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Much of what we know about the Early Modern era comes from the writings of that time. With the proliferation of the printing press and a somewhat more literate population, much more literature of this period is preserved (as opposed to earlier times). Whether from a novel, play, travel journal or scientific paper, these writings add greatly to our knowledge of our history.
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Ninon de l'Enclos

aka: Ninon de Lenclos, Ninon de Lanclos
borndied
1620, Nov 101705, Oct 17
a French author, courtesan, freethinker, and patron of the arts. She became a popular figure in the salons, and her own drawing room became a centre for the discussion and consumption of the literary arts. This life and her opinions on organized religion caused her some trouble, and she was imprisoned in the Madelonnettes Convent. In response, as an author s...
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Claude de L'Estoile

borndied
16021652, May
a French playwright and poet. He was a founder member of the Académie française. Third son of Pierre de L'Estoile he inherited fortune, he devoted himself entirely to poetry and belles-lettres and he is the author of odes and stanzas, two plays, and other writings.
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Cross-listed in MilitaryGovernance

Roger L'Estrange

bornactivedied
1616, Dec 171639-17021704, Dec 11
an English pamphleteer, author and staunch defender of Royalist claims. L'Estrange was involved in political controversy throughout his life. Perhaps his best known polemical pamphlet was An Account of the Growth of Knavery, which ruthlessly attacked the parliamentary opposition, placing them as "dissenting fanatics" and truly beyond the pale.
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François Tristan l'Hermite

aka: Tristan l'Hermite
borndied
1601 ca1655, Sep 7
a French dramatist. He was born at the Château de Soliers in the Haute Marche. His adventures began early, for he killed his enemy in a duel at the age of thirteen, and was obliged to flee to England. The story of his childhood and youth he embroiders in a burlesque novel, the Page disgracie. He was, in succession, poet to Gaston d'Orléans, to the duchesse...
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Laurent Angliviel de la Beaumelle

borndied
1726, Jan 281773, Nov 17
a French Protestant writer. Most of his writings bear a polemical, pamphlet-like character or speculate (as contained in the 'Mémoires letters of Madame de Maintenon') on the audience's curiosity.
Links (1)Notes (2)


Jean de La Bruyere

aka: La Bruyère
borndied
1645, Aug 161696, May 11
a French philosopher and moralist. La Bruyère's Caractères appeared in 1688, and at once he made many readers and many enemies. His unpopularity was, however, chiefly confined to the subjects of his sarcastic portraiture, and to the hack writers of the time, of whom he was wont to speak with a disdain only surpassed by that of more
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Jean de La Chapelle

borndied
1651, Oct 241723, May 29
a French writer and dramatist. He was born at Bourges, France, was elected to the Académie française in 1688, and died in Paris. Benefiting from a sizeable personal fortune, La Chapelle wrote and staged mediocre tragedies inspired by classical antiquity at the Comédie-Française. La Chapelle also published two novels.
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Vincent La Chapelle

borndied
1690/17031745
a French master cook to Phillip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, to William IV of Orange, to John V of Portugal then to Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV of France. La Chapelle traveled to Spain and Portugal and wrote The Mode...
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Madame de La Fayette

aka: Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, comtesse de La Fayette
borndied
1634, Mar 181693, May 25
a French writer, the author of La Princesse de Clèves, France's first historical novel and one of the earliest novels in literature. It was an immense success, the work is often taken to be the first true French novel and a prototype of the early psychological novel.
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Jean de La Fontaine

borndied
16211695
the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional languages.
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Jean-Francois de La Harpe

aka: Jean-François
borndied
1739, Nov 201803, Feb 11
a French playwright, writer and critic. In 1763, his tragedy of Warwick was played before the court. This, his first play, was perhaps the best he ever wrote. The many authors whom he afterwards offended were always able to observe that the critic's own plays did not reach the standard of excellence he set up. Timoleon (1764) and Pharamondmore
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Cross-listed in Military

Francois de la Noue

aka: François, Bras-de-Fer (Iron Arm)
borndied
15311591, Aug 14
one of the Huguenot captains of the 16th century. He was born near Nantes in 1531, of an ancient Breton family. He served in Italy under Marshal Brissac, and in the first Huguenot war, but his first great exploit was the capture of Orléans at the head of only fifteen cavaliers in 1567, during the second war. It was in captivity that he wrote his celebrated ...
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Pierre de La Primaudaye

borndied
15461619
a French writer. La Primaudaye came from a large Protestant family in Anjou. He is known particularly for L'Academie Française, which was influential in English translations, from 1584 onwards, particularly The French Academie of 1618. He published a large variety of books on intellectual topics, most notably L'Academie Française, which summarised philosop...
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Sophie von La Roche

aka: Maria Sophie von La Roche, Maria Sophie Gutermann von Gutershofen
borndied
1730, Dec 61807, Feb 18
a German novelist. She was born in Kaufbeuren and died in Offenbach am Main. La Roche's first novel, published by Wieland in 1771, was her most successful. However, she wrote several other novels. Her works were meant to be morally instructive for young women. Some lwere written against the background of the post-revolutionary period.
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Anne de La Roche-Guilhem

borndied
1644, Jul 241710
a French writer and translator. Daughter of Charles and Marie-Anne Guilhen of Azémar, she was, by her mother, niece of the poet Saint-Amant. Anne de La Roche-Guilhem became known in the republic of letters by several works of fiction.
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Francois de La Rochefoucauld

aka: Prince de Marcillac, François
borndied
1613, Sep 151680, Mar 17
a noted French author of maxims and memoirs. It is said that his world-view was clear-eyed and urbane, and that he neither condemned human conduct nor sentimentally celebrated it. Born in Paris on the Rue des Petits Champs, at a time when the royal court was vacillating between aiding the nobility and threatening it, he was considered an exemplar of the acco...
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Cross-listed in Military

Charles Armand Rene de La Tremoille

aka: 6th duc de Thouars, Charles Armand René de La Trémoille
borndied
1708, Jan 141741, May 23
a French soldier and president of the States of Brittany. He joined the military at a young age and became a colonel of the Champagne regiment at the age of eighteen. Later, he became governor of Île-de-France. La Trémoille was the author of some works and was elected a member of the Académie française on 13 February 1738.
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Cross-listed in Performers

Francois Pierre La Varenne

aka: François
borndied
16151678
the author of Le Cuisinier françois (1651), one of the most influential cookbooks in early modern French cuisine. La Varenne broke with the Italian traditions that had revolutionised medieval and Renaissance French cookery in the 16th century and early 17th century. La Varenne was the foremost member of a group of French chefs, writing for a professional au...
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Cross-listed in Physicians

Louis-Elisabeth de La Vergne de Tressan

aka: Louis-Élisabeth
borndied
1705, Nov 41783, Oct 31
a French soldier, physician, scientist, medievalist and writer, best known for his adaptations of "romans chevaleresques" of the Middle Ages, which contributed to the rise of the Troubadour style in the French arts. A friend of Voltaire and Buffon, he frequented the ...
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Cross-listed in ExplorersScientists

Jean-Baptiste Labat

borndied
16631738, Jan 6
a French clergyman, botanist, writer, explorer, ethnographer, soldier, engineer, and landowner. Labat was born and died in Paris. In 1693, determined to devote himself to foreign missionary work, he received permission from the general of his order to travel to the West Indies, then under French domination. In 1696 he travelled to Guadeloupe, and was appoint...
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Alexandre de Laborde

borndied
1773, Sep 171842, Oct 20
a French antiquary, liberal politician and writer, a member of the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques (1832), under the rubric political economy. A mere list of Laborde's publications is an indication of the range of his interests, above all the works that diffused in Europe a realistic view of picturesque Spain, suffused with the interpretations o...
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Barthelemy de Laffemas

aka: Barthélemy
borndied
15451612 ca
an economist, born in Beausemblant, France. He is known as the first person to write about underconsumption. In 1598 Laffemas continued writing his ideas on trade and manufacture. Writing his ideas may have been required to receive support from Henry IV. They acted ...
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Lai Zhide

borndied
15251604
a Ming period Neo-Confucian philosopher. He introduced into Chinese philosophy the well-known "Yin and Yang symbol", the taijitu (a "diagram of the great ultimate"). Lai Zhide is the author of an I Ching commentary, the Explanation of the Classic of Change Annotated by Mr Lai.
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Cross-listed in Astronomers

Jerome Lalande

aka: Jérôme
borndied
1732, Jul 111807, Apr 4
a French astronomer, freemason and writer. He communicated more than one hundred and fifty papers to the French Academy of Sciences, edited the Connoissance de temps (1759–1774), and again (1794–1807), and wrote the concluding two volumes of the 2nd edition of Montucla's Histoire des mathématiques (1802).
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Cross-listed in MilitaryScientists

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

borndied
1744, Aug 11829, Dec 18
a French naturalist. He was a soldier, biologist, academic, and an early proponent of the idea that evolution occurred and proceeded in accordance with natural laws. He gave the term biology a broader meaning by coining the term for special sciences, chemistry, meteorology, geology, and botany-zoology. In 1801, he published Système des animaux sans vert...
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Alphonse de Lamartine

borndied
17901869
a French writer, poet and politician who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic and the continuation of the Tricolore as the flag of France. Lamartine made his entrance into the field of poetry by a masterpiece, Les Méditations Poétiques (1820), and awoke to find himself famous. He was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1...
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Charles Lamb

aka: Elia
bornactivedied
1775, Feb 101798-18331834, Dec 27
an English writer and essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764–1847). He also wrote a number of poems, and was part of a literary circle in England, along with more
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Cross-listed in ClergyLegal

William Lamb [1]

aka: William Paniter
bornactivedied
1493 ca1537-15501550
a Scottish cleric, lawyer, and author. William Lamb wrote Ane Resonyng of ane Scottis and Inglis merchand betuix Rowand and Lionis in 1549. It was an answer to English propaganda published during the war of the Rough Wooing. Unlike the Complaynt of Scotland, (1549), Lamb's book was not published but survived in manuscript.
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Cross-listed in MilitaryGovernance

John Lambert [1]

borndied
16191684, Mar
an English Parliamentary general and politician. He fought during the English Civil War and then in Oliver Cromwell's Scottish campaign (1650–51), becoming thereafter active in civilian politics until his dismissal by Cromwell in 1657. During this time he wr...
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Cross-listed in Artists

Dominicus Lampsonius

borndied
15321599
a Flemish humanist, poet and painter. A secretary to various Prince-Bishops of Liège, he maintained an extensive correspondence with humanists and artists at home and abroad. Lampsonius dedicated himself for some time successfully to the art of painting. He was assisted in his efforts by Lambert Lombard, the eminent Renaissance painter of Liège. HIs writin...
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Claude Lancelot

bornactivedied
1615 ca1638-16601695
Born in Paris, later to become a Jansenist monk and grammarian. Helped to establish the Petites écoles de Port-Royal in May 1638 (run by Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, the abbot of Saint-Cyran). Lancelot supervised the education of the duke of Chevreuse and of the princes of Conti. In early 1660, Lancelot was forced to leave the abbey, and was ultimately exile...
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Letitia Elizabeth Landon

aka: L.E.L.
borndied
18021838
an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L. E. L. Her first poem was published under the single initial "L" in the Gazette in 1820, when Landon was 18. Landon served as the Gazette's chief reviewer as she continued to write poetry; her second collection, The Improvisatrice, appeared in 1824. By 1826, Landon's high reputation began to...
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Walter Savage Landor

borndied
17751864
an English writer and poet. His best known works were the prose Imaginary Conversations, and the poem Rose Aylmer, but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity. As remarkable as his work was, it was equalled by his rumbustious character and lively temperament.
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Magnus Brostrup Landstad

borndied
1802, Oct 71880, Oct 8
a Norwegian parish priest and provost, psalmist and poet who published the first collection of authentic Norwegian traditional ballads in 1853. This work was criticized for unscientific methods, but today it is commonly accepted that he contributed significantly to the preservation of the traditional ballads.
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Thomas Langley

borndied
unknown1581
an English churchman and canon of Winchester Cathedral. After twelve years' study he was admitted B.D. at Oxford on 15 July 1560, without having previously taken his master's degree. In 1563 Langley was instituted to the vicarage of Wanborough, Wiltshire, on the presentation of the dean and chapter of Winchester, and held this license until his death
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Adrien Languillat

borndied
18081878
a French Jesuit and missionary in China. He was titular bishop of Sergiopolis (1856–1878) and vicar apostolic of Southeastern Chi-Li (1856–1864) and Kiangnan (1864–1878). He wrote several books documenting his travels in Asia.
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Emilia Lanier

aka: Lanyer, Amelia, Aemilia Bassano
bornactivedied
1569, Jan 271600s-1610s1645, Apr 3
the first Englishwoman to assert herself as a professional poet through her single volume of poems, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611). Born Aemilia Bassano and part of the Lanier family, she was a member of the minor gentry through her father's appointment as a royal musician, and was apparently educated in the household by Susan Bertie, Countess of Kent. She ...
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Cross-listed in AstronomersGovernanceScientists

Pierre-Simon Laplace

aka: Marquis de Laplace
bornactivedied
1749, Mar 231771-18271827, Mar 5
an influential French scholar whose work was important to the development of mathematics, statistics, physics, and astronomy. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume Mécanique Céleste (Celestial Mechanics) (1799–1825).
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Cross-listed in Educators

Rebecca Hammond Lard

bornactivedied
1772, Mar 71786-1850s1855, Sep 28
called by some critics "the first poet in Indiana". Her poetry reflects on the lives of the early people in Indiana and the colonists in Vermont. Lard's works are mainly religious and meditative in tone, but draw their inspiration in part from the Bucolics and Georgics of Virgil. She is best known for Indiana's first book of poetry, On the Banks of the Oh...
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Manuel de Lardizabal y Uribe

aka: Lardizábal y Uribe
borndied
17441820
a Novohispanic penologist who was an academician of the Real Academia Española de la Lengua from 1775 to 1820. He seems to have been the successor to chair C of his father in law, Academician from 1746 to 1775 Francisco Antonio de Angulo. Acevedo published in 1770 a dissertation against torture, as being in conflict with Nature Rights and public decency wi...
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Cross-listed in Physicians

Bernardino de Laredo

borndied
14821540
a physician and Franciscan mystical writer. Laredo has left us three works. He wrote two medical works in Castilian, but with Latin titles: Metaphora medicinae (Seville 1522 and 1536) and Modus faciendi cum ordine medicandi (Seville 1527, 1534, 1542, 1627). He is most remembered, though, for his spiritual treatise entitled Ascent of Mount Sion (Subida del Mo...
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Bartolome de las Casas

aka: Bartolomé
borndied
1484 ca1566, Jul 18
a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians". His extensive writings, the most famous being A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies and Historia de Las Indias, chronicle the first decades of colonization of the West...
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Christian Lassen

borndied
1800, Oct 221876, May 8
a Norwegian-German orientalist. In Bonn, Lassen acquired a sound knowledge of Sanskrit. He spent three years in Paris and London, engaged in copying and collating manuscripts, and collecting materials for future research, especially with reference to Hindu drama and philosophy. During this period he published, jointly with Eugène Burnouf, his first work, Es...
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Margrethe Lasson

borndied
1659, Mar1738, Mar
a Danish novelist, the first novelist in Denmark. She was the author of the famous poem to the Norwegian poet Dorothe Engelbretsdatter, whom she defends and admires. In 1715, she writes the novel Den beklædte Sandhed, which is published in 1723 and became the first novel in Denmark. Her psedonym was “det danske Sprogs inderlige Elskerinde Aminda”, and s...
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Filip Lastric

aka: Martin Jakovovic, Philippus de Occhievia
borndied
17001783, Apr 19
a Bosnian writer and friar of the Franciscan Province of Bosna Argentina. His works include the first overview of the geography and history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The surviving works by Filip Lastric include a philosophy manual (preserved in manuscript) composed during his stay in Požega, four sermon collections, as well as an overview of the history of...
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Richard Latewar

borndied
15601601
an English churchman and academic, known as a neo-Latin poet. Latewar was a famous preacher, and a Latin poet. John Stow refers to his poetic gifts. Samuel Daniel speaks of him as his friend, and in the "Apology" to his Philotas mentions that Latewar told him that he himself "had written the same argument and caused it to be presented in St. John's College, ...
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William Latymer

borndied
14991583
an English evangelical clergyman, Dean of Peterborough from 1560. He was chaplain to Anne Boleyn, and is best known for his biography of her, the Chronickille of Anne Bulleyne. The Chronickille was written for Elizabeth I of England, and concentrates on th...
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Cross-listed in Legal

John Lauder

aka: 2nd Baronet, Lord Fountainhall
borndied
1646, Jul/Aug1722, Sep 20
one of Scotland's leading jurists who remains to this day an oft consulted authority. He was knighted in 1680 and matriculated his Arms with the Lyon Court on 15 June 1699. Lord Fountainhall left a large collection of legal opinions and papers, including some that record Court of Session proceedings from 1678 to 1712, which also note the transactions of the ...
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Friedrich Laun

borndied
1770, Jun 11849, Sep 4
a German novelist, who wrote under the pen name Friedrich Laun. Schulze was born in Dresden. His first novel, Der Mann, auf Freiersfüssen (1801), was favorably received. He wrote many volumes, and with Johann August Apel edited a ghost story anthology Das Gespensterbuch ("The Ghost Book") (1811–1815).
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Etienne Laureault de Foncemagne

aka: Étienne Lauréault
borndied
1694, May 81779, Sep 26
a French churchman and scholar. An Oratorian and professor, he was elected to the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres in 1722 and to the Académie française in 1736. "Choosing him did not much enrich us, but at least it didn't make the public groan" commented the abbé d'Olivet, who called him "A man little-charged with literature, but he passes fo...
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Sylvestre de Laval

borndied
15701616
a French Roman Catholic theologian. He lived most of life in Paris, France. He was the author of two controversial books. He was a teacher of theology and philosophy. He did a lot of missionary work as well.
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Cross-listed in Scientists

Antoine Lavoisier

borndied
1743, Aug 261794, May 8
a French nobleman and chemist central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and had a large influence on both the history of chemistry and the history of biology. He is widely considered in popular literature as the "father of modern chemistry". This label, however, is more a product of Lavoisier's eminent skill as a self-promoter and underplays his depend...
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Sir William Lawrence

aka: 1st Baronet
borndied
1783, Jul 161867, Jul 5
an English surgeon who became President of the Royal College of Surgeons of London and Serjeant Surgeon to the Queen. In his mid thirties he published two books of his lectures which contained pre-Darwinian ideas on man's nature and, effectively, on evolution. He was forced to withdraw the second (1819) book after fierce criticism; the Lord Chancellor ruled...
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Cross-listed in Explorers

John Lawson

bornactivedied
1674, Dec 271700-17111711, Sep 16
an English explorer, naturalist and writer. He played an important role in exploring the interior of colonial North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, publicizing his expeditions in a book. He founded two settlements in North Carolina: Bath and New Bern, both at the coast. He was killed by Tuscarora people, who were beginning to resist European encroachme...
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Austen Henry Layard

borndied
1817, Mar 51894, Jul 5
an English traveller, archaeologist, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, author, politician and diplomat, best known as the excavator of Nimrud and of Niniveh, where he uncovered in 1851 the library of Ashurbanipal. He wrote many books about his discoveries.
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Jean-Jacques-Francois Le Barbier

aka: Jean-Jacques-François
borndied
1738, Nov 111826, May 7
a writer, illustrator and painter of French history. He was born in Rouen and died in Paris. There is little additional information available about the details of his life. His most famous work was a representation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen he made in 1789. He was the father of artist Élise Bruyère.
Links (1)


Cross-listed in Legal

Michel Le Clerc

borndied
16221691, Dec 8
a French lawyer and dramatist. After studying under the Jesuits, he established himself in Paris, where he became a lawyer to the parliament of Paris. Like his co-student Claude Boyer, he wrote tragedies and "pièces des circonstance"; he produced his Virginie romaine in 1645, the same year as Boyer produced his Porcie romaine. He was elected to the Académi...
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Sheridan Le Fanu

borndied
1814, Aug 281873, Feb 7
an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was a leading ghost-story writer of the nineteenth century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. Le Fanu worked in many genres but remains best known for his mystery and horror fiction. He was a meticulous craftsman and frequently reworked plots and ideas from his earlier ...
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Charles-Georges Le Roy

aka: Leroy
borndied
1723, Jan 221789, Nov 11
a French man of letters during the Age of Enlightenment and the author of one of the first books on animal behavior. Le Roy was a lieutenant of the royal hunt and a friend of the encyclopedists Denis Diderot, d'Alembert and d'Holbach, regularly attending d'Holba...
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Francois de La Mothe Le Vayer

aka: François, Orosius Tubero
borndied
1588, Aug1672, May 9
a French writer who was known to use the pseudonym Orosius Tubero. He was admitted to the Académie française in 1639, and was the tutor of Louis XIV. His Considérations sur l'éloquence française (1638) procured him admission to the Académie française, and hi...
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Cross-listed in ArtistsComposers

Edward Lear

borndied
1812, May 12/131888, Jan 29
an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, and is known now mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised. His principal areas of work as an artist were threefold: as a draughtsman employed to illustrate birds and animals; making coloured drawings during his journeys, which he reworke...
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Cross-listed in Scientists

Georges-Louis Leclerc

aka: Comte de Buffon
borndied
1707, Sep 71788, Apr 16
a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier. Buffon published thirty-six quarto volumes of his Histoire Naturelle during his lifetime; with additional volumes based on his notes and further research being published in the...
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Leconte de Lisle

aka: Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle
borndied
1818, Oct 221894, Jul 17
a French poet of the Parnassian movement. He is traditionally known by his surname only, Leconte de Lisle. As a writer he is most famous for his three collections of poetry: Poèmes antiques (1852), Poèmes barbares (1862), Poèmes tragiques (1884). He is also known for his translations of Ancient Greek tragedians and poets, such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Eu...
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Cross-listed in Explorers

John Ledyard

bornactivedied
1751, Nov1770s-17891789, Jan 10
an American explorer and adventurer. In June 1776, Ledyard joined Captain James Cook's third and final voyage as a British marine. Explored Australasia, Oceania, and Russia. Ledyard was sent to Canada to fight in the American Revolution. Instead he deserted, returne...
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Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee

borndied
17801865
An American essayist and miscellaneous writer, wife of George Gardiner Lee of Boston; born in Newburyport, MA, 1780; died in Boston, 1865. Her works are: ‘Grace Seymour’ (1835); ‘Three Experiments in Living’ (1838); ‘The Huguenots in France and America’ (1842); ‘Memoir of Pierre Toussaint’ (1853).


Harriet Lee

borndied
17571851, Aug 1
an English novelist and playwright. In 1786, she published The Errors of Innocence, a novel in five volumes, written in epistolary form. A comedy, The New Peerage, or our Eyes may deceive us, was performed at Drury Lane on 10 Nov. 1787, and, although acted nine times, was not successful enough to encourage her to continue writing for the stage. Clara Lennox,...
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Cross-listed in Educators

Sophia Lee

borndied
17501824, Mar 13
an English novelist, dramatist and educator. Her novel The Recess, or a Tale of other Times (1783–85) was a historical romance; and the play Almeyda, Queen of Grenada (1796) was a long tragedy in blank verse, which opened at Drury Lane on 20 April 1796 but ran for only five nights. With her sister Harriet Lee, Sophia also wrote a series of more
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Cross-listed in Governance

Daniel Leeds

borndied
1651, Nov 151720, Sep 28
Daniel was born in Stansted Mountfitchet, Uttlesford, Essex, England in 1651. He was christened November 29 of the same year. Some historical accounts give his birthplace as Leeds, but there is a record of his christening in Stansted Mountfitchet. He followed his father to America in 1676, coming in on the ship "Shield," which landed at Burlington in Decembe...
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Cross-listed in Artists

Valentin Lefebvre

aka: Lefèvre
borndied
16421682
Not much is known of the life of the Flemish artist Valentin Lefebvre. The fundamental influence on his work, clear also in the present sheet, is the Venetian artist Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), but it has also been pointed out that Giovanni Coli and Filippo Gherardi were significant.1 Both those painters were working in Venice between 1663-68, in the Library...
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Cross-listed in Physicians

Jean Baptiste Lefebvre de Villebrune

borndied
17321809, Oct 7
a French philologist, physician and translator. He was born in Senlis, Oise, and died in Angoulême. There is very little additional information about the details of his life. He also translated from ancient Greek, Latin, Spanish, English, German and various Eastern languages ??into French. He was appointed professor of Hebrew and Syriac at the College de Fr...
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Thomas Legge

borndied
15351607, Jul 12
an English playwright, prominently known for his play Richardus Tertius, which is considered to be the first history play written in England. He attended Trinity College, where he received a B.A. in 1556. He then went on to attend Oxford in 1566, where he received his master's degree. In 1568 Legge became a member of the faculty at Jesus College, Cambridge, ...
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Cross-listed in Legal

Gerard Legh

borndied
unknown1563
an English lawyer, known as a writer on heraldry. He served an apprenticeship to his father and became a member of the Drapers' Company. Subsequently he became a member of the Inner Temple. He travelled in France, and in 1562 was preparing for a journey to Venice. He died of the plague. Legh's only work, entitled The Accedens of Armory, London, 1562 (later e...
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Cross-listed in InventorsScientists

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

aka: von Leibniz
borndied
1646, Jun 211716, Nov 14
a German polymath and philosopher who occupies a prominent place in the history of mathematics and the history of philosophy, having developed differential and integral calculus independently of Isaac Newton. Leibniz's notation has been widely used ever since it ...
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Cross-listed in Clergy

William Leigh

borndied
15501639
an English clergyman and royal tutor. He is now remembered for his sermon series Queene Elizabeth paraleld from 1612, which includes the first published text record for the queen's speech to the troops at Tilbury from 1588. He took holy orders, and was known as a preacher at Oxford and elsewhere. On 24 July 1584 he asked the university authorities for a prea...
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Cross-listed in Composers

William Leighton

borndied
1565 ca1622
an Elizabethan composer and editor who published The Teares and Lamentatacions of a Sorrowfull Soule (1614) which comprised 55 pieces by 21 composers (among them John Bull, William Byrd, John Dowland and Martin Peerson), including eight by himself. There is a mode...
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Karl Gottfried Ritter von Leitner

aka: Carl
borndied
1800, Nov 181890, Jun 20
an Austrian author and publicist from Graz, Styria, Austria. From 1837 to 1854 he was the first Secretary to the Estates in Styria. He was the editor of the newspaper "Steiermark Zeitschrift" (Styria Times). Karl was the curator of the Landesmuseum Joanneum (Joanneum National Museum) in Graz, Austria from 1858 to 1864, and ge co-founded the Historical Associ...
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John Leland

aka: Leyland
borndied
1503, Sep 131552, Apr 18
an English poet and antiquary. Leland has been described as "the father of English local history and bibliography". His Itinerary provided a unique source of observations and raw materials for many subsequent antiquaries, and introduced the county as the basic unit for studying the local history of England, an idea that has been influential ever since. Lelan...
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Cross-listed in Scientists

Nicolas Lemery

borndied
1645, Nov 171715, Jun 19
a French chemist, was born at Rouen. He was one of the first to develop theories on acid-base chemistry. Lemery did not concern himself much with theoretical speculations, but holding chemistry to be a demonstrative science, confined himself to the straightforward exposition of facts and experiments. In consequence, his lecture-room was thronged with people ...
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Adolphe Lemoine

aka: Lemoine-Montigny, Montigny
borndied
18121880
a French comédien and playwright. He was also the director of the Théâtre du Gymnase. He married the comic-actress Rose Chéri. He was the uncle of the comic-actress Anna Judic. He wrote seven plays between the years of 1832 and 1836. His breakthrough performance was Honore de Balzac Mercadet 1851, when he set a table in the middle of the stage, which pre...
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Anna Maria Lenngren

borndied
1754, Jun 181817, Mar 8
a Swedish poet. She is one of the most famous poets in Swedish history. Anna Maria Lenngren debuted as a writer of poems for funerals and weddings, and her earliest work has a tone of the ecstatic passion common in the religious circles of her father. This was however quickly replaced by a more sober tone in line with the scientific sense and realism of the ...
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Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz

borndied
1751, Jan 231792, Jun 4
a Baltic German writer of the Sturm und Drang movement. In 1771 Lenz abandoned his studies in Königsberg. Much against the will of his father, who on that account broke off contact with him, he took a position little better than that of a servant with Friedrich Georg and Ernst Nikolaus von Kleist, barons from Courland and officer cadets about to begi...
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Giacomo Leopardi

borndied
1798, Jun 291837, Jun 14
an Italian poet, philosopher, essayist and philologist. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most radical and challenging thinkers of the 19th century. Although he lived in a secluded town in the ultra-conservative Papal States, he came in touch with the main thoughts of the Enlightenment, and, by his own literary evolution, created a remarkable and re...
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Cross-listed in Educators

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont

borndied
1711, Apr 261780, Sep 8
a French author who wrote the best known version of Beauty and the Beast. She had a relationship with the spy for the British, Thomas Pichon (1757–1760). Her first work, the moralistic novel The Triumph of Truth (Le Triomphe de la vérité), was published in 1748. She published approximately seventy volumes during her literary career Most famous were the c...
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Mikhail Lermontov

borndied
1814, Oct 31841, Jul 15
a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837 and the greatest figure in Russian Romanticism. His influence on later Russian literature is sti...
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Alain-Rene Lesage

aka: Alain-René, Le Sage
bornactivedied
1668, May 61695-17431747, Nov 17
a French novelist and playwright. Lesage is best known for his comic novel The Devil upon Two Sticks (1707, Le Diable boiteux), his comedy Turcaret (1709), and his picaresque novel Gil Blas (1715–1735). Lesage began by translating plays chiefly from Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla and Lope de Vega. In 1707, his farce, Crispin riv...
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Gotthold Lessing

borndied
1729, Jan 221781, Feb 15
a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature. He is widely considered by theatre historians to be the first dramaturg in his role at Abel Seyler's Hamburg National The...
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Francois Leuret

aka: François
borndied
1797, Dec 291851, Jan 5
a French anatomist and psychiatrist who was a native of Nancy. He studied medicine under Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol (1772–1840), and was later chief physician at the Bicêtre in Paris. Two of his better known students were Paul Broca (1824–1880) and Louis Pierre Gratiolet (1815–1865). Leuret was also chief-editor of Annales d’hygiène publique ...
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Eliphas Levi

aka: Alphonse Louis Constant
borndied
1810, Feb 81875, May 31
a French occult author and ceremonial magician. "Éliphas Lévi", the name under which he published his books, was his attempt to translate or transliterate his given names "Alphonse Louis" into the Hebrew language. When Constant published his first radical writing, La Bible de la liberté (1841, The Bible of Liberty), he was sentenced to an eight-month pris...
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George Henry Lewes

borndied
1817, Apr 181878, Nov 30
an English philosopher and critic of literature and theatre. He became part of the mid-Victorian ferment of ideas which encouraged discussion of Darwinism, positivism, and religious skepticism. However, he is perhaps best known today for having openly lived with Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the pen-name George Eliot, as soulmates whose life and writings ...
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Alethea Lewis

borndied
1749, Dec 191827, Nov
an English novelist, born at Acton, near Nantwich, Cheshire. She also used the pseudonym Eugenia de Acton. Her subject-matter centred on her profound Christianity and the rewards of virtue. Lewis's themes mostly centre on her profound Christianity and the rewards of virtue. Her work is self-conscious and shows great erudition. Some works were published under...
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Matthew Lewis

borndied
1775, Jul 91818, May 16
an English novelist and dramatist, often referred to as "Monk" Lewis, because of the success of his 1796 Gothic novel, The Monk. In March 1792, Lewis translated the French opera Felix and sent it to Drury Lane, hoping to earn money for his mother. While he tried to write a novel like more
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Cross-listed in Performers

William Lewis

borndied
17871870
an English chess player and author, nowadays best known for the Lewis Countergambit. He may have been the first player ever described as a Grandmaster of the game. Born in Birmingham, William Lewis moved as a young man to London where he worked for a merchant for a short period. He became a student of chess player Jacob Sarratt, but in later years he showed ...
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Li Kaixian

borndied
15021568
a Chinese writer, playwright and literary critic of the Ming Dynasty. He was retired from the government at age 39, and then devoted his life to literature and Chinese opera. He was a member of the circle of intellectuals gathered folk songs and ballads. His first play Sword was written in the style chuanqi. The play is based on the plot of the novel Water M...
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Liang Fa

borndied
17891855, Apr 12
the second Chinese Protestant convert and the first Chinese Protestant minister and evangelist. He was ordained by Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary in the Qing Empire. His tract Good Words to Admonish the Age was influential on Hong Xiuquan, who went on to lead the Taiping Rebellion. Liang Fa wrote under the pen name "Student of the Good" or ...
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Richard Lichfield

borndied
unknown1630
a barber surgeon in Cambridge, England, during the late 16th and early 17th century. In 1597 he wrote a pamphlet sharply criticising the writer Thomas Nashe, which for many years was believed to be the work of Gabriel Harvey. Although not a member of the academic community Lichfield belonged to the property-owning middle class, and had a local reputation as ...
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Cross-listed in Legal

Francis Lieber

aka: Franz
borndied
1798/1800, Mar 181872, Oct 2
a German-American jurist, gymnast and political philosopher. He edited an Encyclopaedia Americana. He was the author of the Lieber Code during the American Civil War, also known as Code for the Government of Armies in the Field (1863). The Lieber Code is considered the first document to comprehensively outline rules regulating the conduct of war, and laid th...
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Richard Ligon

borndied
1585 ca1662
a British author, lost his fortune as a royalist during the English Civil War (1642-1651), and during this turbulent time in England he found himself, as he notes in his narrative, a "stranger in my own country." On 14 June 1647, he left for Barbados to gain his fortune in the New World, like many of his fellow countrymen. Ligon purchased half of a sugar pla...
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John Lilburne

aka: Freeborn John
borndied
16141657, Aug 29
an English political Leveller before, during and after the English Civil Wars 1642–1650. He coined the term "freeborn rights", defining them as rights with which every human being is born, as opposed to rights bestowed by government or human law. In his early life he was a Puritan, though towards the end of his life he became a Quaker. His works have been ...
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Cross-listed in ClergyCartographers

George Lily

borndied
unknown1559
an English Roman Catholic priest, humanist scholar, biographer, topographer and cartographer. Lily was a major contributor to the Descriptio Britanniae, Scotiae, Hyberniae et Orchadum, a chorography of the British Isles conceived by Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, which was published in Venice in 1548. Lily has also been credited as author of "Catalogus sive...
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Ling Mengchu

borndied
15801644
a Chinese writer of the Ming Dynasty. He is best known for his vernacular short fiction collections Slapping the Table in Amazement, I and II. Ling’s short stories were a detailed study of his 17th century moral world. Ling was strongly influenced by Feng Menglong, whose success emboldened him to publish commercially. In the prefatory material to his first...
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Cross-listed in ClergyEducators

John Lingard

borndied
1771, Feb 51851, Jul 17
an English historian, the author of The History of England, From the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of Henry VIII, an 8-volume work published in 1819. In 1793 where he concluded his theological studies and was ordained. He then taught philosop...
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Anton Tomaz Linhart

aka: Anton Tomaž Linhart
borndied
1756, Dec 111795, Jul 14/15
a Carniolan playwright and historian, best known as the author of the first comedy and theatrical play in general in Slovene, Županova Micka (Micka, the Mayor's Daughter). He is also considered the father of Slovene historiography, since he was the first historian to write a history of all Slovenes as a unit, rejecting the previous concept which focused on ...
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Cross-listed in InventorsScientists

