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Expressionism

Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists have sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality.

Expressionism developed as an avant-garde style before the First World War. It remained popular during the Weimar Republic, particularly in Berlin. The style extended to a wide range of the arts, including expressionist architecture, painting, literature, theatre, dance, film and music. Paris became a gathering place for a group of Expressionist artists, many of Jewish origin, dubbed the School of Paris. After World War II, figurative expressionism influenced artists and styles around the world.

The term is sometimes suggestive of angst. In a historical sense, much older painters such as Matthias Grünewald and El Greco are sometimes termed expressionist, though the term is applied mainly to 20th-century works. The Expressionist emphasis on individual and subjective perspective has been characterized as a reaction to positivism and other artistic styles such as Naturalism and Impressionism.

Etymology and history
While the word expressionist was used in the modern sense as early as 1850, its origin is sometimes traced to paintings exhibited in 1901 in Paris by obscure artist Julien-Auguste Hervé, which he called Expressionismes. An alternative view is that the term was coined by the Czech art historian Antonin Matějček in 1910 as the opposite of Impressionism: "An Expressionist wishes, above all, to express himself... (an Expressionist rejects) immediate perception and builds on more complex psychic structures... Impressions and mental images that pass through ... people's soul as through a filter which rids them of all substantial accretions to produce their clear essence [...and] are assimilated and condensed into more general forms, into types, which he transcribes through simple short-hand formulae and symbols."

Important precursors of Expressionism were the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), especially his philosophical novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1892); the later plays of the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg (1849–1912), including the trilogy To Damascus (1898–1901), A Dream Play (1902), The Ghost Sonata (1907); Frank Wedekind (1864–1918), especially the "Lulu" plays Erdgeist (Earth Spirit) (1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box) (1904); the American poet Walt Whitman's (1819–1892) Leaves of Grass (1855–1891); the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881); Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863–1944); Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890); Belgian painter James Ensor (1860–1949); and pioneering Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856–1939).

In 1905, a group of four German artists, led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, formed Die Brücke (the Bridge) in the city of Dresden. This was arguably the founding organization for the German Expressionist movement, though they did not use the word itself. A few years later, in 1911, a like-minded group of young artists formed Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in Munich. The name came from Wassily Kandinsky's Der Blaue Reiter painting of 1903. Among their members were Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Paul Klee, and August Macke. However, the term Expressionism did not firmly establish itself until 1913. Though mainly a German artistic movement initially and most predominant in painting, poetry and the theatre between 1910 and 1930, most precursors of the movement were not German. Furthermore, there have been expressionist writers of prose fiction, as well as non-German-speaking expressionist writers, and, while the movement declined in Germany with the rise of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, there were subsequent expressionist works.

Expressionism is notoriously difficult to define, in part because it "overlapped with other major 'isms' of the modernist period: with Futurism, Vorticism, Cubism, Surrealism and Dadaism." Richard Murphy also comments, “the search for an all-inclusive definition is problematic to the extent that the most challenging expressionists such as Kafka, Gottfried Benn and Döblin were simultaneously the most vociferous 'anti-expressionists.'"

What can be said, however, is that it was a movement that developed in the early twentieth century, mainly in Germany, in reaction to the dehumanizing effect of industrialization and the growth of cities, and that "one of the central means by which expressionism identifies itself as an avant-garde movement, and by which it marks its distance to traditions and the cultural institution as a whole is through its relationship to realism and the dominant conventions of representation." More explicitly, that the expressionists rejected the ideology of realism.

The term refers to an "artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person". It is arguable that all artists are expressive but there are many examples of art production in Europe from the 15th century onward which emphasize extreme emotion. Such art often occurs during times of social upheaval and war, such as the Protestant Reformation, German Peasants' War, and Eighty Years' War between the Spanish and the Netherlands, when extreme violence, much directed at civilians, was represented in propagandist popular prints. These were often unimpressive aesthetically but had the capacity to arouse extreme emotions in the viewer.

Expressionism has been likened to Baroque by critics such as art historian Michel Ragon and German philosopher Walter Benjamin. According to Alberto Arbasino, a difference between the two is that "Expressionism doesn't shun the violently unpleasant effect, while Baroque does. Expressionism throws some terrific 'fuck yous', Baroque doesn't. Baroque is well-mannered."

Notable Expressionists
Some of the style's main visual artists of the early 20th century were:
 * Argentina: Xul Solar
 * Armenia: Martiros Saryan
 * Australia: Sidney Nolan, Charles Blackman, John Perceval, Albert Tucker, and Joy Hester
 * Austria: Richard Gerstl, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Josef Gassler and Alfred Kubin
 * Belgium: Marcel Caron, Anto Carte, and Auguste Mambour, and the Flemish Expressionists: Constant Permeke, Gustave De Smet, Frits Van den Berghe, James Ensor, Albert Servaes, Floris Jespers and Gustave Van de Woestijne.
 * Brazil: Anita Malfatti, Cândido Portinari, Di Cavalcanti, Iberê Camargo and Lasar Segall.
 * Denmark: Einer Johansen, Jens Søndergaard, Oluf Høst
 * Estonia: Konrad Mägi, Eduard Wiiralt, Kuno Veeber
 * Finland: Tyko Sallinen, Alvar Cawén, and Wäinö Aaltonen.
 * France: Frédéric Fiebig, Georges Rouault, Alexandre Frenel, Georges Gimel, Gen Paul, Marie-Thérèse Auffray, Jacques Démoulin and Bernard Buffet.
 * Germany: Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Fritz Bleyl, Heinrich Campendonk, Otto Dix, Conrad Felixmüller, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Carl Hofer, Max Kaus, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, August Macke, Franz Marc, Ludwig Meidner, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Otto Mueller, Gabriele Münter, Rolf Nesch, Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, Christian Rohlfs, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Georg Tappert.
 * Greece: George Bouzianis
 * Hungary: Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry
 * Iceland: Einar Hákonarson
 * Ireland: Jack B. Yeats
 * Indonesia: Affandi
 * Israel: Isaac Frenkel Frenel
 * Italy: Amedeo Modigliani, Emilio Giuseppe Dossena
 * Japan: Kōshirō Onchi
 * Lebanon: Rafic Charaf
 * Mexico: Mathias Goeritz (German émigré to Mexico), Rufino Tamayo
 * Netherlands: Willem Hofhuizen, Herman Kruyder, Jan Sluyters, Vincent van Gogh, Jan Wiegers and Hendrik Werkman
 * Norway: Edvard Munch, Kai Fjell
 * Poland: Henryk Gotlib
 * Portugal: Mário Eloy, Amadeo de Souza Cardoso
 * Russia: Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Chaïm Soutine, Alexej von Jawlensky, Natalia Goncharova, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, and Marianne von Werefkin (Russian-born, later active in Germany and Switzerland).
 * Romania: Horia Bernea
 * Serbia: Nadežda Petrović
 * South Africa: Maggie Laubser, Irma Stern
 * Spain Ignacio Zuloaga, José Gutiérrez Solana, Julio Romero de Torres
 * Sweden: Leander Engström, Isaac Grünewald, Axel Törneman
 * Switzerland: Carl Eugen Keel, Cuno Amiet, Paul Klee
 * Ukraine: Alexis Gritchenko (Ukraine-born, most active in France), Vadim Meller
 * United Kingdom: Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Lucian Freud, Patrick Heron, John Hoyland, Howard Hodgkin, John Walker
 * United States: Ivan Albright, David Aronson, Milton Avery, Leonard Baskin, George Biddle, Hyman Bloom, Peter Blume, Charles Burchfield, David Burliuk, Stuart Davis, Lyonel Feininger, Wilhelmina Weber Furlong, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, Beauford Delaney, Arthur G. Dove, Norris Embry, Philip Evergood, Kahlil Gibran, William Gropper, Philip Guston, Marsden Hartley, Albert Kotin, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Rico Lebrun, Jack Levine, Alfred Henry Maurer, Robert Motherwell, Alice Neel, Abraham Rattner, Esther Rolick, Ben Shahn, Harry Shoulberg, Joseph Stella, Harry Sternberg, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dorothea Tanning, Steffen Thomas, Wilhelmina Weber, Max Weber, Hale Woodruff, Karl Zerbe.
 * Uruguay: Rafael Barradas

