1.
John Everett Millais
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Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. A child prodigy, at the age of eleven Millais became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded at his family home in London, at 83 Gower Street. Millais became the most famous exponent of the style, his painting Christ in the House of His Parents generating considerable controversy, by the mid-1850s Millais was moving away from the Pre-Raphaelite style and developing a new and powerful form of realism in his art. His later works were successful, making Millais one of the wealthiest artists of his day. Millaiss personal life has played a significant role in his reputation. His wife Effie was formerly married to the critic John Ruskin, Millais was born in Southampton, England in 1829, of a prominent Jersey-based family. His parents were John William Millais and Emily Mary Millais, most of his early childhood was spent in Jersey, to which he retained a strong devotion throughout his life. The author Thackeray once asked him when England conquered Jersey, the family moved to Dinan in Brittany for a few years in his childhood. His mothers forceful personality was the most powerful influence on his early life and she had a keen interest in art and music, and encouraged her sons artistic bent, promoting the relocating of the family to London to help develop contacts at the Royal Academy of Art. He later said I owe everything to my mother and his prodigious artistic talent won him a place at the Royal Academy schools at the unprecedented age of eleven. While there, he met William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti with whom he formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in September 1848 in his home on Gower Street. Millaiss Christ in the House of His Parents was highly controversial because of its portrayal of a working class Holy Family labouring in a messy carpentry workshop. Later works were controversial, though less so. Millais achieved popular success with A Huguenot, which depicts a couple about to be separated because of religious conflicts. He repeated this theme in later works. All these early works were painted with great attention to detail, in paintings such as Ophelia Millais created dense and elaborate pictorial surfaces based on the integration of naturalistic elements. This approach has been described as a kind of pictorial eco-system, Mariana is a painting that Millais painted in 1850-51 based on the play Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare and the poem of the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson from 1830. In the play, the young Mariana was to be married and this style was promoted by the critic John Ruskin, who had defended the Pre-Raphaelites against their critics
2.
Oil painting
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Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. Commonly used drying oils include linseed oil, poppy seed oil, walnut oil, the choice of oil imparts a range of properties to the oil paint, such as the amount of yellowing or drying time. Certain differences, depending on the oil, are visible in the sheen of the paints. An artist might use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular consistency depending on the medium, the oil may be boiled with a resin, such as pine resin or frankincense, to create a varnish prized for its body and gloss. Its practice may have migrated westward during the Middle Ages, Oil paint eventually became the principal medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became widely known. In recent years, water miscible oil paint has come to prominence and, to some extent, water-soluble paints contain an emulsifier that allows them to be thinned with water rather than paint thinner, and allows very fast drying times when compared with traditional oils. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with the artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint, Oil paint is usually mixed with linseed oil, artist grade mineral spirits, or other solvents to make the paint thinner, faster or slower-drying. A basic rule of oil paint application is fat over lean and this means that each additional layer of paint should contain more oil than the layer below to allow proper drying. If each additional layer contains less oil, the painting will crack. This rule does not ensure permanence, it is the quality and type of oil leads to a strong. There are many media that can be used with the oil, including cold wax, resins. These aspects of the paint are closely related to the capacity of oil paint. Traditionally, paint was transferred to the surface using paintbrushes. Oil paint remains wet longer than other types of artists materials, enabling the artist to change the color. At times, the painter might even remove a layer of paint. This can be done with a rag and some turpentine for a time while the paint is wet, Oil paint dries by oxidation, not evaporation, and is usually dry to the touch within a span of two weeks. It is generally dry enough to be varnished in six months to a year, art conservators do not consider an oil painting completely dry until it is 60 to 80 years old
3.