Carl Linnaeus

aka: Carolus Linnæus, Carolus a Linné, Carl von Linné
borndied
1707, May 231778, Jan 10
a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the epithet "father of modern taxonomy". One of the first scientists Linnaeus met in the Netherlands was Johan Frederik Gronovius to whom Linnaeus showed one of the several manuscripts he had brought with him from Sw...
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Eliza Lynn Linton

borndied
1822, Feb 101898, Jul 14
the first female salaried journalist in Britain, and the author of over 20 novels. Despite her path breaking role as an independent woman, many of her essays took a strong anti-feminist slant. Linton arrived in London in 1845 as the protégée of poet Walter Savage Landor. In the following year she produced her first novel, Azeth, the Egyptian, which was suc...
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Thomas Lister

aka: Thomas Butler
borndied
1559 ca1628 ca
an English Jesuit writer. Difficulties had broken out among the English Catholic clergy, the so-called archpriest controversy, amounting to the refusal of certain among them to recognize the authority of the newly appointed archpriest, Dr. George Blackwell. Lister was at this point consulted by one of the priests as to the conduct of those who refused obedie...
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William Lithgow

borndied
1585 ca1645 ca
a traveler, writer and alleged spy. He claimed at the end of his various peregrinations to have tramped 36,000 miles on foot. Prior to 1610 he had visited Shetland, Switzerland, and Bohemia. In that year he set out from Paris for Rome on the 7 March, where he remained for four weeks before moving on to other parts of Italy: Naples, Ancona, before moving on t...
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Liu Tong

borndied
1593 ca1637
a Chinese prose master and official from Macheng in Huanggang. He was a figure in the Ming Dynasty's Jingling school of Chinese prose literature in contrast to the Gongan school and the well known Yuan Hongdao and his brothers. He is credited with the Dijing Jingwulue. His Dijing Jingwulue is thought to actually to have been a travel guide to the historical...
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Liu Xizai

borndied
18131881
a major Chinese literati of Qing Dynasty. He was regarded as the Hegel (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel) of the East. The book, The Record of Xing Hua remains the primary source of bibliographical material on Liu Xizai. Liu Xizai was born in Xingh...
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Liu Zhi

borndied
1660 ca1739 ca
a Chinese Muslim scholar of the Qing dynasty from the traditionalist Gedimu sect of Islam. He was from Nanjing. He learned Arabic and was versed in Buddhism and Daoism. He also wrote several works on Islam in 1674, 1710, and 1721.His writings became part of the Han Kitab, a collection of literature which synthesized Islam and Confucianism. He said that Musli...
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Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi

aka: José Joaquín Fernández
borndied
1776, Nov 151827, Jun 21
a Mexican writer and political journalist, best known as the author of El Periquillo Sarniento (1816), translated as The Mangy Parrot in English, reputed to be the first novel written in Latin America. In his journalism, Lizardi turned from the light social criticism of his earlier broadsheets to direct commentary on the political problems of the day, attack...
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Aurora Ljungstedt

aka: Claude Gérard
borndied
1821, Sep 21908, Feb 21
a Swedish writer. She is regarded to be the first crime novel author of her country and has been referred to as Sweden's Edgar Allan Poe. Ljungstedt displayed talent early on but her mother disapproved of a literary career as unsuitable as this would make her ...
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Juan Antonio Llorente

borndied
1756, Mar 301823, Feb 5
a Spanish historian. His 1810 project for a division of Spain in prefectures and subprefectures (under the French revolutionary inspiration) was never brought into practice because of the war. On the return of King Ferdinand VII to Spain in 1814, he retreated to France, where he published his great work, Histoire critique de l'Inquisition espagnole (Paris, 1...
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Cross-listed in Cartographers

Humphrey Llwyd

aka: Lhuyd
borndied
15271568
a Welsh cartographer, author, antiquary and Member of Parliament. He was a leading member of the Renaissance period in Wales along with other such men as Thomas Salisbury and William Morgan. His library, together with those of his patron, the Earl of Arundel and his brother-in-law, Lord Lumley, formed the basis of the Royal Collection of books; currently hou...
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Morgan Llwyd

borndied
16191659
a Welsh Puritan preacher, poet and prose writer. Morgan Llwyd came to prominence during Oliver Cromwell's rule, and wrote about the psychology of spiritual experience. His most influential book was Llyfr y Tri Aderyn ("The Book of the Three Birds") in 1653. Th...
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Ambrosius Lobwasser

borndied
15151585
a German humanist and translator, born in Saxony. He served as professor of jurisprudence at the University of Königsberg from 1563 until his retirement in 1580, but is best known for his Psalter des Königlichen Propheten David, published in 1573 (Leipzig). This metrical psalter, a translation of the Genevan Psalter, became one of the standard psalm-books ...
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Anne Locke

borndied
15301590 ca
an English poet, translator and Calvinist religious figure. She was the first English author to publish a sonnet sequence, A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner (1560). Scholars now agree that Anne Locke published the first sonnet sequence in English, A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner; it comprises 26 sonnets based on Psalm 51. Her other works include a short, f...
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Links (1)


Cross-listed in Physicians

John Locke

bornactivedied
1632, Aug 291660-17041704, Oct 28
an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon,...
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Cross-listed in Composers

Matthew Locke

borndied
1621 ca1677, Aug
an English Baroque composer and music theorist. Locke, with Christopher Gibbons (the son of Orlando), composed the score for Cupid and Death, the 1653 masque by Caroline-era playwright James Shirley. Their score for that work is the sole surviving score for a dramatic work from that era. Locke was one of the quintet of composers who provided music for The Si...
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Lockroy

aka: Joseph-Philippe Simon
borndied
1803, Feb 171891, Jan 19
a French actor and playwright. Born in Turin as the son of Baron General Henri Simon, who forbade his son's use of his surname in an artistic career, Joseph-Philippe Simon began as an actor under the pseudonym Lockroy at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe and the Comédie-Française in Paris before devoting himself entirely to writing. For a few months in 1848...
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Cross-listed in PiratesGovernancePhysicians

Thomas Lodge

borndied
15581625
an English physician and author during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Lodge, disregarding the wishes of his family, took up literature. When the penitent Stephen Gosson had (in 1579) published his Schoole of Abuse, Lodge responded with Defence of Poetry, Music and Stage Plays (1579 or 1580), which shows a certain restraint, though both forceful and le...
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Judah Loew ben Bezalel

aka: Rabbi Loew, Maharal of Prague, the Maharal
borndied
1519 ca1609, Sep 17
an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who, for most of his life, served as a leading rabbi in the cities of Mikulov in Moravia and Prague in Bohemia. Within the world of Torah and Talmudic scholarship, Loew is known for his works on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism and his work Gur Aryeh al HaTorah, a supercommentary on R...
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Charlotta Lofgren

aka: Löfgren
borndied
1720, Jan1784, Feb 14
a Swedish lady of letters and poet. She married in 1738 to the vicar Petrus Lagerman (1706-1790), who occasionally wrote poems as well. She lived in Norrköping from 1746, where she was a local literary celebrity and wrote poems for festive public occasions. Charlotta Löfgren was published both in name and anonymously, which means that a significant amount ...
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John Lofland

aka: the Milford Bard
borndied
17981849
a prolific and widely read writer of prose, verse, and speeches. He grew up and spent much of his life in "The Towers" on North West Front Street in Milford. Later in his life he moved to Baltimore, Maryland where he associated with Edgar Allan Poe. Lofland wa...
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Cross-listed in Explorers

William Loftus

borndied
1820, Nov 131858, Nov 27
a British geologist, naturalist, explorer and archaeological excavator. He discovered the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk in 1849. He is credited with the discovery of the Apadana, later excavated by the French amateur archaeologist Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy. Engaged in 1853 by the newly founded Assyrian Excavation Fund to conduct excavations in Warka, Loftus w...
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Hedvig Lofwenskiold

aka: Löfwenskiöld
borndied
17361789
a Swedish writer, lady of letters and poet. She was the daughter of the official and poet Henrik Anders Löfvenskiöld and the niece of the poet Charlotta Löfgren. The correspondence between her and her colleagues Charlotta Löfgren, Samuel Älf and Hedwig Walldorff is preserved. She was a member of the literary society Apollini Sacra, a daughter academy of...
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Deborah Norris Logan

borndied
17611839
an early 19th century American Quaker historian and memoirist. In the attics at Stenton, Deborah found a neglected collection of old letters between William Penn and James Logan. Recognizing the letters' potential historical significance, she started transcribin...
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Iain Lom

borndied
1624 ca1710 ca
a Scottish Gaelic poet. His dates of birth and death are unknown, but we know that he was present at (and composed a song about) the Battle of Inverlochy (1645) as an adult, and the Treaty of Union (1707); this would presume a birthdate in the early-mid-1620s (if not earlier), and a death in the early 18th century. Most of the few details we have of his life...
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Cross-listed in Artists

Gian Paolo Lomazzo

aka: Giovan, Giovanni
borndied
1538, Apr 261592, Jan 27
an Italian painter, best remembered for his writings on art theory, belonging to the second generation that produced Mannerism in Italian art and architecture. He was admired as an artist and in 1562 was depicted on a medallion by Annibale Fontana which described him as having been introduced by Mercury to Fortune (commercial success). Lomazzo became blind i...
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Cross-listed in AstronomersInventorsScientists

Mikhail Lomonosov

bornactivedied
1711, Nov 81742-17641765, Apr 4
a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. Among his discoveries was the atmosphere of Venus and the Law of Mass Conservation in chemical reactions. His spheres of science were natural science, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, history, art, philology, optical devices and others. Lomonosov ...
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Links (9)


Cross-listed in Educators

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

bornactivedied
1807, Feb 271824-18821882, Mar 24
an American poet and educator whose works include Paul Revere's Ride, The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, and was one of the five Fireside Poets. Longfellow...
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Links (21)


Cross-listed in Physicians

Elias Lonnrot

aka: Lönnrot
borndied
1802, Apr 91884, Mar 19
a Finnish physician, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for creating the Finnish national epic, Kalevala, (1835, enlarged 1849), from short ballads and lyric poems gathered from the Finnish oral tradition during several expeditions in Finland, Russian Karelia, the Kola Peninsula and Baltic countries.
Timeline (1)Links (1)


Felix Lope de Vega

aka: Félix
bornactivedied
1562, Nov 251594-16341635, Aug 27
a Spanish playwright, poet and novelist. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Century of Baroque literature. His reputation in the world of Spanish literature is second only to that of Miguel de Cervantes, while the sheer volume of his liter...
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Links (1)


Giovanni Battista Lorenzi [1]

aka: Giambattista
borndied
17211807
an Italian librettist. He was born in Puglia and died in Naples and was a friend of Giovanni Paisiello, with whom he collaborated on numerous operas.
Links (1)


Jean Loret

borndied
1600 ca1665
a French writer and poet known for publishing the weekly news of Parisian society (including, initially, its pinnacle, the court of Louis XIV itself) from 1650 until 1665 in verse in what he called a gazette burlesque. He is sometimes referred to as the "father of ...
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Links (1)


Jacob Lorhard

borndied
15611609, May 19
a German philosopher and pedagogue based in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Lorhard was born in Münsingen. In 1603 he became Rector of the Gymnasium in St. Gallen. In 1606 he published Ogdoas scholastica, which contains the word "ontologia" – probably appearing for the first time ever in a book. He uses "Ontologia" synonymously with "Metaphysica". The following ...
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Auguste Lorieux

borndied
1796, Dec 141842, Jul 27
a 19th-century French writer and jurisdiction consultant. After finishing his studies at Nantes with the best results, he learnt law at Rennes. He was niominated to procurer of the king in 1823. following the July Revolution, he regined the magistrate at the king. He was nominated as an advocate at the office in Nantes. Lorieux returend to the magistrate in ...
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Links (1)


Luis de Lossada

borndied
16811748
a Spanish Jesuit theologian and philosophical writer. Lossada was born at Quiroga, Asturias, Spain. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1698, and, after completing his studies, taught theology, Scripture, and philosophy at Salamanca, where he died. His first publication was the "Vida y virtudes del P.G. Dutari" (1720). One year later he published his "Institu...
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Cross-listed in Artists

Benson John Lossing

borndied
1813, Feb 121891, Jun 3
a prolific and popular American historian, known best for his illustrated books on the American Revolution and American Civil War and features in Harper's Magazine. He was a charter trustee of Vassar College. He edited and illustrated J.S. Rothchild's weekly Family Magazine from 1839 to1841 and launched his literary career with the publication of his Outline...
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Jane C. Loudon

borndied
1807, Aug 191858, Jul 13
an English author and early pioneer of science fiction. She wrote before the term was invented, and was discussed for a century as if she wrote Gothic fiction, or fantasy or horror. She also created the first popular gardening manuals, as opposed to specialist horticultural works, and contributed to the work of her husband, John Claudius Loudon.
Links (1)


Cross-listed in Scientists

John Claudius Loudon

borndied
1783, Apr 81843, Dec 14
a Scottish botanist, garden designer and cemetery designer, author and garden magazine editor. He was the first to use the term arboretum in writing to refer to a garden of plants, especially trees, collected for the purpose of scientific study. Loudon was a prolific horticultural and landscape design writer. Through his publications, he hoped to spread his ...
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Cross-listed in PhysiciansInventors

Antoine Louis

borndied
1723, Feb 131792, May 20
an 18th-century French surgeon and physiologist. Louis is credited with designing a prototype of the guillotine. For a period of time after its invention, the guillotine was called a louisette. However, it was later named after French physician Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738–1814), who advocated a more humane method of capital punishment.
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Cross-listed in Inventors

Ada Lovelace

aka: Augusta Ada Byron, Ada Gordon, Lady Lovelace
borndied
1815, Dec 101852, Nov 27
an EnglishCharles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and created the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a mac...
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Richard Lovelace

borndied
1617, Dec 91658
an English poet in the seventeenth century. He was a cavalier poet who fought on behalf of the king during the Civil War. His best known works are To Althea, from Prison, and To Lucasta, Going to the Warres. From the time Richard Lovelace started writing while he was a student at Oxford he wrote almost 200 poems. His first work was a drama, ...
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James Russell Lowell

bornactivedied
1819, Feb 221840-18891891, Aug 12
an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets. These poets usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside. He publ...
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Maria White Lowell

bornactivedied
1821, Jul 81839-18531853, Oct 27
an American poet and abolitionist. The same year, Maria White's brother William introduced her to his Harvard College classmate, James Russell Lowell. The two became engaged in the autumn of 1840. However, her father Abijah White, a wealthy merchant, insisted that the wedding be postponed until Lowell had gainful employment. Shortly after Lowell published Co...
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Cross-listed in Scientists