In Germany and Austria
The style originated principally in Germany and Austria. There were groups of expressionist painters, including Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke. Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider, named after a painting) was based in Munich and Die Brücke (The Bridge) was originally based in Dresden (some members moved to Berlin). Die Brücke was active for a longer period than Der Blaue Reiter, which was only together for a year (1912). The Expressionists were influenced by artists and sources including Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh and African art. They were also aware of the work being done by the Fauves in Paris, who influenced Expressionism's tendency toward arbitrary colours and jarring compositions. In reaction and opposition to French Impressionism, which emphasized the rendering of the visual appearance of objects, Expressionist artists sought to portray emotions and subjective interpretations. It was not important to reproduce an aesthetically pleasing impression of the artistic subject matter, they felt, but rather to represent vivid emotional reactions by powerful colours and dynamic compositions. Kandinsky, the main artist of Der Blaue Reiter, believed that with simple colours and shapes the spectator could perceive the moods and feelings in the paintings, a theory that encouraged him towards increased abstraction.

The School of Paris
In Paris a group of artists dubbed the École de Paris (School of Paris) by André Warnod were also known for their expressionist art.  This was especially prevalent amongst the foreign born Jewish painters of the School of Paris such as Chaim Soutine, Marc Chagall, Yitzhak Frenkel, Abraham Mintchine and others. These artists' expressionism was described as restless and emotional by Frenkel. These artists, centered in the Montparnasse district of Paris tended to portray human subjects and humanity, evoking emotion through facial expression. Others focused on the expression of mood rather than a formal structure. The art of Jewish expressionists was characterized as dramatic and tragic, perhaps in connection to Jewish suffering following persecution and pogroms.

In America
The ideas of German expressionism influenced the work of American artist Marsden Hartley, who met Kandinsky in Germany in 1913. In late 1939, at the beginning of World War II, New York City received many European artists. After the war, Expressionism influenced many young American artists. Norris Embry (1921–1981) studied with Oskar Kokoschka in 1947 and during the next 43 years produced a large body of work in the Expressionist tradition. Embry has been termed "the first American German Expressionist". Other American artists of the late 20th and early 21st century have developed distinct styles that may be considered part of Expressionism. Another prominent artist who came from the German Expressionist "school" was Bremen-born Wolfgang Degenhardt. After working as a commercial artist in Bremen, he migrated to Australia in 1954 and became quite well known in the Hunter Valley region.

After World War II, figurative expressionism influenced artists and styles around the world. In the U.S., American Expressionism and American Figurative Expressionism, particularly Boston Expressionism, were an integral part of American modernism around the Second World War. Thomas B. Hess wrote that "the ‘New figurative painting’ which some have been expecting as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism was implicit in it at the start, and is one of its most lineal continuities."
 * Major figurative Boston Expressionists included: Karl Zerbe, Hyman Bloom, Jack Levine, David Aronson. The Boston Expressionists persisted after World War II despite their marginalization by the development of abstract expressionism centered in New York City, and are currently in the third generation.
 * New York Figurative Expressionism of the 1950s represented New York figurative artists such as Robert Beauchamp, Elaine de Kooning, Robert Goodnough, Grace Hartigan, Lester Johnson, Alex Katz, George McNeil (artist), Jan Muller, Fairfield Porter, Gregorio Prestopino, Larry Rivers and Bob Thompson.
 * Lyrical Abstraction, Tachisme of the 1940s and 1950s in Europe represented by artists such as Georges Mathieu, Hans Hartung, Nicolas de Staël and others.
 * Bay Area Figurative Movement represented by early figurative expressionists from the San Francisco area Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, and David Park. The movement from 1950 to 1965 was joined by Theophilus Brown, Paul Wonner, Hassel Smith, Nathan Oliveira, Jay DeFeo, Joan Brown, Manuel Neri, Frank Lobdell, and Roland Peterson.
 * Abstract expressionism of the 1950s represented American artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Hans Burkhardt, Mary Callery, Nicolas Carone, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, and others that participated with figurative expressionism.
 * Sōsaku-hanga (創作版画 "creative prints") was an expressionist woodblock print movement in early 20th century Japan. The movement was characterized by the work of Kanae Yamamoto (artist), Kōshirō Onchi, and many others.
 * In the United States and Canada, Lyrical Abstraction beginning during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Characterized by the work of Dan Christensen, Peter Young, Ronnie Landfield, Ronald Davis, Larry Poons, Walter Darby Bannard, Charles Arnoldi, Pat Lipsky and many others.
 * Neo-expressionism was an international revival style that began in the late 1970s

In other arts
The Expressionist movement included other types of culture, including dance, sculpture, cinema and theatre.

Dance
Exponents of expressionist dance included Mary Wigman, Rudolf von Laban, and Pina Bausch.

Sculpture
Some sculptors used the Expressionist style, as for example Ernst Barlach. Other expressionist artists known mainly as painters, such as Erich Heckel, also worked with sculpture.

Cinema
There was an Expressionist style in German cinema, important examples of which are Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Paul Wegener's The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920), Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror (1922) and The Last Laugh (1924). The term "expressionist" is also sometimes used to refer to stylistic devices thought to resemble those of German Expressionism, such as film noir cinematography or the style of several of the films of Ingmar Bergman. More generally, the term expressionism can be used to describe cinematic styles of great artifice, such as the technicolor melodramas of Douglas Sirk or the sound and visual design of David Lynch's films.

Journals
Two leading Expressionist journals published in Berlin were Der Sturm, published by Herwarth Walden starting in 1910, and Die Aktion, which first appeared in 1911 and was edited by Franz Pfemfert. Der Sturm published poetry and prose from contributors such as Peter Altenberg, Max Brod, Richard Dehmel, Alfred Döblin, Anatole France, Knut Hamsun, Arno Holz, Karl Kraus, Selma Lagerlöf, Adolf Loos, Heinrich Mann, Paul Scheerbart, and René Schickele, and writings, drawings, and prints by such artists as Kokoschka, Kandinsky, and members of Der blaue Reiter.

Drama
Oscar Kokoschka's 1909 playlet, Murderer, The Hope of Women is often termed the first expressionist drama. In it, an unnamed man and woman struggle for dominance. The man brands the woman; she stabs and imprisons him. He frees himself and she falls dead at his touch. As the play ends, he slaughters all around him (in the words of the text) "like mosquitoes." The extreme simplification of characters to mythic types, choral effects, declamatory dialogue and heightened intensity all would become characteristic of later expressionist plays. The German composer Paul Hindemith created an operatic version of this play, which premiered in 1921.

Expressionism was a dominant influence on early 20th-century German theatre, of which Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller were the most famous playwrights. Other notable Expressionist dramatists included Reinhard Sorge, Walter Hasenclever, Hans Henny Jahnn, and Arnolt Bronnen. Important precursors were the Swedish playwright August Strindberg and German actor and dramatist Frank Wedekind. During the 1920s, Expressionism enjoyed a brief period of influence in American theatre, including the early modernist plays by Eugene O'Neill (The Hairy Ape, The Emperor Jones and The Great God Brown), Sophie Treadwell (Machinal) and Elmer Rice (The Adding Machine).

Expressionist plays often dramatise the spiritual awakening and sufferings of their protagonists. Some utilise an episodic dramatic structure and are known as Stationendramen (station plays), modeled on the presentation of the suffering and death of Jesus in the Stations of the Cross. Strindberg had pioneered this form with his autobiographical trilogy To Damascus. These plays also often dramatise the struggle against bourgeois values and established authority, frequently personified by the Father. In Sorge's The Beggar, (Der Bettler), for example, the young hero's mentally ill father raves about the prospect of mining the riches of Mars and is finally poisoned by his son. In Bronnen's Parricide (Vatermord), the son stabs his tyrannical father to death, only to have to fend off the frenzied sexual overtures of his mother.