Minneapolis Institute of Art
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The museum receives support from the Park Board Museum Fund, levied by the Hennepin County commissioners. Additional funding is provided by sponsors and museum members. It is one of the largest art museums in the United States, the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts was established in 1883 to bring the arts into the life of the community. This group, made up of business and professional leaders, organized art exhibits throughout the decade, in 1889, the Society, now known as the Minneapolis Institute of Art, moved into its first permanent space, inside the newly built Minneapolis Public Library. The institute received gifts from Clinton Morrison and William Hood Dunwoody, among others, a few days later the institute received a letter from Dunwoody, who got the ball rolling, Put me down for $100,000. A fundraising dinner a few days later brought in $335,500, the new museum, designed by the firm of McKim, Mead and White, opened in 1915. The building came to be recognized as one of the finest examples of the Beaux-Arts architectural style in Minnesota. The art historian Bevis Hillier organized the exhibition Art Deco at the museum, presented from July to September 1971, the building was originally meant to be the first of several sections, but only the front piece built. Several additions have subsequently been built according to plans, including a 1974 addition by Kenzo Tange. An expansion designed by Michael Graves was completed in June 2006, before the latest expansion, just 4 percent of the museums nearly 100,000 objects could be on view at the same time, now that figure is 5 percent. Target Corporation, for which the new wing is named, was the biggest donor, in 2015 the institute rebranded itself, dropping the final s from its name, to become the Minneapolis Institute of Art and encouraging the use of the nickname Mia instead of the acronym MIA. The museum features a collection of approximately 80,000 objects spanning 5,000 years of world history. Its collection includes paintings, photographs, prints & drawings, textiles, architecture, the Asian collection includes Chinese architecture, jades, bronzes, and ceramics. The institute owns the Purcell-Cutts House, just east of Lake of the Isles, the house was designed by Purcell & Elmslie and is a masterpiece of Prairie School architecture. It was donated to the museum by Anson B, cutts Jr. the son of its second owner. The house is available for tours on the weekend of each month. In order to encourage private collecting and assist in the acquisition of important works of art, the groups schedule lectures, symposia, and travel for members. The museum features a series of exhibitions that bring in traveling collections from other museums for display
4.
Minneapolis
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Minneapolis is the county seat of Hennepin County, and the larger of the Twin Cities, the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the United States. As of 2015, Minneapolis is the largest city in the state of Minnesota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul anchor the second-largest economic center in the Midwest, after Chicago. Minneapolis lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, just north of the confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Saint Paul. It was once the worlds flour milling capital and a hub for timber, the city and surrounding region is the primary business center between Chicago and Seattle, with Minneapolis proper containing Americas fifth-highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies. As an integral link to the economy, Minneapolis is categorized as a global city. Noted for its music and performing arts scenes, Minneapolis is home to both the award-winning Guthrie Theater and the historic First Avenue nightclub. The name Minneapolis is attributed to Charles Hoag, the citys first schoolteacher, who combined mni, a Dakota Sioux word for water, and polis, Dakota Sioux had long been the regions sole residents when French explorers arrived around 1680. For a time relations were based on fur trading, gradually more European-American settlers arrived, competing for game and other resources with the Dakota. In the early 19th century, the United States acquired this territory from France, fort Snelling was built in 1819 by the United States Army, and it attracted traders, settlers and merchants, spurring growth in the area. The United States government pressed the Mdewakanton band of the Dakota to sell their land, the Minnesota Territorial Legislature authorized present-day Minneapolis as a town in 1856 on the Mississippis west bank. Minneapolis incorporated as a city in 1867, the rail service began between Minneapolis and Chicago. It later joined with the city of St. Anthony in 1872. Minneapolis developed around Saint Anthony Falls, the highest waterfall on the Mississippi River, forests in northern Minnesota were a valuable resource for the lumber industry, which operated seventeen sawmills on power from the waterfall. By 1871, the west river bank had twenty-three businesses, including mills, woolen mills, iron works, a railroad machine shop, and mills for cotton, paper, sashes. Due to the hazards of milling, six local sources of artificial limbs were competing in the prosthetics business by the 1890s. The farmers of the Great Plains grew grain that was shipped by rail to the citys thirty-four flour mills, a father of modern milling in America and founder of what became General Mills, Cadwallader C. Some ideas were developed by William Dixon Gray and some acquired through industrial espionage from the Hungarians by William de la Barre, pillsbury Company across the river were barely a step behind, hiring Washburn employees to immediately use the new methods. The hard red spring wheat that grows in Minnesota became valuable, not until later did consumers discover the value in the bran that Minneapolis
5.
The Times
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The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London, England. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, the Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, itself wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1967 and its news and its editorial comment have in general been carefully coordinated, and have at most times been handled with an earnest sense of responsibility. While the paper has admitted some trivia to its columns, its emphasis has been on important public affairs treated with an eye to the best interests of Britain. To guide this treatment, the editors have for long periods been in touch with 10 Downing Street. In these countries, the newspaper is often referred to as The London Times or The Times of London, although the newspaper is of national scope, in November 2006 The Times began printing headlines in a new font, Times Modern. The Times was printed in broadsheet format for 219 years, the Sunday Times remains a broadsheet. The Times had a daily circulation of 446,164 in December 2016, in the same period. An American edition of The Times has been published since 6 June 2006 and it has been heavily used by scholars and researchers because of its widespread availability in libraries and its detailed index. A complete historical file of the paper, up to 2010, is online from Gale Cengage Learning. The Times was founded by publisher John Walter on 1 January 1785 as The Daily Universal Register, Walter had lost his job by the end of 1784 after the insurance company where he was working went bankrupt because of the complaints of a Jamaican hurricane. Being unemployed, Walter decided to set a new business up and it was in that time when Henry Johnson invented the logography, a new typography that was faster and more precise. Walter bought the patent and to use it, he decided to open a printing house. The first publication of the newspaper The Daily Universal Register in Great Britain was 1 January 1785, unhappy because people always omitted the word Universal, Ellias changed the title after 940 editions on 1 January 1788 to The Times. In 1803, Walter handed ownership and editorship to his son of the same name, the Times used contributions from significant figures in the fields of politics, science, literature, and the arts to build its reputation. For much of its life, the profits of The Times were very large. Beginning in 1814, the paper was printed on the new steam-driven cylinder press developed by Friedrich Koenig, in 1815, The Times had a circulation of 5,000. Thomas Barnes was appointed editor in 1817
6.
Crimean War
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The Crimean War was a military conflict fought from October 1853 to March 1856 in which the Russian Empire lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, the French promoted the rights of Roman Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The longer-term causes involved the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the unwillingness of Britain and France to allow Russia to gain territory and power at Ottoman expense. While the churches eventually worked out their differences and came to an agreement, Nicholas I of Russia, Nicholas issued an ultimatum that the Orthodox subjects of the Empire be placed under his protection. Britain attempted to mediate and arranged a compromise that Nicholas agreed to, when the Ottomans demanded changes, Nicholas refused and prepared for war. Having obtained promises of support from France and Britain, the Ottomans declared war on Russia in October 1853. The war started in the Balkans, when Russian troops occupied the Danubian Principalities, until then under Ottoman suzerainty and now part of modern Romania, led by Omar Pasha, the Ottomans fought a strong defensive campaign and stopped the advance at Silistra. A separate action on the town of Kars in eastern Anatolia led to a siege. Fearing an Ottoman collapse, France and Britain rushed forces to Gallipoli and they then moved north to Varna in June, arriving just in time for the Russians to abandon Silistra. Aside from a skirmish at Köstence, there was little for the allies to do. Karl Marx quipped that there they are, the French doing nothing, after extended preparations, the forces landed on the peninsula in September 1854 and fought their way to a point south of Sevastopol after a series of successful battles. The Russians counterattacked on 25 October in what became the Battle of Balaclava and were repulsed, a second counterattack, ordered personally by Nicholas, was defeated by Omar Pasha. The front settled into a siege and led to conditions for troops on both sides. Smaller actions were carried out in the Baltic, the Caucasus, Sevastopol fell after eleven months, and neutral countries began to join the Allied cause. Isolated and facing a bleak prospect of invasion from the west if the war continued and this was welcomed by France and Britain, as their subjects were beginning to turn against their governments as the war dragged on. The war was ended by the Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, Russia was forbidden from hosting warships in the Black Sea. The Ottoman vassal states of Wallachia and Moldavia became largely independent, Christians there were granted a degree of official equality, and the Orthodox Church regained control of the Christian churches in dispute. The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts to use technologies such as explosive naval shells, railways
7.
