An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, e-mails have come into use; the word epistolary is derived from Latin from the Greek word ἐπιστολή epistolē. The epistolary form can add greater realism to a story, it is thus able to demonstrate differing points of view without recourse to the device of an omniscient narrator. An important strategic device in the epistolary novel for creating the impression of authenticity of the letters is the fictional editor. There are two theories on the genesis of the epistolary novel; the first claims that the genre is originated from novels with inserted letters, in which the portion containing the third person narrative in between the letters was reduced. The other theory claims that the epistolary novel arose from miscellanies of letters and poetry: some of the letters were tied together into a plot.

Both claims have some validity. The first epistolary novel, the Spanish "Prison of Love" by Diego de San Pedro, belongs to a tradition of novels in which a large number of inserted letters dominated the narrative. Other well-known examples of early epistolary novels are related to the tradition of letter-books and miscellanies of letters. Within the successive editions of Edmé Boursault's Letters of Respect and Love, a group of letters written to a girl named Babet were expanded and became more and more distinct from the other letters, until it formed a small epistolary novel entitled Letters to Babet; the immensely famous Letters of a Portuguese Nun attributed to Gabriel-Joseph de La Vergne, comte de Guilleragues, though a small minority still regard Marianna Alcoforado as the author, is claimed to be intended to be part of a miscellany of Guilleragues prose and poetry. The founder of the epistolary novel in English is said by many to be James Howell with "Familiar Letters", who writes of prison, foreign adventure, the love of women.

The first novel to expose the complex play that the genre allows was Aphra Behn's Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, which appeared in three volumes in 1684, 1685, 1687. The novel shows the genre's results of changing perspectives: individual points were presented by the individual characters, the central voice of the author and moral evaluation disappeared. Behn furthermore explored a realm of intrigue with letters that fall into the wrong hands, faked letters, letters withheld by protagonists, more complex interaction; the epistolary novel as a genre became popular in the 18th century in the works of such authors as Samuel Richardson, with his immensely successful novels Pamela and Clarissa. John Cleland's early erotic novel Fanny Hill is written as a series of letters from the titular character to an unnamed recipient. In France, there was Lettres persanes by Montesquieu, followed by Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Laclos' Les Liaisons dangereuses, which used the epistolary form to great dramatic effect, because the sequence of events was not always related directly or explicitly.

In Germany, there was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther and Friedrich Hölderlin's Hyperion. The first Canadian novel,The History of Emily Montague by Frances Brooke, twenty years the first American novel, The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown, were both written in epistolary form. Starting in the 18th century, the epistolary form was subject to much ridicule, resulting in a number of savage burlesques; the most notable example of these was Henry Fielding's Shamela, written as a parody of Pamela. In it, the female narrator can be found wielding a pen and scribbling her diary entries under the most dramatic and unlikely of circumstances. Oliver Goldsmith used the form to satirical effect in The Citizen of the World, subtitled "Letters from a Chinese Philosopher Residing in London to his Friends in the East". So did the diarist Fanny Burney in a successful comic first novel, Evelina; the epistolary novel fell out of use in the late 18th century. Although Jane Austen tried her hand at the epistolary in juvenile writings and her novella Lady Susan, she abandoned this structure for her work.

It is thought that her lost novel First Impressions, redrafted to become Pride and Prejudice, may have been epistolary: Pride and Prejudice contains an unusual number of letters quoted in full and some play a critical role in the plot. The epistolary form nonetheless saw continued use, surviving in exceptions or in fragments in nineteenth-century novels. In Honoré de Balzac's novel Letters of Two Brides, two women who became friends during their education at a convent correspond over a 17-year period, exchanging letters describing their lives. Mary Shelley employs the epistolary form in her novel Frankenstein. Shelley uses the letters as one of a variety of framing devices, as the story is presented through the letters of a sea captain and scientific explorer attempting to reach the north pole who encounters Victor Frankenstein and records the dying man's narrative and confessions. Published in 1848, Anne Brontë's novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is framed as a retrospective letter from one of the main heroes to his friend and brother-in-l

Bobby Edwards was an American country music singer who recorded between 1959 and 1969. At the beginning of his career he recorded under the name Bobby Moncrief. Having completed his service in the US Navy, he started recording as Bobby Edwards. Edwards was born in Anniston, Alabama to a preacher, George Thomas Moncrief and Ila Eva Murray Moncrief; as Bobby Moncrief, he first recorded for Pappy Daily at'D' Records in 1958. His first recording was called "Long Gone Daddy". In 1959, he revived Tex Ritter's 1945 hit, written by Jenny Lou Carson, "Jealous Heart". Edwards went out west, working shows on his own in southern California before songwriter Terry Fell placed him on Crest Records, helped produce and arrange "You're the Reason." Though Edwards wrote the song, his manager and financier Fred Henley and Terry Fell received writing credits. Darrell Cotton, Gib Guilbeau, Ernie Williams had formed a trio, Gib & Ernie; the trio released the singles "I Goof" and "Just or Unjust," which became local hits.

After adding Wayne Moore, they became The Four Young Men, which Edwards joined to become Bobby Edwards & The Four Young Men. Their first record together was the Crest Records single "You're the Reason". In 1961, the song became a nationwide U. S. hit, peaking at #4 on the Billboard country chart and #11 on the Billboard Hot 100. The tune was covered by Joe South and Hank Locklin. Edwards transferred to Capitol Records and released the sound-alike "What's the Reason," which peaked at #71 the following year. In 1963, his single "Don't Pretend" made the Billboard country chart, being his last single to enter the country charts. In the late 1960s, he operated a small recording studio. In the early 1970s, he recorded several gospel albums. Edwards retired from the music industry in 1972 and returned to Anniston to raise a family. Edwards lived in Tennessee from 2000 until his death, he died on July 2012, at the Middle Tennessee Medical Center in Murfreesboro. He was 86

This article is about the particular significance of the year 1799 to Wales and its people. Prince of Wales – George Princess of Wales – Caroline of Brunswick April – Crumlin Arm with Fourteen Locks completed. October – Anthony Bushby Bacon and his brother Thomas take over the Hirwaun ironworks. Thomas sells his interest in the Plymouth ironworks to the Hill family. 16 October – Evan Pritchard, David Thomas and Griffith Williams are "ordained" bards of the province of Gwynedd by Iolo Morganwg. 25 December – HMS Ethalion is wrecked off the Penmarks. Following the failure of the Pembrokeshire fish harvest, Richard Fenton imports grain from the Mediterranean to relieve the plight of local people. Peter Price becomes manager of Neath ironworks, brings his family, including his wife Anna and his son Joseph Tregelles Price. Japanner John Pyrke relocates to Usk from London. Ann Hatton and her husband take a lease on Swansea Bathing House. Iolo Morganwg travels to North Wales to collect material for the Myvyrian Archaiology.

Launch of the quarterly periodical Trysorfa Ysprydol by Thomas Charles. John Sevier, governor of Tennessee, writes of the alleged discovery of six skeletons in brass armour bearing the Welsh coat-of-arms. Baptist leader and colonist Morgan John Rhys moves to Pennsylvania; the Llandovery Bank is established, as D Jones & Co.. Known as the "Black Ox Bank" or "Banc yr Eidon", it is one of the earliest banks established in Carmarthenshire; the 11 miles Crumlin Arm of the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal is opened. It leaves the main line at Crindau. Robert Nicholl Carne begins construction of Dimlands, near Llantwit Major. Philip Yorke – The Royal Tribes of Wales 30 June – David Williams, politician 21 December – John Vaughan, ironmaster May – John Evans, explorer, 29 3 September – William Thomas, academic, 65 4 November – Josiah Tucker, economist, 87 14 December – Benjamin Francis, hymn-writer, 55

ErgoGroup was a Nordic information technology corporation, systems integrator and consulting company headquartered in Oslo, Norway. The company provided services for IT operations, business solutions, outsourcing and consulting. ErgoGroup had a total of 90 offices and regional branches throughout Norway and Finland, was a subsidiary of Posten Norge, the Norwegian Postal Service, it was the second largest ICT operations company in Norway. The company held partial ownership in SYSteam, TransWare, Eiendomsverdi, Eye-Share and Bekk Consulting. ErgoGroup merged with EDB Business Partner in 2010, creating EVRY. ErgoGroup organised its services in Norway into five business areas: IT Operations, Regional Services, the Nordic countries|Nordic Region and Bekk Consulting. IT Operations work with outsourcing contracts aimed at the key account market; this business area had responsibility for ErgoGroup's communications services, developed basic operating solutions that were used by all of ErgoGroup's business areas.

Other areas covered by IT Operations were cloud computing and software as a service, network solutions, security and IT surveillance. The second business area, delivered software solutions and business sector solutions that streamlined selected work processes within the public and private sectors. Examples of areas of specialisation were: finance and corporate performance management, portal and document handling, business consultancy and process optimisation, development and integration, electronic transactions, information databases. Regional Services covered ErgoGroup's smaller businesses and businesses outside the main cities and regional centres; this area covered IT infrastructure, electronic collaboration, unified communications, enterprise content management, enterprise resource planning, Customer Relationship Management, mobile solutions, service-oriented architecture and IT infrastructure library. In 2007 ErgoGroup bought Bekk Consulting, a Norwegian consultancy company in which ErgoGroup had 75 per cent ownership shares and options to purchase the remaining 25 per cent within three years.

Bekk Consulting supplied consultancy and management services in the following areas: process and organisational development, modernisation of professional systems and self-service solutions and customised business applications. The company was founded as the government agency Statens Driftssentral for administrativ databehandling in 1972 to perform operational services related to IT operation. In 1985 it was made a limited company and renamed Statens Datasentral AS, owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Government Administration, it bought TF Data in 1989, Oslo Data in 1991 and Statdata in 1993. The postal service bought the company in 1995, changing its name to Posten SDS, it was renamed to Ergogroup in 2001. In 2005 the company bought the outsourcing division of Ementor and in 2006 Nor-Cargo Data, AddIQ, Fujitsu Services Norway, SYSteam and Allianse. In 2007 it bought 75 per cent of Bekk Consulting. Due to an increased customer base and enhanced value creation, ErgoGroup has experienced a steady and organic growth in recent years.

The ICT industry as a whole is in a process of consolidation, due to market demands for increased professionalism on the part of suppliers. ErgoGroup has been an active participant in this development and has consolidated its core activities through strategic acquisitions. In May 2010, Telenor owned EDB Business Partner, who announced that it was in strategic discussions with ErgoGroup, which lead to a merger between Norway's two biggest IT companies; the announcement of merging between EDB Business Partner and ErgoGroup was official by June 7, 2010 ErgoGroup organized an annual two-day IT conference called IT-tinget

The soldado de cuera served in the frontier garrisons of northern New Spain, the Presidios. They were an exclusive corps in the Spanish Empire, they took their name from the multi-layered deer-skin cloak they wore as protection against Indian arrows. When New Spain's visitador José de Gálvez organized the Portola Expedition, he was accompanied by a party of 25 soldiers, the "finest horsemen in the world, among these soldiers who best earn their bread from the august monarch whom they serve." The cuera, which gave them their name, was a leather jacket, like a coat without sleeves, proof against the Indians' arrows except at close range. For additional armor they had chaps; the shields, carried on the left arm, were made of two plies of bull's hide, would turn either arrow or spear. The leather chaps or aprons, fastened to the pommel of the saddle, protected legs and thighs from brush and cactus spines, they were armed with a short musket, a pair of pistols, a bow and arrows, a short sword, a lance, a bull-hide shield.

Each soldier had six horses, a foal, a mule. Equipment and animals belonged to the soldier and they had to pay for them out of their own purse; these frontier soldiers were recruited from among the mestizo population, Hispanicized Indians, freed slaves. Most of the officers were Criollos, whereas few of the enlisted men had this distinction; the soldados de cuera manned the presidios that stretched from Los Adaes, Louisiana, in the East, across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, to the Pacific Coast of Alta California in the West. There was no lack of volunteers for the service. Recruitment took place among the local population, accustomed to the local climate, who were expert horsemen, expert trackers who knew the country. For the poor general population the service as a soldado de cuera was attractive, with many perks; when not on campaign against hostile Indians, the soldados de cuera escorted convoys of travelers or merchandise. They had to take care of watching the enormous remudas of the presidios from native horse thiefs.