In Expressionist drama, the speech may be either expansive and rhapsodic, or clipped and telegraphic. Director Leopold Jessner became famous for his expressionistic productions, often set on stark, steeply raked flights of stairs (having borrowed the idea from the Symbolist director and designer, Edward Gordon Craig). Staging was especially important in Expressionist drama, with directors forgoing the illusion of reality to block actors in as close to two-dimensional movement. Directors also made heavy use of lighting effects to create stark contrast and as another method to heavily emphasize emotion and convey the play or a scene's message.

German expressionist playwrights:
 * Georg Kaiser (1878)
 * Ernst Toller (1893–1939)
 * Hans Henny Jahnn (1894–1959)
 * Reinhard Sorge (1892–1916)
 * Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)

Playwrights influenced by Expressionism:
 * Seán O'Casey (1880–1964)
 * Eugene O'Neill (1885–1953)
 * Elmer Rice (1892–1967)
 * Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)
 * Arthur Miller (1915–2005)
 * Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)

Poetry
Among the poets associated with German Expressionism were: Other poets influenced by expressionism:
 * Jakob van Hoddis
 * Georg Trakl
 * Walter Rheiner
 * Gottfried Benn
 * Georg Heym
 * Else Lasker-Schüler
 * Ernst Stadler
 * August Stramm
 * Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926): The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910)
 * Geo Milev
 * T. S. Eliot
 * Rudolf Broby-Johansen
 * Tom Kristensen
 * Pär Lagerkvist
 * Edith Södergran

Prose
In prose, the early stories and novels of Alfred Döblin were influenced by Expressionism, and Franz Kafka is sometimes labelled an Expressionist. Some further writers and works that have been called Expressionist include:
 * Franz Kafka (1883–1924): "The Metamorphosis" (1915), The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926)
 * Alfred Döblin (1878–1957): Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929)
 * Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
 * Djuna Barnes (1892–1982): Nightwood (1936)
 * Malcolm Lowry (1909–1957): Under the Volcano (1947)
 * Ernest Hemingway
 * James Joyce (1882–1941): "The Nighttown" section of Ulysses (1922)
 * Patrick White (1912–1990)
 * D. H. Lawrence
 * Sheila Watson: Double Hook
 * Elias Canetti: Auto-da-Fé
 * Thomas Pynchon
 * William Faulkner
 * James Hanley (1897–1985)
 * Raul Brandão (1867–1930): Húmus (1917)
 * Leonid Andreyev (1871–1919): Devil's Diary (1919)

Music
The term expressionism "was probably first applied to music in 1918, especially to Schoenberg", because like the painter Kandinsky he avoided "traditional forms of beauty" to convey powerful feelings in his music. Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Alban Berg, the members of the Second Viennese School, are important Expressionists (Schoenberg was also an expressionist painter). Other composers that have been associated with expressionism are Krenek (the Second Symphony), Paul Hindemith (The Young Maiden), Igor Stravinsky (Japanese Songs), Alexander Scriabin (late piano sonatas) (Adorno 2009, 275). Another significant expressionist was Béla Bartók in early works, written in the second decade of the 20th century, such as Bluebeard's Castle (1911), The Wooden Prince (1917), and The Miraculous Mandarin (1919). Important precursors of expressionism are Richard Wagner (1813–1883), Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), and Richard Strauss (1864–1949).

Theodor Adorno describes expressionism as concerned with the unconscious, and states that "the depiction of fear lies at the centre" of expressionist music, with dissonance predominating, so that the "harmonious, affirmative element of art is banished" (Adorno 2009, 275–76). Erwartung and Die Glückliche Hand, by Schoenberg, and Wozzeck, an opera by Alban Berg (based on the play Woyzeck by Georg Büchner), are examples of Expressionist works. If one were to draw an analogy from paintings, one may describe the expressionist painting technique as the distortion of reality (mostly colors and shapes) to create a nightmarish effect for the particular painting as a whole. Expressionist music roughly does the same thing, where the dramatically increased dissonance creates, aurally, a nightmarish atmosphere.

Architecture
In architecture, two specific buildings are identified as Expressionist: Bruno Taut's Glass Pavilion of the Cologne Werkbund Exhibition (1914), and Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany completed in 1921. The interior of Hans Poelzig's Berlin theatre (the Grosse Schauspielhaus), designed for the director Max Reinhardt, is also cited sometimes. The influential architectural critic and historian Sigfried Giedion, in his book Space, Time and Architecture (1941), dismissed Expressionist architecture as a part of the development of functionalism. In Mexico, in 1953, German émigré Mathias Goeritz published the Arquitectura Emocional ("Emotional Architecture") manifesto with which he declared that "architecture's principal function is emotion". Modern Mexican architect Luis Barragán adopted the term that influenced his work. The two of them collaborated in the project Torres de Satélite (1957–58) guided by Goeritz's principles of Arquitectura Emocional. It was only during the 1970s that Expressionism in architecture came to be re-evaluated more positively.

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John Speed

John Speed (1551 or 1552 – 28 July 1629) was an English cartographer, chronologer and historian of Cheshire origins. The son of a citizen and Merchant Taylor in London, he rose from his family occupation to accept the task of drawing together and revising the histories, topographies and maps of the Kingdoms of Great Britain as an exposition of the union of their monarchies in the person of King James I and VI. He accomplished this with remarkable success, with the support and assistance of the leading antiquarian scholars of his generation. He drew upon and improved the shire maps of Christopher Saxton, John Norden and others, being the first to incorporate the hundred-boundaries into them, and he was the surveyor and originator of many of the town or city plans inset within them. His work helped to define early modern concepts of British national identity. His Biblical genealogies were also formally associated with the first edition of the King James Bible. He is among the most famous of English mapmakers.

Family and early life
According to his daughter Sarah Blackmore, John Speed was born in the Cheshire village of Farndon in c. 1551/52. Various families of Speed dwelt in that neighbourhood, but John's relation to them is not precisely established. His father John Speed gained the freedom of the Company of Merchant Taylors of London in April 1556, and is supposed to be the same John Speed who married Elizabeth Cheynye at Christchurch, Newgate Street in the City of London in January 1555/56. From this it is inferred that Speed's birth-mother died during his infancy.

By his own account, Speed followed in his father's mercantile business in London, and in 1580 he obtained the freedom of the Merchant Taylors' Company by patrimony. He had married Susanna (born c. 1557/58), daughter of Thomas Draper of London, in 1571 or 1572, and began to raise a family. Most sources state that they had twelve sons and six daughters, of whom the most famous to reach maturity was John Speed, M.D., who studied at Merchant Taylors' School, London and St John's College, Oxford. It appears that the Speed family was fairly well-to-do.

Patronage
Speed came to the attention of learned individuals, among whom was Sir Fulke Greville: Greville, "perceiving how his wide soul was stuffed with too narrow an occupation" (as Thomas Fuller has it), thereafter made him an allowance to enable him to devote his whole attention to research:

"[His] merits to me-ward I do acknowledge, in setting this hand free from the daily employments of a manual trade, and giving it his liberty thus to express the inclination of my mind, himself being the procurer of my present estate." In around 1590 Speed was working with the Puritan scholar Hugh Broughton, and developing their work on the genealogies of Jesus Christ. By 1595 he published a map of biblical Canaan, and in 1598 he presented his maps to Queen Elizabeth. As a reward for these efforts, Elizabeth granted Speed the position of a Waiter (a customs officer):

"Mr Fulke Greville has just brought me word of Her Majesty's pleasure that I should write you that there is a waiter's room of the Custom-house fallen in, which she has long determined might be bestowed upon John Speed, who has presented her with divers maps; she therefore desires you will bestow the place upon him, whom she takes to be a very sufficient man to discharge the same."

He was by then a scholar with a highly developed pictorial faculty. In 1600 he presented three maps of his own making to the Merchant Taylors, who hung them in their Hall or Parlour and made provision for them to be protected by curtains. This gift was remembered in 1601 when Speed sought a lease from the company on a property in Fenchurch Street, a request which failed owing to a higher claim:

"he is a man of very rare and ingenious capacitie in drawing and setting forthe of mapps and genealogies and other very excellent inventions... three severall mappes of his own invention, which he freely gave unto this Companie..."

In 1598 he contributed a genealogical and heraldic frontispiece to Thomas Speght's edition of the Works of Geffrey Chaucer, reprinted 1602.

Career
"I shall not fear to commend in the first place, that famous Man John Speed", wrote Degory Wheare in 1637. "He having travell'd over all Great Britain, read diligently all our own Historians, and those of our neighbour Nations, together with a diligent search in the Publick Offices, Rolls, Monuments, and Ancient Writings, or Charters, built up a Splendid and Admired Theatre of the British Empire; which, with great Expedition and Labour, he perfected in XIV. years..." In 1611–1612 the first collated edition of Speed's celebrated atlas and history of Great Britain was published, his son perhaps assisting Speed in preparing surveys of English towns. At the same time, with royal consent, his Sacred Genealogies became incorporated into the first editions of the King James Bible.

In May 1612 Prince Henry asked the Merchant Taylors for his lease on the Company's house in Fenchurch Street to be renewed for Sir Arthur Ingram, as reward for Ingram's good service as Master of the Customs House - which was granted, "to the prejudice" of their brother John Speed. In the 1611 conclusion of his History Speed wrote of "my disease growne dangerous, and life held in suspence." His friend Alexander Gill contributed one of the commendatory verses of the work to Speed, "being very sicke", and wrote that his "...cruell symptomes, and these thirteene yeers assay / For thy deare country, doth thy health & strength decay." (This dates the commencement of the project to about 1598, as Degory Wheare thought. ) But it was as a very renowned person that in 1614 Speed negotiated for the Merchant Taylors the renewal of their lease of the gardens and "tayntor" grounds (racks for the drying of dyed cloths ) in the prebendary lands at Moorfields, London which the Company held from the Chapter of St. Paul's.

In 1615 Speed requested of the Company the renewal and extension of the lease on a garden and tenement, granted by them in 1594 to George Sotherton, which Speed had since held and upon which he had built "a fayer house", but which he had afterwards surrendered to them with nine years of his tenure still outstanding. A new term of 31 years as from Christmas 1614 was approved. Speed then purchased an adjacent garden and plot of taynter to enlarge his own grounds, and in 1618 (after inspection by the Master and Wardens) obtained the Company's permission to annex it and to enclose it with a wall, together with another new lease. As the lease of the premises was later renewed to his heirs, it appears that this house and grounds remained John Speed's residence until his death.

During the same period Speed greatly enlarged his work on the sacred chronologies and genealogies, as A Clowde of Witnesses (1616, 2nd 1620): and after re-issue in various forms, his History and Theatre were newly presented as a Second, revised Edition, in 1623. In his last years, Speed was working on further revisions and adaptations of his atlas in other formats, and on the materials for his world atlas, which took shape as his Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World in 1627. He continued to maintain his annals, though by April 1626 he had become blind and suffered from the stone.

Death and legacy
John Speed died in July 1629 at the age of 77 or 78. He was buried alongside his wife (who had died in the previous year) in London's St Giles-without-Cripplegate church on Fore Street. According to Fuller, his funeral sermon was delivered by Josias Shute.

A monument to John Speed was soon afterwards erected on the south side of the chancel of the church.

Biblical genealogies
The Puritan clergyman scholar Hugh Broughton developed his study of Old Testament chronology and concordance in his work A Concent of Scripture in editions of 1588/89 and 1590, with illustrations said to be engraved by Jodocus Hondius. John Speed, "by acquaintance with Mr. Broughton, [had] grown very studious in the scriptures" (wrote John Lightfoot), "and by his directions grown very Skilfull in them". Owing to the censure of puritan doctrines, Broughton recruited John Speed to see the work through the press, and from this collaboration arose the abstract of sacred genealogies first issued in Speed's name in 1592. In around 1595 the two men brought out an index to that work. To that period belongs Speed's first Map of Canaan (after Montanus) in four sheets.

In October 1610 Speed was granted a royal patent by King James to publish his genealogical work. In 1611, as The Genealogies recorded in the Sacred Scriptures according to euery family and tribe with the line of Our Sauior Jesus Christ obserued from Adam to the Blessed Virgin Mary, it was incorporated into the first edition of the King James Bible. For many years, this work (which had its own title-page) was bound into all copies of the Authorised Version, and it was reprinted for that purpose many times during the 17th century. It contained some now-famous illustrations, including an image of Adam and Eve taking fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden, and a tree of the nations of the world arising out of Noah's Ark. The royal patent enabled Speed to have the profit of it in reward for his various great labours. Speed is said to have admitted, for this reason, that "Mr Broughton was a means under God of great Blessings to him, and his Children, for worldly comforts": he also reputedly confessed to having burned a great quantity of Broughton's manuscripts.

This work was not merely an ornamental adjunct to the Bible, but had the serious intellectual purpose of expounding a resolution (or at least an explanation) of the differing descents of Jesus Christ from King David as they are recited in the Gospels of St Matthew and St Luke. His continuation and finishing of the Map of Canaan originated by a Puritan scholar, the Norwich minister and chronologer John More (who died in 1592), appeared with the date 1611 in the King James Version. But the version of this map which includes portraits of More and Speed was engraved after the Great Fire of London (1666), in which the original plates were destroyed (according to a text within the later map).

In 1616 Speed developed the genealogies into a longer work, A Cloud of Witnesses confirming the Humanity of Christ Ihesus, with lengthy textual explanations, in twelve chapters, for the descents shown in his diagrams or family trees. The first issue was printed by John Beale for Daniel Speed: (Daniel was presumably the stationer who had licence to marry Matilda Garrett in February 1617/18). Beale printed a second edition in 1620, with a dedication to George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury 1611-1633, and a third appeared in 1628 printed by Felix Kyngston for Edward Blackmore, Speed's son-in-law. Speed's distinctive style of genealogical diagram, with the names contained in circular bubbles linked in chains, later appeared in the royal genealogies in the 1623 edition of the History.

History and Theatre
John Speed's fame today rests, in popular estimation, upon his work as map-maker, but this should not be held separate from his important contributions as a historian, chronologer, and scriptural genealogist. Many of his publications reached their definitive form in 1611. The succession of King James VI of Scotland to the crown of England and Wales, and to that of Ireland, upon the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, brought the Tudor dynasty to a close and inaugurated the House of Stuart monarchy of Great Britain. Speed's historical researches under the patronage of Fulke Greville were stimulated or assisted by William Camden (Clarenceux King of Arms), Sir Robert Cotton, Sir Henry Spelman, John Barkham, William Smith (Rouge Dragon Pursuivant) and others, who during the 1580s together formed the Elizabethan College of Antiquaries, predecessor of the London Society of Antiquaries. Their interests were rooted in early-medieval English antiquities. But (after the abolition of that college by James I in 1607) Speed's work came together, Cum Privilegio, as an instrument of the unification of British kingship in the person of King James, much as the "Authorized Version" of the English Bible to which Speed contributed his sacred genealogies. This English Bible was promulgated in the same year of 1611. The chronicler John Stow (died 1605, also a Merchant Taylor), Speed's elder contemporary, from 1562 sought to disentangle the confused order of the English Chronicles, finding much fault in "the ignorant handling of ancient affairs" by Richard Grafton: Stow's Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles (and its abridgement) of 1566/67, several times republished, his Chronicles of England from Brute unto this present yeare of Christ, 1580, and his The Annales of England (1592, 1601, 1605), which itself lists a very wide range of sources, were the immediate predecessors to Speed's History, from the historical aspect, as Camden's Britannia in the 1607 edition (with county maps) was his chorographical precedent. Stow announced a (much larger) forthcoming History of Britain, A Historie of this Iland, in 1592, but it never saw the light. Editions of Florence of Worcester, the Flores Historiarum, and of William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon and others in Sir Henry Savile's Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post Bedam came into print in the same period. The standard available edition of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica (a primary text for the early medieval history of England) was in volume III of the Hervagius (Johannes Herwagen) 1563 Opera Bedae Venerabilis.

Speed naturally drew extensively on the work of his predecessors, including Christopher Saxton and John Norden as cartographers, William Camden as chorographer (Britannia 1586), and upon Stow and other late chroniclers, in so vast an undertaking (for which Speed considered his own powers quite insufficient), while at the same time revising, improving, verifying and subjecting to scholarly scrutiny all that he could, and where possible obtaining new expert contributions. Some letters survive from Speed to Sir Robert Cotton, written in the years before publication, asking for assistance in gathering necessary materials. Speed acknowledged gratefully that Sir Robert's cabinets were unlocked and his library set open, to supply the "chiefest garnishments" of this work, such as antique altars and trophies, and ancient coins, seals and medals: that the books and collections of John Barkham were similarly brought to his assistance; and that William Smith, Rouge Dragon, had particularly helped in matters of heraldry.

From the first page of the Histories a fresh approach is afoot. Speed dispenses with the full list of pseudo-historic rulers stemming from Brutus the supposed founder of Britain, drawn from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain and repeated by Stow, and instead touches upon the Trojan theory in his discussion of the Name of Britain. Coming into the Saxon narrative, marginal references identify the sources of information from Gildas (De Excidio Britanniae), Bede, Widukind of Corvey and many others, presenting an erudite voice and a discursive historical method, while preserving the structure and chronology relating to the seven kingdoms, and illustrating coins and other materials in true antiquarian fashion. James Spedding, noting the limitations in Speed's account of Henry VII, allowed that his Historie "was enriched with some valuable records and digested with a more discriminating judgement than had been brought to the task before."

History of Great Britaine
In the first edition of his History of Great Britaine (1611), following the "Proem", the historical text begins as page 155 of the whole work, to which the maps of that edition are counted as occupying the preceding page-numbers, and presented separately as The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain. "This collection makes a noble apparatus to his history", observed Richard Gough, who noted that these were the first maps in which all the counties are divided into hundreds, and that those which Speed derived from Saxton's maps were mostly so corrected or amended as to supersede any attribution to Saxton. The County descriptions printed on the reverse of the maps were mainly adapted from those of William Camden. Speed's magnum opus is from this point a twin Chorographical and Historical work. In the issue of 1614 and the second, revised and augmented edition (of 1623) the whole work is introduced as being in ten Chapters, of which the first four (the "Chorographicall Part") are the maps, arranged as: The work then proceeds to the "Historicall Part", Books 5-10, arranged as follows:
 * (1) Describing the whole Kingdome in generall, with those Shires, Cities, and Shire-townes which are properly accounted for English
 * (2) Containing the Counties of Wales (13)
 * (3) Scotlands Kingdom in one Generall (1)
 * (4) Containing the Kingdome of Ireland – a general plan, and maps of Munster, Leinster, Connaught and Ulster (5)
 * (5) The Site, Names, Ancient Inhabitants, Manners, Government, Governors, Costume and Appearance of Great Britain and the Ancient British.
 * (6) The Monarchs of Great Britain under the Romans (54 sections).
 * (7) The Saxon Kings and English Monarchs, from the downfall of Britain and the origins and arrival of the Saxons, through the Heptarchy, from Hengest (sect. 13) to Edmund Ironside (sect. 45).
 * (8) The Danish rulers, with their origins and first assaults, and in detail from Cnut to Harold II (7 sections).
 * (9) The Norman rulers and their origins, continued from William I to the end of Elizabeth I (24 sections).
 * (10) "James, our dread Soueraigne".

The many coins, seals and other antiquities illustrated in Speed's text were cut by the Swiss wood-engraver Christoph Schweitzer. An important feature of the History is Speed's "Catalogue of the Religious Houses, Colledges, and Hospitals Sometimes in England and Wales", appended to the reign of Henry VIII, said to have been compiled by the elder William Burton. The list was published in Latin in 1622 as "Catalogus ex Anglico Ioannis Speed, Latinus", as appendix to Nicholas Harpsfield's Historia Anglicana Ecclesiastica.

The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine
Speed is now best-known as a map-maker, and above all for his atlas, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine (1611, 1616, 1623), which attempted a complete set of individual county maps of England and Wales, as well as maps of Ireland and a general map of Scotland. A 21-year royal privilege (franchise) for the printing of Speed's Theatre was granted to George Humble in April 1608. The collection developed cumulatively, together with his History, and was undertaken with the encouragement of William Camden. The entire work, including the History, was dedicated to King James I as the ruler in whom the distinct Kingdoms of the British Isles had been brought together under one rule in such a way as to form an Empire.

In the Introduction to his "well affected and favourable reader", Speed acknowledged that he had "copied, adapted and compiled the work of others" rather than making an entirely new survey. He took various existing maps as his models, crediting five to Christopher Saxton, five to John Horden, two to William Smith, one to Philip Symonson (Kent) and others to John Harrington (Rutland), William White, Thomas Durham, James Burrell, and Geradus Mercator. Much of the engraving was done in Amsterdam at the workshop of the Flemish engraver Jodocus Hondius, to whom Speed's project was recommended by Camden, and with whom Speed collaborated from 1606 until Hondius's sudden death in 1612. The maps were printed by William Hall and John Beale, and sold by John Sudbury and George Humble.

Speed is admired also for his detailed plans of principal British towns, several of which are the earliest-known depictions of those places and provide valuable topographical insights. Most, but not all, of the county maps have town plans inset; those showing a Scale of Passes (i.e., Paces, reckoned at five feet imperial) were surveyed by Speed himself. On the back of the maps a text in English appears, describing the areas shown: a rare 1616 edition of the British maps has the text in Latin, in a translation by Philemon Holland, thought to have been produced for the Continental market. His maps of English and Welsh counties were often bordered with costumed figures ranging from nobility to country folk. Speed drew historical maps as well as those depicting present times, showing (for instance) invasions of England and Ireland, or the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy,  a subject previously attempted (probably by Laurence Nowell) for William Lambarde's Archaionomia published in 1568.

The "Gardner copies" in the Cambridge University Library are a collection of proof impressions from the engraved copper plates, taken during the process of checking the detail before the publication of 1611. In describing his intentions Speed admitted the possibility of errors despite his best endeavours:

"my purpose... in this Island (besides other things) is to shew the situation of every Citie and Shire-town only... The Shires divisions into Lathes, Hundreds, Wapentakes and Cantreds, according to their ratable and accustomed manner, I have separated, and under the same title that the record beareth, in their due places distinguished: wherein by help of the tables annexed, any Citie, Towne, Borough, Hamlet, or Place of Note may readily be found, and whereby safely may be affirmed, that there is not any one Kingdome in the World so exactly described, as is this our Island of Great Britaine... In shewing these things, I have chiefly sought to give satisfaction to all, without offence to any..."

