Update
The Oxford Biblical Studies Online and Oxford Islamic Studies Online have retired. Content you previously purchased on Oxford Biblical Studies Online or Oxford Islamic Studies Online has now moved to Oxford Reference, Oxford Handbooks Online, Oxford Scholarship Online, or What Everyone Needs to Know®. For information on how to continue to view articles visit the subscriber services page.
Dismiss

Overview

Charles Dickens

(1812—1870) novelist

Return to overview »

You are looking at 1-20 of 290 entries

View:

A. A. Milne

A. A. Milne  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature
(1882–1956)British writer, noted especially for his ever-popular children's books and his plays.After attending Westminster School and reading mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, Milne found ...
Adah Isaacs Menken

Adah Isaacs Menken  

Reference type:
Overview Page
(1835–69), actress.Although her real name was later given variously as Ada McCord, Adelaide McCord, and Dolores Adios Fuertes, this flamboyant, controversial performer, who was the most famous of all ...
Adam Bede

Adam Bede  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature
A novel by G. Eliot, published 1859.The action takes place at the close of the 18th cent. Hetty Sorrel, pretty, vain, and self‐centred, niece of the genial farmer Martin Poyser, is loved by Adam ...
adaptation

adaptation  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature
The process of making a work of art upon the basis of elements provided by an earlier work in a different, usually literary, medium; also the secondary work thus produced. Literary works have been ...
Adelaide Ann Procter

Adelaide Ann Procter  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature
(1825–1864) British poet and campaigner for women's rightsLegends and Lyrics [1st series; 2nd series, 1861] (1858) PoetryThe Victoria Regia (1861) AnthologyA Chaplet of Verses (1862) PoetryLegends ...
Adelphi Theatre

Adelphi Theatre  

Reference type:
Overview Page
A theatre on the Strand, London, in what is now the West End. Originally the Sans Pareil, it opened as the Adelphi in 1818. Rebuilt in 1858, 1901, and 1930 ...
Albert Smith

Albert Smith  

Reference type:
Overview Page
(1816–60)English performer and writer who began his career as a journalist, contributor to Punch, and author of theatrical extravaganzas. His 1850 performance The Overland Mail initiated a series of ...
Albery Theatre

Albery Theatre  

Reference type:
Overview Page
London, in St Martin's Lane, seating 900, built for Charles Wyndham, who opened it in 1903 as the New Theatre with a revival of Parker and Carson's Rosemary, after which ...
American Conservatory Theatre

American Conservatory Theatre  

Reference type:
Overview Page
(ACT)Founded in 1965 in Pittsburgh by director William Ball, it moved the following year to Stanford University before finding a permanent home at San Francisco's Geary Theater in 1967 ...
American Notes for General Circulation

American Notes for General Circulation  

Travel account by Dickens, published in 1842. Dickens visited the U.S. (Jan.–May 1842) in a tour that took him from Boston and New York to Canada and as far west as St. Louis. His book is almost ...
Angus Wilson

Angus Wilson  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature
(1913–1991)British writer. He was knighted in 1980.Angus Wilson was born in England but spent part of his childhood in South Africa, his mother's homeland, before completing his education at ...
Antoine Galland

Antoine Galland  

(1646–1715)French translator and orientalist. His Mille et une nuits (1704–17) was the first translation into a European language of the Arabic Thousand and One Nights (see Arabian Nights ...
Astley's Amphitheatre

Astley's Amphitheatre  

Reference type:
Overview Page
A theatrical entertainment, regarded as the first modern circus, founded in London in 1770 by the English theatrical manager and former soldier Philip Astley (1742–1814). By 1798 he was allowed to ...
audience participation

audience participation  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature
1. Any active involvement of audience members in a live public performance, whether or not planned as part of the performance.2. The involvement of audience members in a broadcast programme—primarily ...
Barkis

Barkis  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature
In Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, the carrier who is the suitor of David's nurse Peggotty, to whom he sends the message ‘Barkis is willin'.’
Barnaby Rudge

Barnaby Rudge  

A novel by Dickens published in 1841 as part of Master Humphrey's Clock. The earlier of Dickens's two historical novels, it is set at the period of the Gordon anti‐popery riots of 1780, and Lord ...
Barry Cornwall

Barry Cornwall  

Reference type:
Overview Page
Subject:
Literature
(1787–1874),enjoyed success as a writer of songs and lyrics. His works include Dramatic Scenes (1819); Marcian Collona (1820); Mirandola (1821), a dramatic work; and English Songs (1832). He also ...
Barry Jackson

Barry Jackson  

Reference type:
Overview Page
(1879–1961)English director and manager. Trained as an architect, Jackson was heir to a fortune derived from one of the leading grocery firms in the Midlands. In 1907 he founded ...
Battle of Life

Battle of Life  

Dickens's fourth Christmas book, written in Switzerland in 1846 while he was also at work on Dombey. He found great difficulty in writing it, and the result was, of all ...
benefit

benefit  

Reference type:
Overview Page
The twentieth century saw a shift away from the traditional benefit performance that dates back to the late seventeenth century and provided additional income for individuals (actors, managers, ...

View: