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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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John Webster
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(active 1602–25) The leading English writer of poetic tragedy after *Shakespeare. Almost nothing is known of his life except that he was born a Londoner and was dead by 1634. His two great plays, The *White Devil and The *Duchess of Malfi, are characterized by extremes of melodramatic evil shot through with flashes of sudden tenderness. Webster uses a powerful economy of language, as in the famous line in The Duchess of Malfi when Ferdinand sees the corpse of his twin sister, the duchess, who has been murdered on his behalf: 'Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young.'
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