The maps, in two-folio spreads, represented: Fol. 1, The British Isles; 3, England (General); 5, The Saxon Heptarchy; 7, Kent; 9, Sussex; 11, Surrey; 13, Hampshire; 15, Isle of Wight; 17, Dorset; 19, Devon; 21 [73], Cornwall; 23, Somerset; 25, Wiltshire; 27, Berkshire; 29, Middlesex; 31, Essex; 33, Suffolk; 35, Norfolk; 37, Cambridgeshire; 39, Hertfordshire; 41, Bedfordshire; 43, Buckinghamshire; 45, Oxfordshire; 47, Gloucestershire; 49, Herefordshire; 51, Worcestershire; 53, Warwickshire; 55, Northamptonshire; 57, Huntingdon; 59, Rutland; 61, Leicestershire; 63, Lincolnshire; 65, Nottinghamshire; [67], Derbyshire; 69, Staffordshire; 71, Shropshire; 73 [21], Cheshire; 75, Lancashire; 77, Yorkshire; 79, West Riding; 81, North and East Ridings; 83, Durham-Bishopric; 85, Westmorland; 87, Cumberland; 89, Northumberland; [91], Isle of Man; 93, Islands (Holy Island, the Farne Islands, the Channel Islands). 99, Wales (General); 101, Pembrokeshire; 103, Carmarthenshire; 105, Glamorganshire; 109, Radnorshire; 111, Cardiganshire; 113, Montgomeryshire; 115, Merionethshire; 117, Denbighshire; 119, Flintshire; 121, Carnarvonshire; 123, Anglesey. 131, Scotland (General). 137, Ireland (General); 139, Munster; 141, Leinster; 143, Connaught; 145, Ulster. In 2016, the British Library reprinted this collection of maps of the British Isles with an introduction by Nigel Nicolson and commentaries by Alasdair Hawkyard.

Views of Welsh towns (examples)
Speed represented Wales as a separate province from England but not as an independent entity.

A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World
In 1627, two years before his death, was published Speed's A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World, printed by John Dawson for George Humble. This was the first world atlas produced by an Englishman. The principal sheets included the continents of 3, Asia, 5, Affrica, 7, Europe, 9, America; with the following domains, 11, Greece; 13, The Romane Empire; 15, Germanie; 17, Bohemia; 19, France; 21, Belgia; 23, Spaine; 25, Italia; 27, Hungarie; 29, Denmarke; 31, Poland; 33, Persia; 35, Turkish Empire; 37, Kingdom of China; 39, Tartarie; 41, Sommer Islands (Bermudas). With it were also included the County and Kingdom maps from the Theatre, corresponding to the third edition of that work, together with a New and Accurat Map of the World in a double hemisphere projection. A facsimile edition was published in 1966.

At 40 shillings, its circulation was limited to wealthier sort of customers, and to libraries, where many copies are nowadays preserved.

Family
The pedigree for "Speed of Southampton", as prepared by the antiquary Benjamin Wyatt Greenfield in 1896, has the marriage of John Speed and Susanna daughter of Thomas Draper, Esq., of London, at its head, and shows the descendants of their son John. Although stating that Speed was born in 1542, and giving other dates which conflict with variant sources, it presents the names of six children. They are shown as:

 * John Speed (1595-1640), M.D. (1628), studied at Merchant Taylor's School (1603-04), and was Scholar (1612), B.A. (1616), M.A. (1620) and Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. He married Margaret, daughter of Bartholomew Warner, M.D., of St John's College (Professor of Physic). John died testate in 1640 and is buried in the chapel of St John's College. Their sons:
 * John Speed was a student of St John's College, Oxford in 1652, and was Mayor of Southampton in 1681 and 1694.
 * Samuel Speed, D.D. of Christ Church, Oxford, died in 1674.
 * Samuel Speed, Merchant Taylor of London, who married Joan, daughter of Richard Joyner, alias Lloyd, of Abingdon, and had a son Samuel who died in 1633
 * Nathan Speed
 * Joan Speed, who married John Hayley, Esq., of London
 * Sarah Speed, who married Edward Blackmore, Esq., of London
 * Anne Speed, who married Benjamin Wesley, citizen and Merchant Taylor of London

His arms, granted by William Camden, are: "Gules, on a chief or, two swifts volant proper". Crest: "On a wreath or and gules a swift volant proper." His monument, in the escutcheon within the broken pediment above the niche, shows these arms impaling "Azure a chevron Ermine between three estoiles Or."

From their funeral monument, it appears that John and Susanna Speed had 12 sons and 6 daughters in all. Speed's descendants included Sir Keith Speed, MP (1934–2018).

Wall monument
Richard Newcourt described the monument to John Speede at St Giles without Cripplegate. "...the famous Chronologer and Historiographer John Speed, lies buried here, and hath a Monument on the South-side of the Chancel, with this inscription on one side for him, and on the other for his Wife": "Piæ Memoriæ Charissimorum Parentum - Johannis Speed, Civis Londinensis Mercatorum Scissorum Fratris, servi fidelissimi Religiarum Majestatum, Eliz., Jacobi & Caroli nunc superstitis: Terrarum nostrarum Geographi accurati, & fidi Antiquitatis Britannicæ Historiographi, Genealogii sacræ elegantissimi delineatoris, qui postquam Annos 77. superaverat, non tam Morbo confectus, quam Mortalitatis taedio lassatus, Corpore se levavit, Julii 28. 1629. & jucundissimo Redemptoris sui desiderio sursum elatus carnem hic in custodiam posuit, denuo cum Christus venerit recepturus.

(To the Pious Memory of Most Beloved Parents' – [that is to say,] of John Speed, Citizen of London of the Brethren of Merchant Taylors, a very faithful servant of their Devout Majesties Elizabeth, James and Charles that now is: the accurate Geographer of our Lands, reliable Historiographer of the Antiquity of Britain, and most elegant delineator of the sacred Genealogies, who, after he had lived 77 years, not so much defeated by illness as wearied out by the burden of Mortality, arose from the Body on 28 July 1629, and, being borne aloft in the joyous desire of his Redeemer, he laid down his flesh here in keeping, to be received anew when Christ shall come.)"

"Susannae suae suavissimae, quae postquam duodecim illi filios, & sex filias pepererat quinquaginta septem annos junctis utriusque solatiis, cum illo vixerat; liberos gravi et frequenti hortamine, ad Dei cultum solicitaverat; Pietatis et Charitatis opere quotidiano praeluxerat, emori demum erudiit suo exemplo. Quae septuagenaria placide in Christo obdormivit, et Fidei suae mercedem habuit, Martii vigesimo octavo, Anno Domini MDCXXVIII.

(Also of his sweetest Susannah, who after she had borne him twelve sons and six daughters, lived jointly in companionship with him for fifty seven years; she encouraged her children in their duty to God by serious and frequent exhortation; she shone brightly in the daily work of piety and charity, and at last gave instruction by her example of how to surrender life. Who as a septuagenarian placidly fell asleep in Christ and received the reward of her faith on 28 March, in the Year of Our Lord 1628.)"

Although the monument was damaged by enemy action in 1940–1941, an engraving of 1791 by John Thomas Smith shows how the panels carrying the inscriptions were originally disposed as if forming the opened hinged doors of a cabinet. The church's website notes that it was "one of the few memorials that survived the bombing" of this church during the London Blitz of 1940–1941: a modern plaque records that the monument was restored in 1971 by the Merchant Taylors' Company, in which John Speed was a citizen and brother.

Monumental brass
In 1944 Sir William Burrell and Constance, Lady Burrell included a monumental brass, stated to be for the cartographer John Speed, among their collection donated to the city of Glasgow. It is described as a tomb brass representing a full-length male figure, 62.7 cm tall, facing three-quarters to the right [i.e. his left side turned away], his hands joined in prayer. He has short hair with a trimmed beard and moustache, and wears a gown and cape over a buttoned tunic surmounted by a ruff. The expression "tomb brass" suggests that this figure may have belonged to a group set into the covering slab of a stone table tomb (as opposed to a floor matrix), an inference supported by the comparatively unworn condition of the engraving.

The latten is torn away at the toe, suggesting a forceful detachment, but the rivet-holes by which the brass was originally attached to its stone matrix are neatly preserved, suggesting careful removal. The position of the figure indicates that there was once a corresponding, facing plate representing a wife. The squared edge of the brass plate below the foot possibly rested against another brass plate bearing an inscription. The descriptions by Newcourt, Strype and Granger of Speed's monument agree with the text (including the words "On the other side of him" to introduce the inscription for Susanna) given in Anthony Munday's 1633 edition of Stow's Survey of London, and all clearly refer to the wall monument and inscriptions depicted by Smith and now remaining in restored form. If, however, the attribution of this brass to a tomb monument for John Speed is correct, it may enlarge the view of the original appearance of Speed's monument as it stood on the south side of the chancel of St Giles. The brass is on display in the Burrell Collection.