Royal Academy of Arts
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The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded through an act of King George III on 10 December 1768 with a mission to promote the arts of design in Britain through education and exhibition. Supporters wanted to foster a national school of art and to encourage appreciation, fashionable taste in 18th-century Britain was based on continental and traditional art forms, providing contemporary British artists little opportunity to sell their works. From 1746 the Foundling Hospital, through the efforts of William Hogarth, the success of this venture led to the formation of the Society of Artists of Great Britain and the Free Society of Artists. Both these groups were primarily exhibiting societies, their success was marred by internal factions among the artists. The combined vision of education and exhibition to establish a school of art set the Royal Academy apart from the other exhibiting societies. It provided the foundation upon which the Royal Academy came to dominate the art scene of the 18th and 19th centuries, supplanting the earlier art societies. Sir William Chambers, a prominent architect, used his connections with George III to gain royal patronage and financial support of the Academy, the painter Joshua Reynolds was made its first president. Francis Milner Newton was elected the first secretary, a post he held for two decades until his resignation in 1788, the instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768, named 34 founder members and allowed for a total membership of 40. William Hoare and Johann Zoffany were added to this list later by the King and are known as nominated members, among the founder members were two women, a father and daughter, and two sets of brothers. The Royal Academy was initially housed in cramped quarters in Pall Mall, although in 1771 it was given temporary accommodation for its library and schools in Old Somerset House, then a royal palace. In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand and designed by Chambers, the Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery. These premises soon proved too small to house both institutions, in 1868,100 years after the Academys foundation, it moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly, where it remains. Burlington House is owned by the British Government, and used rent-free by the Royal Academy, the first Royal Academy exhibition of contemporary art, open to all artists, opened on 25 April 1769 and ran until 27 May 1769. 136 works of art were shown and this exhibition, now known as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, has been staged annually without interruption to the present day. In 1870 the Academy expanded its programme to include a temporary annual loan exhibition of Old Masters. The range and frequency of these exhibitions have grown enormously since that time. Britains first public lectures on art were staged by the Royal Academy, led by Reynolds, the first president, a program included lectures by Dr. William Hunter, John Flaxman, James Barry, Sir John Soane, and J. M. W. Turner
8.
John Ruskin
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John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and his writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin also penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters, the elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society and he also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation. He was hugely influential in the half of the 19th century. After a period of decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability, from the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues, Unto This Last marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, in 1871, he began his monthly letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain, published under the title Fors Clavigera. In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society, as a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today. Ruskin was the child of first cousins. His father, John James Ruskin, was a sherry and wine importer founding partner and de facto manager of Ruskin, Telford. John James was born and brought up in Edinburgh, Scotland, to a mother from Glenluce and his wife, Margaret Cox, née Cock, was the daughter of an aunt on the English side of the family and a publican in Croydon. She had joined the Ruskin household when she became companion to John Jamess mother, John James had hoped to practice law, but was instead articled as a clerk in London. His father, John Thomas Ruskin, described as a grocer, was an inadequate businessman, to save the family from bankruptcy, John James, whose prudence and success were in stark contrast to his father, took on all debts, settling the last of them in 1832. John James and Margaret were engaged in 1809, but opposition to the union from John Thomas, Ruskin was born at 54 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, London, south of St Pancras railway station. His childhood was characterised by the influences of his father and mother. John James Ruskin helped to develop his sons Romanticism and they shared a passion for the works of Byron, Shakespeare and especially Walter Scott
9.
