Underlay is a term applied to material laid under a carpet to protect it. In mining, an underlay is the inclination from the vertical or horizontal of a vein, fault, or lode. The term is also applied to a perpendicular shaft sunk to cut the lode at a required depth. Research Underlay
In Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Vanity Fair is one of the dangerous places through which Christian journeyed on his pilgrimage to Zion; a fair wherein were displayed all the worldly vanities for tempting him from his way. It has been suggested that Bunyan wrote from recollections of the great annual fair at Stourbridge, near Cambridge.
Vanity Fair was a novel written by W. M Thackeray, in 1848. The author's most characteristic work in the more serious satiric vein, it presents a group of selfish people, living, in his own phrase, without God in the world. Social pretence, snobbery, meanness, chicanery are typified, and held up to reprobation in the astounding gallery of firmly drawn characters presented in this novel of English life during the first half of the 19th century.
Vanity Fair was the first society journal. It was founded in 1868 by Thomas Gibson Bowles and illustrated by Grebville Murray. Vanity Fair was popular for its caricatures of the political and social notabilities of the day. Research Vanity Fair
The cherry gall wasp (Cynips quercusfolii) is a hymenopterous insect of the family Cynipidae widespread throughout Europe and Asia Minor, that produces spherical leaf galls on various species of oak. The galls are mostly to be seen between July and October and are attached to either the main leaf vein or one of the stronger side veins by a very short stem. The gall is at first green-yellow in colour later turning yellow and then red on the side facing the sun before becoming brown and wrinkled. The larvae develops within the gall, feeding upon the galltissue and pupates within the gall. Two generations appear within a year, the first all female that reproduce parthenogenetically the second male and female. Research Cherry Gall Wasp
Charles Dickens was a 19th century English novelist whose powerful imagery brought to public attention the terrible conditions endured by the poor. He was born in 1812 at Landport, Portsmouth and died in 1870.
His father, John Dickens, was then in the employment of the Navy Pay Department, but subsequently became a newspaper reporter in London. Young Charles Dickens received a somewhat scanty education, was for a time a mere drudge in a blacking warehouse, and subsequently a clerk in an attorney's office. Having perfected himself in shorthand, however, he became a newspapercritic and reporter, was engaged on the Mirror of Parliament and the True Sun, and in 1835 on the Morning Chronicle. For some time previously he had been contributing humorous pieces to the Monthly Magazine; but at length, in 1835, appeared in the Morning Chronicle the first of that series of Sketches by Boz which brought Charles Dickens into fame. It was followed in quick succession by a pamphlet entitled Sunday under Three Heads, by Timothy Spark publsihed in 1836; the Tuggs of Barnsgate published in 1836; The Village Coquette, a comic opera published in 1836; and a farce called the Strange Gentleman published in 1836.
In the same year Chapman and Hall engaged the new writer to prepare the letterpress for a series of comic sketches on sporting subjects by Seymour, an artist who had already achieved fame, and suggested as a subject the adventures of an eccentric club. Seymourcommitted suicide soon after, and H K Browne joined Charles Dickens as illustrator, the result being the immortal Pickwick Papers.
The great characteristics of Charles Dickens' genius were now fully apparent, and his fame rose at once to the highest point it was possible for a writer of fiction to reach. A new class of characters, eccentric indeed, but vital representations of the humours and oddities of life, such as Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller and his father, Mr. Winkle, and others, were made familiar to the public. Under the name of the Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club this work was published in two volumes in 1837.
In the same year Charles Dickens was engaged as editor of Bentley's Magazine, to which he contributed Oliver Twist, a work which opened up that vein of philanthropic pathos and indignant satire of institutions which became a distinguishing feature of his works. Before the completion of Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby was begun, being issued complete in 1839. As the special object of Oliver Twist was to expose the conduct of workhouses, that of Nicholas Nickleby was to denounce the management of cheap boarding-schools.
Master Humphrey's Clock, issued in weekly numbers, contained among other matter two other leading tales, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge, the latter a historical tale, going back to the times of the Gordon riots. It was published complete in 1840-41. In 1841 Dickens visited America, and on his return he wrote American Notes for General Circulation published in 1842.
His next novel, Martin Chuzzlewit published in 1844, dwelt again on his American experiences. This work also added a number of typical figures - Mr. Pecksniff, Mark Tapley, Sarah Gamp, and others - to English literature. The series of Christmas Tales, in which a new element of his genius, the power of handling the wierd machinery of ghostly legend in subordination to his own peculiar humour, excited a new sensation of wonder and delight. These enumerated consecutively were: A Christmas Carol published in 1843, The Chimes published in 1844, The Cricket on the Hearth published in 1845), The Battle of Life published in 1846, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain published in 1847. The extraordinary popularity of these tales created for a time a new department in literature, that of the Sensational tale for the Christmas season.
In 1845 Charles Dickens went to Italy, and on his return the Daily News, started on the 1st of January, 1846, was intrusted to his editorial management; but, despite his early training, this was an occupation uncongenial to his mind, and in a few months the experiment was abandoned. His Pictures from Italy were published the same year. Next followed his novel of Dombey and Son published in 1848), and David Copperfield, a work which has a strong autobiographical element in it published in 1849-50.
In 1850 Charles Dickens became editor of the weekly serial Household Words, in which various original contributions from his own pen appeared. In 1853 his Bleak House came out. A Child's History of England, commenced in Household Words, was published in 1852-64. Hard Times appeared in Household Words, and was published in 1854. Little Dorrit, commenced in 1856, dealt with imprisonment for debt, the contrasts of character developed by wealth and poverty, and executive imbecility, idealized in the Circumlocution Office. In 1859, in consequence of a disagreement with his publishers, All the Year Round superseded Household Words; and in the first number of this periodical, 28th May, was begun A Tale of Two Cities. Great Expectations followed in the same paper, on the 1st of December, 1860. Both were soon. republished, and are generally considered as the poorest of Charles Dickens' works.
In All the Year Round also appeared a series of disconnected sketches, called the Uncommercial Traveller, published in 1868. Our Mutual Friend, completed in 1865, and published in the usual monthly numbers, with illustrations by Marcus Stone, was the last great serial work which Charles Dickens lived to finish. It contained some studies of characters of a breadth and depth unusual with Charles Dickens, and is distinguished among his works by its elaborate plot. The first number of his last work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was issued on the 1st of April, 1870, and only three numbers had appeared when he died somewhat suddenly, at his residence, Gad's Hill Place, near Rochester, on the 9th of June. He had considerably overtaxed his strength during his later years, more especially by his successive series of public readings from bis own works, one series being delivered in America in 1867-68. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Charles Dickens' work as a novelist is firmly based upon a wide and keen observation of men. It is true that most of his characters suffer from being created to exhibit little more than one trait or quality alone, and thus receive an air of grotesqueness and exaggeration which approaches caricature. But the single trait or quality which they embody is so truly conceived, and exhibited with such vitality and humour, as to place Charles Dickens, in spite of all that is grotesque and overstrained in his work, amongst the great artists. Research Charles Dickens
Emile Gaboriau was a French writer of detective stories. He was born in 1835 at Saujon and died in 1873. After contributing to the smaller Parisian journals short sketches published under the titles Ruses d'Amour, Les Comediennes Adorees, etc., he achieved a considerable success by his novel Dossier No. 113 (published in 1866). He continued to work tinsvein in a series of clever stories dealing with crime and its detection Among his other stories are 'Monsieur Lecoq', 'The Slaves of Paris', and 'Other People's Money'. Research Emile Gaboriau
Jean Nicolas Bouilly was a French dramatist and author. He was born in 1763 near Tours and died in 1842. The sentimental vein in his works earned him the nickname of the 'poet lachrymal'. He wrote a number of comic operas including 'Pierre le Grand' and 'Les Deux Journees'. Research Jean Bouilly
Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux (commonly called Boileau) was a French poet. He was born in 1636 at Paris and died in 1711 of dropsy. He studied in the College d'Harcourt and in the College de Beauvais, and entered the legal profession, but soon left it to devote himself entirely to belles-lettres. In 1660 appeared his first satire, Adieux d'un Poete a la Ville de Paris, followed rapidly by eight others, and ultimately by three more, to complete the series. They attacked with much critical acumen, and in vigorous but finely-finished verse, the poets and writers of the older school.
In 1664 he wrote his proseDialogue des Heros de Roman, which sounded the knell of the artificial romances of the period. His Epistles, written in a more serious vein, appeared at various times from 1669 onwards; but his masterpieces were the L'Art Poetique and Le Lutrin, published in 1674 - the former an imitation of the Ars Poetica of Horace with reference to French verse, the latter a mock heroic poem. In many respects his writings determined the trend of all subsequent French poetry, and he left, through his influence upon Dryden, Pope,and their contemporaries, a permanent mark upon English literature. For some time he held the post of historiographer in connection with Racine, and was elected academician in 1684, though only after the interference of the king in his favour. Research Nicholas Boileau-Despreaux
Richard Corbet was an English bishop and poet. He was born in 1582 and died in 1635. He was educated at Westminster school and Christ Church, Oxford, took orders, became university proctor, and was appointed one of the royal chaplains by James I. After being dean of Christ Church he was made bishop of Oxford in 1624, and was translated to Norwich in 1632. He had a life-long reputation as a wit, jester, and convivial spirit, and was on intimate terms with Ben Jonson. His poems are mostly satiric and humorous, but one of the best known, a lament for the fairies, is in a more serious vein. Research Richard Corbet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet and philosopher. He was born in 1772 at Ottery St Mary in Devon and died in 1834. Sent to school at Christ's Church Hospital, to which he had obtained a representation, the young Samuel Coleridge took little interest in the ordinary sports of childhood, and was noted for a dreamy abstracted manner, though he made considerable progress in classical studies, and was known even at that early age as a devourer of metaphysical and theological works.
From Christ's Church he went with a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained for two years, but without achieving much distinction. At this time, too, his ultra-radical and rationalistic opinions made the idea of academic preferment hopeless, and perhaps it was partly to escape the difficulties and perplexities gathering about his future that Samuel Coleridge suddenly quit Cambridge and enlisted in the 15th Dragoons. Rescued by his friends from this position, he took up his residence at Bristol with two congenial spirits, Robert Southey, who had just been obliged to quit Oxford for his Unitarian opinions, and Lovell, a young Quaker. The three conceived the project of emigrating to America, and establishing a pantisocracy as they termed it, or community in which all should be equal, on the banks of the Susquehanna. This scheme, however, never became anything more than a theory, and was finally disposed of when, in 1795, the three friends married three sisters, the Misses Pricket of Bristol.
Samuel Coleridge about this time started a periodical, the Watchman, which did not survived beyond the ninth number. In 1796 he took a cottage at Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, where, soothed and supported by the companionship of Wordsworth, who came to reside at Allfoxden, he wrote much of his best poetry, in particular the Ancient Mariner and the first part of Christabel. While residing at Nether Stowey he used to officiate in a Unitarian chapel at Taunton, and in 1798 received an invitation to take the charge of a congregation of this denomination at Shrewsbury, where, however, he did nothing further than preach the probation sermon.
An annuity bestowed on him by some friends (the Wedgewoods) furnished him with the means of making a tour to Germany, where he studied at the University of Gottingen. In 1800 he returned to England and took up his residence beside Southey at Keswick, while Wordsworth lived at Grasmere in the same neighbourhood. From this fact, and a certain common vein in their poetry, arose the epithet of 'Lake School' applied to their works. About 1804 Coleridge went to Malta to re-establish his health, seriously impaired by opium-eating. In 1806 he returned to England, and after ten years of somewhat desultory literary work as lecturer, contributor to periodicals, etc, Samuel Coleridge in a sort took refuge from the world in the house of his friend Mr. Gillman at Highgate, London. Here he passed the rest of his days, holding weekly conversaziones in which he poured himself forth in eloquent monologues, being by general consent one of the most wonderful talkers of the time.
His views on religious and political subjects had now become mainly orthodox and conservative, and a great work on the Logos, which should reconcile reason and faith, was one of the dreams of his later years. But Samuel Coleridge had long been incapable of concentrating his energies on anything, and of the many years he spent in the leisure and quietness of Highgate nothing remains but the Table Talk and the fragmentary notes and criticism gathered together, and edited by his nephew, valuable enough of their kind, but less than might have been expected of Samuel Coleridge.
The dreamy and transcendental character of Samuel Coleridge's poetry eminently exhibits the man. In his best moments he has a fine sublimity of thought and expression not surpassed by Milton; but he is often turgid and verbose. As a critic, especially of William Shakespeare, Samuel Coleridge's work is of the highest rank, combining a comprehensive grasp of large critical principles and a singularly subtle insight into details.
Samuel Coleridge's poetical works include The Ancient Mariner, Christabel (incomplete), Remorse, a tragedy, Kubia Khan, a translation of Schiller's Wallenstein, etc; his prose works, Biographia Literaria, The Friend, The Statesman's Manual, Aids to Reflection, On the Constitution of Church and State, etc. Posthumously were published specimens of his Table Talk, Literary Remains, etc. Research Samuel Coleridge
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Underlay