This constant vigilance reduced the number of men available for other missions. In Santa Fe, the governor of Santa Fe de Nuevo México was the captain and commander of the company of dragones de cuera, he held the rank of teniente coronel graduado, Lieutenant Colonel by brevet. In addition there were two lieutenants with a pay of 700 pesos annually. There were two sergeants with 350 pesos each. Among the privates were an armorer, a drummer, six carabineers; the compañías volantes raised in 1767 were used as a mobile reserve, but had the same equipment as the normal companies. The tropas ligeras raised in 1778, did not use the leather armor, the shield or the lance, but were otherwise equipped like normal soldados de cuera except their hats were white; the normal strength of the light troops were 19 per company. In Santa Fe they were commanded by a second ensign with 450 pesos annually in pay, a second sergeant with 320 pesos. Presidios and their strength in the several provinces: TexasBahía del Espíritu Santo, 51 Adaes, 61 San Sabá, 101 Trinidad, 31Bejar, 23 Nuevo México Santa Fe, 81 El Paso, 50NayaritNayarit, 43Nueva VizcayaJunta de los Ríos, 50 Janos, 51 Guajoquilla, 51 CoahuilaRio Grande.

33 San Francisco de Coahuila. 36 Santa Rosa del Sacramento. 52 Nuevo LeónSan Agustín Ahumada, 27 SonoraCorodeguachi, 51 Guebavi, 51 Horcasitas, 51 Tubac, 51 Caborca, 51 Buenavista, 51 CaliforniaLoreto, 30 San José del Cabo, 30 Nuevo SantanderSanta Ana Calnargo, 13 Villa de San Fernando, 10 Villa de San Antonio Padilla, 5 Nuestra Señora De Loreto de Burgos, 12 Santa Maria de Llera, 12 San Francisco de Güemes, 8 San Juan Bautista Horcasitas, 11 Dulce Nombre de Jesús Escandan, 9 Soto la Marina, 11 Cinco Señores de Santander, 22 Reinosa, 11 Santa Maria de Aguayo, 1 San Antonio Padilla, 12Source

Complexions Contemporary Ballet is a contemporary ballet company founded in 1994 by Co-Artistic Directors Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson based in New York City comprising about 14 classical and contemporary dancers. Complexions performs worldwide, provides dance education, was America's first multicultural ballet company. Complexions has received numerous awards including the New York Times “Critics Choice” Award, it has appeared throughout the US, including the Joyce Theater/NY, Lincoln Center/NY, the Brooklyn Academy of Music's/NY, the Mahalia Jackson Performance Arts Center in New Orleans, the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, the Music Center in Los Angeles, the Winspear Opera House/Dallas. The Company has appeared at major European dance festivals including Italy’s Festival of Dance for four consecutive years, the Isle De Dance Festival in Paris, the Maison De La Dance Festival in Lyon, the Holland Dance Festival, Steps International Dance Festival in Switzerland, Łódź Biennale, Warsaw Ballet Festival, Kraków Spring Ballet Festival, the Dance Festival of Canary Islands/Spain, Le Festival des Arts de St-Sauveur/Canada, in Korea and Australia.

Dwight Rhoden has created over 90 ballets for Complexions, as well as numerous other companies, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Arizona Ballet, the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Company, the Dance Theater of Harlem, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, the Joffrey Ballet and New York City Ballet. Desmond Richardson uses a wide range of dance forms including classical and contemporary, having been with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet Frankfurt, the first African American principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre. Desmond has been a guest artist with several world-renowned companies including the Swedish Opera Ballet, The Washington Ballet, Teatro at La Scala, the San Francisco Ballet. Hayley Mayne. "Dance Review: Complexions Contemporary Ballet". Australian stage. Felicity Molloy. "Dance Review: Complexions Contemporary Ballet". The New Zealand Arts Review. Mark Lorando. "Dance Review: Complexions dance troupe: Absolutely dazzling". NOLA Arts. Jessica Cui.

"Dance Review: Complexions Contemporary Ballet is a treat". The Huffington Post. Official website Selby Artists Management webpage Complexions Contemporary Ballet on Facebook