Effie Gray
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Euphemia Chalmers Effie Millais, Lady Millais née Gray was the wife of the critic John Ruskin, but she left her husband without the marriage being consummated. She later married his protégé, the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais and this famous Victorian love triangle has been dramatised in plays, films and an opera. Effie Gray, initially known by the pet name of Phemy, was born in Perth, Scotland, and lived in Bowerswell and her family knew Ruskins father, who encouraged a match between them. Ruskin wrote the fantasy novel The King of the Golden River for her in 1841, after their marriage in 1848, they travelled to Venice, where Ruskin was researching his book The Stones of Venice. Their different personalities are thrown into relief by their contrasting priorities. For Effie, Venice provided an opportunity to socialise while Ruskin was engaged in solitary studies, in particular, he made a point of drawing the Ca dOro and the Palazzo Ducale, because he feared they would soon be destroyed by the occupying Austrian troops. One of the troops, Lieutenant Charles Paulizza, made friends with Effie and her brother, among others, later claimed that Ruskin was deliberately encouraging the friendship to compromise her, as an excuse to separate. When she met Millais five years later, she was still a virgin and his reasons are unclear, but they involved disgust with some aspect of her body. As she later wrote to her father, He alleged various reasons, hatred to children, religious motives, a desire to preserve my beauty, and, finally this last year he told me his true reason. That he had imagined women were different to what he saw I was. Ruskin confirmed this in his statement to his lawyer during the annulment proceedings, but though her face was beautiful, her person was not formed to excite passion. On the contrary, there were circumstances in her person which completely checked it. The reason for Ruskins disgust with circumstances in her person is unknown, various suggestions have been made, including revulsion at either her pubic hair, or menstrual blood. While married to Ruskin, she modelled for Millais painting The Order of Release and she then became close to Millais when he accompanied the couple on a trip to Scotland in order to paint Ruskins portrait according to the critics artistic principles. During this time, spent in Brig o Turk in the Trossachs, while working on the portrait of her husband, Millais made many drawings and sketches of her. He also sent humorous cartoons of himself, Effie and Ruskin to friends and she copied some of his works. After their return to London, she left Ruskin, nominally to visit her family and she sent back her wedding ring with a note announcing her intention to file for an annulment. Their youngest son, John Guille Millais, was a bird artist
10.
Irish Wolfhound
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The Irish Wolfhound is a breed of domestic dog, specifically a very large sighthound from Ireland. The name originates from its purpose—wolf hunting with dogs—rather than from its appearance, originally developed from war hounds to one used for hunting and guarding, Irish Wolfhounds can be an imposing sight due to their formidable size. The breed is old, there are suggestions it may have been brought to Ireland as early as 7000 BC. These dogs are mentioned, as cú in Irish laws and in Irish literature which dates from the 5th century or, in the case of the Sagas, from the old Irish period - AD 600-900. The word Cu often became an added respected prefix on the names of warriors as well as denoting that they were worthy of the respect. Ancient woodcuts and writings have placed them in existence as a breed by 273 BC, however, there is indication that huge dogs existed even as early as 279 BC when the Tectosages and Tolistobogii Celts sacked Delphi. Survivors left accounts of the fierce Celts and the dogs who fought with them. Wolfhounds were bred as hunting dogs by the ancients, who called them Cú Faoil, the Irish continued to breed them for this purpose, as well as to guard their homes and protect their stock. During the English Conquest of Ireland, only the nobility were allowed to own Irish Wolfhounds and they were much coveted and were frequently given as gifts to important personages and foreign nobles. Wolfhounds were the companions of the regal, and were housed themselves alongside them, king John of England, in about 1210 presented an Irish hound, Gelert to Llewellyn, a prince of Wales. The poet The Hon William Robert Spencer immortalised this hound in a poem, in his Historie of Ireland completed 1571, Edmund Campion gives a description of the hounds used for hunting the wolves on the Dublin and Wicklow mountains. He says, They are not without wolves and greyhounds to hunt them, bigger of bone, due to their popularity overseas many were exported to European royal houses leaving numbers in Ireland depleted. This led to a declaration by Oliver Cromwell himself being published in Kilkenny on 27 April 1652 to ensure sufficient numbers remained to control the wolf population. References to the Irish wolfhound in the 18th century tell of its size, strength. Writing in 1790, Bewick described it as the largest and most beautiful of the dog kind, about 36 inches high, generally of a white or cinnamon colour, somewhat like the Greyhound but more robust. He said that their aspect was mild, disposition peaceful, the last wolf in Ireland is thought to have been killed at Myshall, Co Carlow in 1786 by a pack of wolfdogs kept by a Mr Watson of Ballydarton. Scotsman Captain George Augustus Graham is responsible with a few other breeders for attempting to reaffirm the breeds existence and this blood is now in my possession. Captain Graham devoted his life to ensuring the survival of the Irish wolfhound, owing to the small numbers of surviving specimens outcrossing was used in the breeding programme
11.