Johann von Lowenstern-Kunckel

aka: Löwenstern-Kunckel
borndied
1630/381703, Mar 20
a German chemist. He became chemist and apothecary to the dukes of Lauenburg, and then to the Elector of Saxony, Johann Georg II, who put him in charge of the royal laboratory at Dresden. Intrigues engineered against him caused him to resign this position in 1677, and for a time he lectured on chemistry at Annaberg and Wittenberg. Invited to Berlin by Freder...
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Cross-listed in Legal

Charles Loyseau

borndied
15641627
a French jurist, a lawyer in the Parlement of Paris, the highest royal court in France, as well as a judge in local and seigneurial courts. He evaluated French society and law in his best-known work, A Treatise on Orders and Simple Dignities, written in 1610; it is now a source for understanding the French social structure of the seventeenth and eighteenth c...
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Elizabeth Lucar

aka: Elizabeth Withypoll
borndied
15101537, Oct 29
an English calligrapher. A multi-talented person, she was fluent in Latin, Spanish, and Italian, and an accomplished musician, needleworker and algorist. A member of a very prominent and wealthy mercantile family holding royal favour and civic office, her marriage united common interests within the Company of Merchant Taylors. Her short life as a woman of Ch...
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Hippolyte-Julien-Joseph Lucas

borndied
1807, Dec 201878, Nov 16
a French writer and critic whose literary output was largely centered on theatre and opera. He was the author of several plays and opera libretti. In addition to his original stage works, Lucas also translated plays and libretti by other authors for performances in French. These included plays by Aristophanes, Euripides, Lope de Vega, and Calderón as well a...
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Richard Lucas

borndied
1648/491715, Jun 29
a Welsh clergyman and writer of devotional works. After his ordination, his first major publication was Practical Christianity (1677), containing prayers and discussion on Christian living. This was a popular work and, coupled with his ability as a preacher, seems to have helped him to be appointed as rector of St. Stephen Coleman Street in 1678. He became l...
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Lucidor

aka: Lars Johansson, Lasse Johansson
bornactivedied
16381669-16741674, Aug 13
a Swedish baroque poet. He is remembered for his burlesque poetry that is seen as foreshadowing that of Johan Runius and, especially, Carl Michael Bellman, and for his dramatic death in a tumultuous brawl at the Fimmelstången tavern in Gamla stan in Sto...
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Hiob Ludolf

aka: Job Leutholf
borndied
1624, Jun 151704, Apr 8
a German orientalist, and born at Erfurt. Edward Ullendorff rates Ludolf as having "the most illustrious name in Ethiopic scholarship". The works of Ludolf, who is said to have been acquainted with twenty-five languages, include Sciagraphia historiae aethiopicae (Jena, 1676); and the Historia aethiopica (Frankfort, 1681), which has been translated into Engli...
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Jemima Luke

borndied
18131906
an English writer of hymns, religious studies and biographies during the Victorian era. She is best known for her children's hymn "I think when I read that sweet story of old". she composed some verses on the back of an envelope for a hymn that she named "The Child's Desire." When her hymn proved to be very popular with the children she was working with, her...
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Vincenzo Lunardi

borndied
1754, Jan 111806
a pioneering Italian aeronaut, born in Lucca. His family were of minor Neapolitan nobility, and his father had married late in life. Vicenzo was one of three children. He travelled in France in his early years before being called home, where he was put into the diplomatic service. In 1786, Lunardi published 'An Account of five Aerial Voyages in Scotland' in ...
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Thomas Lupset

borndied
1495 ca1530
an English churchman and humanist scholar. He studied in London's St Paul’s Cathedral School, and at a young age entered the household of John Colet. He learned classics from William Lilye, and then went to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. In Cambridge Lupset worked closely with Desiderius Erasmus, on New Testament and patristic texts. He may then have travelled ...
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Cross-listed in Clergy

Solomon Luria

aka: Maharshal
borndied
15101573, Nov 7
one of the great Ashkenazic poskim (decisors of Jewish law) and teachers of his time. He is known for his work of Halakha, Yam Shel Shlomo, and his Talmudic commentary Chochmat Shlomo. Luria was born in the city of Poznan (Posen), in the Kingdom of Poland. His father, Yechiel Luria, was the rabbi of the Lithuanian city of Slutzk and the son of ...
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Cross-listed in Governance

Lutfi Pasha

aka: Lütfi
borndied
1488 ca1564, Mar 27
an Ottoman statesman and grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire under Suleiman the Magnificent from 1539 to 1541. He wrote 21 works mainly on religious topics but also on history, 13 of them written in Arabic and 8 in Turkish.
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Cross-listed in ComposersClergy

Martin Luther

borndied
1483, Nov 101546, Feb 18
a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money, proposing an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of...
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Timeline (12)Links (24)Notes (1)


John Lyly

aka: Lilly, Lylie
borndied
1553/541606, Nov
an English writer, poet, dramatist, playwright, and politician, best known for his books Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) and Euphues and His England (1580). Lyly's mannered literary style, originating in his first books, is known as euphuism. In 1632 Blount published Six Court Comedies, the first printed collection of Lyly's plays. Lyly's other plays incl...
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Links (1)


Humphrey Lynde

borndied
15791636
an English lay Puritan controversialist and Member of Parliament. In 1623 Lynde published An Account of Bertram the Priest, with Observations concerning the Censures upon his Tract, “De Corpore et Sanguine Christi.” Lynde pursued his attacks on the Catholics in Via Devia, the Byway leading the Weak into unstable and dangerous Paths of Popish Error, Londo...
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Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount

aka: Lindsay, David Lyndsay of the Mount
borndied
1490 ca1555 ca
a Scottish herald who gained the highest heraldic office of Lyon King of Arms. He remains a well regarded poet whose works reflect the spirit of the Renaissance, specifically as a makar. Most of Lyndsay's literary work, by which he secured great reputation in his own day and by which he still lives, was written during the period of prosperity at court. In th...
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Links (1)


Cross-listed in Cartographers

Daniel Lysons

borndied
17621834
a notable English antiquary and topographer of the late 18th and early 19th century, who published the four-volume The Environs of London (published 1792 to 1796). With his brother Samuel, Lysons began Magna Britannia, being a concise Topographical Account of the several Counties of Great Britain (1806–1822), but after the first six volumes, covering the ...
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Links (1)


Cross-listed in Scientists

Henry Lyte

borndied
1529 ca1607, Oct 16
an English botanist and antiquary. He is best known for two works, A niewe Herball (1578), which was a translation of the Cruydeboeck of Rembert Dodoens (Antwerp, 1564), and an antiquarian volume, The Light of Britayne (1588), both of which are dedicated to Queen Eliz...
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Links (1)


Sir George Lyttelton

aka: 1st Baron Lyttelton
borndied
1709, Jan 171773, Aug 22
a British statesman and patron of the arts from the Lyttelton family. He wrote Dialogues of the Dead in 1760 with Elizabeth Montagu, leader of the bluestockings, and The History of the Life of Henry the Second (1767–1771). The former work is part of a tradition of such dialogues. more
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