John Speed and William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare had near connections with St Giles, Cripplegate parish, of which John Speed was a parishioner. In his account of the reign of King Henry V, John Speed mentions that the character of Sir John Oldcastle, a Lollard martyr in Henry V's time, was falsely represented in the theatres as a stock buffoon and rogue. He wrote, "The author of The Three Conversions hath made Oldcastle a ruffian, a robber and a rebel, and his authority, taken from the stage players, is more befitting the pen of his slanderous report, than the credit of the judicious, being only grounded from this papist and his poet, of like conscience for lies, the one ever feigning and the other ever falsifying the truth." The author of The Three Conversions was the Jesuit Robert Persons, and the references to the Lollard martyr Oldcastle are in the third part of the work. Speed is saying that Persons the Catholic author had infamously falsified the historical character of Oldcastle the Lollard martyr by representing him as the cowardly rebel portrayed in the late Elizabethan stage plays. Thomas Fuller, in his Church-History of Britain (1655), evidently echoes Speed where he remarks: "Stage-poets have themselves been very bold with, and others very merry at, the memory of Sr John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon Companion, a jovial Royster, and yet a Coward to boot, contrary to the credit of all Chronicles, owning him a Martial man of merit. The best is, Sr John Falstaffe, hath relieved the Memory of Sr John Oldcastle, and of late is substituted Buffoone in his place, but it matters as little what petulant Poets, as what malicious Papists, have written against him.'"

While Shakespeare's character of Sir John Falstaff is evidently based on the stage-Oldcastle model, under a different name, the inference drawn by some editors (since Nicholas Rowe) that Speed was referring specifically to Shakespeare, or (if he was), that he intended to associate Shakespeare directly with Robert Persons and his Catholic sympathies, has long been debated. Possibly, Speed was referring to the author of a different play in which the Oldcastle figure appeared by name. A summary of the argument was presented by Edmond Malone's editors.

John Speed's maps and associated commentaries are sometimes employed for the interpretation of William Shakespeare's plays. Speed's historiography employs "theatrical metaphors" and makes use of medieval mythical content.

Appreciation
In later years, Robert Sheringham (who recited Speed's text to his map of the Isle of Wight) referred to him as "summus et eruditus Antiquarius" (a foremost and erudite antiquary), and he was called "our English Mercator"; "a person of extraordinary industry and attainments in the study of antiquities" (by William Nicolson); an "honest and impartial historian... who was furnished with the best materials from some of the most considerable persons in this kingdom" (by Stephen Hyde Cassan), a "faithful Chronologer" (in a text of 1656), and "our Cheshire historian...a scholar...a distinguished writer on history" (by Charles Hulbert). Richard Newcourt called him a "celebrated chronologer and historiographer"; James Granger observed, "his History of Great Britain was in its kind incomparably more complete than all the histories of his predecessors put together."

"And thus" (says Thomas Fuller), "we take our leaves of Father Speed, truly answering his name, in both the acceptions thereof, for celerity and success."

Persistence
His maps were used in high-income circles, and therefore Speed's influence was long-lasting and far-reaching. In 1673 and 1676 long after his death, other maps were published under his name obviously being counterfeits abusing the brand to represent the British Isles, the Chesapeake Bay region, and specifically Virginia and Maryland, the East Indies, the Russian Empire (then ruled by Peter the Great), Jamaica, and Barbados, and other locations. With these printings and many others, Speed's maps became the basis for world maps until at least the mid-eighteenth century: his British maps formed an important topographical resource long after their original publication.

Published works

 * The Theatre of The Empire of Great Britaine, Presenting an exact geography of England, Scotland, and Ireland (London 1611–12). Full text (including the History) at Umich/eebo.
 * Theatrum Imperii Magnae Britanniae, Latin Edition (London 1616). Page views at gallica (Bibliothèque Nationale Française).
 * History of Great Britaine Under the Conquests of Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, 1st Edition (London 1611), text at Umich/eebo. Re-issue (London 1614) Second, Revised Edition (London 1623).
 * The Genealogies recorded in the Sacred Scriptures according to euery family and tribe with the line of Our Sauior Jesus Christ obserued from Adam to the Blessed Virgin Mary (London 1611). 1636 printing bound into 1637 Robert Barker bible.
 * A Cloud of Witnesses: and they the holy genealogies of the sacred scriptures. Confirming unto us the truth of the histories in Gods most holie word; and the humanitie of Christ Iesus 1st Edition (London 1616). Second Edition (London 1620), text at Umich/eebo.
 * England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland: Described and Abridged with Ye Historic Relation of Things Worthy Memory: from a Farr Larger Voulume (London 1627) The "Farr Larger Volume" is The Theatre of The Empire of Great Britaine.
 * A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World (London 1627)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: John Speed


text:
William Camden

William Camden (2 May 1551 – 9 November 1623) was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and herald, best known as author of Britannia, the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Annales, the first detailed historical account of the reign of Elizabeth I of England.

Early years
William Camden was born in London. His father Sampson Camden was a member of The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers. He attended Christ's Hospital and St Paul's School, and in 1566 entered Oxford (Magdalen College, Broadgates Hall, and finally Christ Church). At Christ Church, he became acquainted with Philip Sidney, who encouraged Camden's antiquarian interests. He returned to London in 1571 without a degree. In 1575, he became Usher of Westminster School, a position that gave him the freedom to travel and pursue his antiquarian researches during school vacations.

Britannia
In 1577, with the encouragement of Abraham Ortelius, Camden began his great work Britannia, a topographical and historical survey of all of Great Britain and Ireland. His stated intention was to "restore antiquity to Britaine, and Britain to his antiquity". The first edition, written in Latin, was published in 1586. It proved very popular, and ran through five further Latin editions, of 1587, 1590, 1594, 1600 and 1607, each greatly enlarged from its predecessor in both textual content and illustrations. The 1607 edition included for the first time a full set of English county maps, based on the surveys of Christopher Saxton and John Norden, and engraved by William Kip and William Hole (who also engraved the fine frontispiece). The first English-language edition, translated by Philemon Holland, appeared in 1610, again with some additional content supplied by Camden.

Britannia is a county-by-county description of Great Britain and Ireland. It is a work of chorography: a study that relates landscape, geography, antiquarianism, and history. Rather than write a history, Camden wanted to describe in detail the Great Britain of the present, and to show how the traces of the past could be discerned in the existing landscape. By this method, he produced the first coherent picture of Roman Britain.

He continued to collect materials and to revise and expand Britannia throughout his life. He drew on the published and unpublished work of John Leland and William Lambarde, among others, and received the assistance of a large network of correspondents with similar interests. He also travelled throughout Great Britain to view documents, sites, and artefacts for himself: he is known to have visited East Anglia in 1578, Yorkshire and Lancashire in 1582, Devon in 1589, Wales in 1590, Salisbury, Wells and Oxford in 1596, and Carlisle and Hadrian's Wall in 1599. His fieldwork and firsthand research set new standards for the time. He even learned Welsh and Old English for the task: his tutor in Old English was Laurence Nowell.

In 1593 Camden became headmaster of Westminster School. He held the post for four years, but left when he was appointed Clarenceux King of Arms. By this time, largely because of the Britannia's reputation, he was a well-known and revered figure, and the appointment was meant to free him from the labour of teaching and to facilitate his research. The College of Arms at that time was not only a centre of genealogical and heraldic study, but also a centre of antiquarian study. The appointment, however, roused the jealousy of Ralph Brooke, York Herald, who, in retaliation, published an attack on Britannia, charging Camden with inaccuracy and plagiarism. Camden successfully defended himself against the charges in subsequent editions of the work.