Myrtus
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Myrtus, with the common name myrtle, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Myrtaceae, described by Linnaeus in 1753. Over 600 names have been proposed in the genus, but nearly all have either moved to other genera or been regarded as synonyms. The Myrtus genus has three species recognised today, Myrtus communis — Common myrtle, native to the Mediterranean region in southern Europe, Myrtus nivellei — Saharan myrtle, native to North Africa. Myrtus phyllireaefolia Myrtus communis, the myrtle, is native across the Mediterranean region, Macaronesia, western Asia. The plant is a shrub or small tree, growing to 5 metres tall. The leaf is entire, 3–5 cm long, with a fragrant essential oil, the star-like flower has five petals and sepals, and numerous stamens. The flower is pollinated by insects, the fruit is a round berry containing several seeds, most commonly blue-black in colour. A variety with yellow-amber berries is also present, the seeds are dispersed by birds that eat the berries. Myrtus nivellei, the Saharan myrtle, is endemic to the mountains of the central Sahara Desert and it is found in a restricted range in the Tassili nAjjer Mountains in southern Algeria, and the Tibesti Mountains in northern Chad. It occurs in areas of sparse relict woodland at montaine elevations above the central Saharan desert plains. It is a medicinal plant for the Tuareg people. Myrtus communis, the myrtle, is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant for use as a shrub in gardens. It is often used as a plant, with its small leaves shearing cleanly. When trimmed less frequently, it has numerous flowers in late summer and it requires a long hot summer to produce its flowers, and protection from winter frosts. The species and the subspecies M. communis subsp, tarentina have gained the Royal Horticultural Societys Award of Garden Merit. Myrtus communis, the myrtle, is used in the islands of Sardinia. Many Mediterranean pork dishes include Myrtle berries, and roasted baby pig is often stuffed with myrtle sprigs in the belly cavity, the berries, whole or ground, have been used as a pepper substitute. They contribute to the flavor of Mortadella sausage and the related American Bologna sausage
12.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He is known for his works, particularly Vanity Fair. Thackeray, a child, was born in Calcutta, British India. His mother, Anne Becher, was the daughter of Harriet Becher and John Harman Becher. Richmond died in 1815, which caused Anne to send her son to England in 1816, the ship on which he travelled made a short stopover at St. Helena, where the imprisoned Napoleon was pointed out to him. Once in England he was educated at schools in Southampton and Chiswick, and then at Charterhouse School, Thackeray disliked Charterhouse, and parodied it in his fiction as Slaughterhouse. Nevertheless, Thackeray was honoured in the Charterhouse Chapel with a monument after his death, Thackeray then travelled for some time on the continent, visiting Paris and Weimar, where he met Goethe. He returned to England and began to study law at the Middle Temple and he also lost a good part of his fortune in the collapse of two Indian banks. The Thackerays had three children, all girls, Anne Isabella, Jane and Harriet Marian, who married Sir Leslie Stephen, editor, Thackeray now began writing for his life, as he put it, turning to journalism in an effort to support his young family. Between 1837 and 1840 he also reviewed books for The Times and he was also a regular contributor to The Morning Chronicle and The Foreign Quarterly Review. Later, through his connection to the illustrator John Leech, he began writing for the newly created magazine Punch, in which he published The Snob Papers and this work popularised the modern meaning of the word snob. Thackeray was a regular contributor to Punch between 1843 and 1854. Tragedy struck in Thackerays personal life as his wife, Isabella, succumbed to depression after the birth of their third child, in 1840. Finding that he could get no work done at home, he spent more and more time away until September 1840, struck by guilt, he set out with his wife to Ireland. During the crossing she threw herself from a water-closet into the sea and they fled back home after a four-week battle with her mother. From November 1840 to February 1842 Isabella was in and out of professional care and she eventually deteriorated into a permanent state of detachment from reality. Isabella outlived her husband by 30 years, in the end being cared for by a family named Thompson in Leigh-on-Sea at Southend until her death in 1894, after his wifes illness Thackeray became a de facto widower, never establishing another permanent relationship. He did pursue other women, however, in particular Mrs Jane Brookfield, in 1851 Mr Brookfield barred Thackeray from further visits to or correspondence with Jane. Baxter, an American twenty years Thackerays junior whom he met during a tour in New York City in 1852
