts Theatre in 1962, Boris Vian's ''The Empire Builder'', and two years later accepted the administrative post Artistic Controller at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), helping to plan programmes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Mercer (playwright)
David Mercer (27 June 1928 – 8 August 1980) was an English dramatist. Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, he worked as a laboratory technician and in the Merchant Navy before attending university. After studying chemistry, he switched to art but eventually turned to writing. His television work for the BBC was often made in collaboration with director Don Taylor. His first stage play, ''Ride a Cock Horse'', starred Peter O'Toole. The Royal Shakespeare Company premiered many of his works, and Mercer wrote the screenplay for the Alain Resnais film ''Providence'', which won a César Award. A long-term heavy drinker, Mercer died in 1980 after suffering a heart attack in Haifa, Israel. Early life Mercer was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, the son of an engine driver while his mother had been a domestic servant. Both of his grandfathers had been miners. After failing to gain entry to the local grammar school, Mercer left school at 14, worked as a laboratory technician and i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Of The House Of Grebe
"Barbara of the House of Grebe" is the second of ten short stories in Thomas Hardy's frame narrative ''A Group of Noble Dames''. It is told by the old surgeon. The story was published in ''The Graphic'' in 1890 and in book form in 1891. Plot summary Lord Uplandtowers, a young man who lives in a mansion in Knollingwood Hall, has decided he wants to marry Barbara, the daughter of his neighbour Sir John Grebe. However she elopes with the beautiful Edmond Willowes, a widow's son from a family of glass painters, and marries him without her parents' consent. A few months later Sir John reconciles with his daughter and her husband. He agrees to support them financially and let them live in Yewsholt Lodge on one condition: Edmond has to go to study in Italy for one year. During his stay in Italy Edmond has an accident. His face is badly wounded in a fire. When he returns to England he's wearing a mask. In Yewsholt Lodge he takes his mask off before his wife. Barbara is shocked and can't ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Cross
Harry Bernard Cross (16 December 1947 – 18 August 2020) was an English actor. He was best known for his portrayal of the British Olympic athlete Harold Abrahams in the 1981 film ''Chariots of Fire'' and for playing Billy Flynn in the original West End production of the musical ''Chicago''. Early life Harry Bernard Cross was born in London on 16 December 1947, to a working-class family. He was the son of Catherine (née O'Donovan), a cleaner, and Harry Cross, a doorman. His father died of tuberculosis when Cross was aged eight. While his father was a member of the Church of England, Cross grew up in his Irish mother's Catholic faith, in the Tulse Hill neighbourhood of London. Career Early career Cross started his career by taking manual jobs, including working as a window cleaner, waiter, and joiner. He also worked as a carpenter for the Welsh National Opera, and was the Property Master at The Alexandra theatre in Birmingham. In 1970 at the age of 22, he was accepted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Newell (director)
Michael Cormac Newell (born 28 March 1942) is an English film and television director and producer. He won the BAFTA for Best Direction for '' Four Weddings and a Funeral'' (1994), which also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, and directed the films '' Donnie Brasco'' (1997) and '' Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' (2005). Early life Newell was born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, as the son of amateur actors, and was educated at St Albans School. He read English at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He then attended a three-year training course at Granada Television with the intention of entering the theatre. Career Newell directed various British TV shows from the 1960s onwards (such as ''Spindoe'', credited as Cormac Newell, and '' Big Breadwinner Hog''), but eventually shifted his focus to film direction. His first feature-length project was '' The Man in the Iron Mask'' (1977), a made-for-television film. His first critically acclaimed movie was '' Bad Blood'' (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenneth Taylor (scriptwriter)
Kenneth Heywood Taylor FRSA (10 November 1922, in Bolton, Lancashire – 17 April 2011, in CornwallTim Piggott-SmitObituary: Ken Taylor ''The Guardian'', 27 April 2011) was an English screenwriter. Life The son of a cotton mill owner from Bolton, Lancashire, Taylor was educated at Gresham's School, Holt.''International Who's Who 2004''p. 1658at books.google.com, accessed 10 January 2009 Under the name Ken Taylor, he wrote scripts for television drama in a career spanning more than four decades. In 1964 ''The Devil and John Brown'' received the Best Original Teleplay Award of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain. In the same year, Taylor was named Writer of the Year by the Guild of Television Writers and Directors (later BAFTA) for his trilogy of television plays ''The Seekers''. '' The Jewel in the Crown'', adapted from Paul Scott's ''Raj Quartet'' novels as a fifteen-hour mini-series, earned Ken Taylor an Emmy nomination in 1984 along with the award as Writer of the Year from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