Britannia was recognised as an important work of Renaissance scholarship, not only in England, but across the European "Republic of Letters". Camden considered having the 1586 Britannia printed in the Low Countries, and although that did not happen, the third edition of 1590, in addition to its London printing, was also published the same year in Frankfurt, and reprinted there in 1616. In 1612 parts were condemned by the Spanish Inquisition. An abridgement was published in Amsterdam in 1617 and reprinted in 1639; and versions of the text were also included in Joan Blaeu's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (published in Amsterdam in 1645) and in Jan Janssonius's Novus Atlas (again published in Amsterdam, in 1646).

Annales
In 1597, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley suggested that Camden write a history of Queen Elizabeth's reign. The degree of Burghley's subsequent influence on the work is unclear: Camden only specifically mentions John Fortescue of Salden, Elizabeth's last Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Henry Cuffe, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex's secretary, as sources. Camden began his work in 1607. The first part (books 1–3) of the Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha, ad annum salutis M.D. LXXXIX, covering the reign up to 1588, appeared in 1615. The second part (book 4, covering 1589–1603) was completed in 1617, but was not published until 1625 (Leiden edition), and 1627 (London edition), following Camden's death. The first translation into English of books 1–3 appeared in 1625, done by Abraham Darcie or Darcy (active 1625). Book 4 was translated into English by Thomas Browne, canon of Windsor, in 1629.

The Annales were not written in a continuous narrative, but in the style of earlier annals, giving the events of each year in a separate entry. Sometimes criticised as being too favourably disposed towards Elizabeth and James I, the Annales are one of the great works of English historiography and had a great impact on the later image of the Elizabethan age. Hugh Trevor-Roper said about them: "It is thanks to Camden that we ascribe to Queen Elizabeth a consistent policy of via media rather than an inconsequent series of unresolved conflicts and paralysed indecisions."

Camden heavily revised and self-censored his work to favour his patron. This included pages being overwritten, or passages covered by having pieces of paper stuck on. This made censored passages on hundreds of pages unreadable. In 2023 enhanced imaging technology using transmitted light made the hidden passages readable, revealing major insights, and confirming that the Annales were deliberately rewritten to depict Elizabeth's reign in a way favourable to her successor. Amongst new revelations, the Annals reported that Elizabeth, dying, had named James VI of Scotland as her successor. Analysis of the manuscript drafts shows the deathbed scene to be a fabricated addition to support James's succession. Pope Pius V was reported to have excommunicated Elizabeth due to "secret plots"; this originally had been the more inflammatory "spiritual warfare", and had been toned down. the new material was being studied, with the expectation that modern interpretations of Elizabeth and her reign would potentially change.

Remaines Concerning Britain
Camden's Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine was a collection of themed historical essays, conceived as a more popular companion to Britannia. This was the only book Camden wrote in English, and, contrary to his own misleading description of it in the first edition (1605) as being merely the "rude rubble and out-cast rubbish" of a greater and more serious work (i.e. Britannia), manuscript evidence clearly indicates that he planned this book early on and as a quite separate project. Remaines subsequently ran into many editions. The standard modern edition, edited by R. D. Dunn, is based on the surviving manuscript material and the three editions published in Camden's lifetime (1605, 1614, and 1623). Editions published after 1623 are unreliable and contain unauthentic material, especially the bowdlerized edition of 1636 by John Philipot. Thomas Moule's edition of 1870, of which many copies survive, is based on Philipot's 1674 edition.

Camden's Remaines is often the earliest or sole usage cited for a word in the Oxford English Dictionary; and further significant early usages (including new words and antedatings) have since been identified. Remaines also contains the first-ever alphabetical list of English proverbs, since heavily exploited by the editors of the principal modern dictionaries of proverbs (including those of Burton Stevenson (1949), M. P. Tilley (1950) and the third edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, edited by F. P. Wilson (1970)). Scattered through the book are a number of additional proverbs not recorded elsewhere.

Reges, reginae
In 1600 Camden published, anonymously, Reges, reginae, nobiles et alii in ecclesia collegiata B. Petri Westmonasterii sepulti, a guidebook to the many tomb monuments and epitaphs of Westminster Abbey. Although slight, this was a highly innovative work, predating John Weever's Ancient Funerall Monuments by over thirty years. It proved popular with the public, and two expanded editions appeared in 1603 and in 1606.

Other writings
Among Camden's other works were the Institutio Graecae grammatices compendiaria in usum regiae scholae Westmonasteriensis (1595), a Greek grammar which remained a standard school textbook for over a century; Actio in Henricum Garnetum, Societatis Jesuiticae in Anglia superiorem (1607), a Latin translation of the trial of the Gunpowder Plotters, aimed at an international readership; an unpublished essay on printing; and a number of Latin poems.

Final years
In 1609 Camden moved to Chislehurst in Kent, now south-east London. Though often in ill health, he continued to work diligently. In 1622 he founded an endowed lectureship in history at Oxford – the first in the world – which continues to this day as the Camden Professor of Ancient History. That same year he was struck with paralysis. He died at Chislehurst on 9 November 1623, and was buried at Westminster Abbey, where his monument, incorporating a demi-figure of Camden holding a copy of the Britannia, can still be seen in the south transept ("Poets' Corner").

Camden left his books to his former pupil and friend Sir Robert Cotton, the creator of the Cotton library. His circle of friends and acquaintances included Lord Burghley, Fulke Greville, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, John Stow, John Dee, Jacques de Thou and Ben Jonson, who was Camden's student at Westminster and who dedicated an early edition of Every Man in His Humour to him.

Legacy
Camden's Britannia remained a standard and highly regarded authority for many years after his death. A lightly revised edition of Holland's 1610 translation was published in 1637. A new and greatly expanded translation, edited by Edmund Gibson, was published in 1695, and was reissued in revised editions in 1722, 1753 and 1772. Yet another new and further expanded translation by Richard Gough was published in 1789, followed by a second edition in 1806. In an address given in 1986, marking the original publication's 400th anniversary, George Boon commented that the work "still fundamentally colours the way in which we, as antiquaries, look at our country".

Hitherto hidden censored passages in the Annales which became readable in 2023 may significantly change modern interpretations of Queen Elizabeth's reign.

The lectureship in history at Oxford endowed by Camden survives as the Camden Professor of Ancient History. Since 1877 it has been attached to Brasenose College, and since 1910 has been limited to Roman history.

The Camden Society, named after Camden, was a text publication society founded in 1838 to publish early historical and literary materials. In 1897 it was absorbed into the Royal Historical Society, which continues to publish texts in what are now known as the Camden Series.

The Cambridge Camden Society, which also took its name from Camden, was a learned society founded in 1839 by undergraduates at Cambridge University to promote the study of Gothic architecture. In 1845 it moved to London, where it became known as the Ecclesiological Society, and was highly influential in the development of the 19th-century Gothic revival.

After Camden's death, his former home at Chislehurst became known as Camden Place. In the 18th century, it was acquired by Sir Charles Pratt, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and later Lord Chancellor, who in 1765 was elevated to the peerage with the title Baron Camden, of Camden Place. In 1786 he was created Earl Camden, and in 1812 his son became Marquess Camden. The family owned and developed land to the north of London, and so, by this circuitous route, William Camden's name survives in the names of Camden Town and the London Borough of Camden.

title: William Camden


text:
Ornithine decarboxylase

The enzyme ornithine decarboxylase (, ODC) catalyzes the decarboxylation of ornithine (a product of the urea cycle) to form putrescine. This reaction is the committed step in polyamine synthesis. In humans, this protein has 461 amino acids and forms a homodimer.

In humans, ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) is expressed by the gene ODC1. The protein ODC is sometimes referred to as "ODC1" in research pertaining to humans and mice, but certain species such as Drosophila (dODC2), species of Solanaceae plant family (ODC2), and the lactic acid bacteria Paucilactobacillus wasatchensis (odc2) have been shown to have a second ODC gene.

Reaction mechanism
Lysine 69 on ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) binds the cofactor pyridoxal phosphate to form a Schiff base. Ornithine displaces the lysine to form a Schiff base attached to orthonine, which decarboxylates to form a quinoid intermediate. This intermediate rearranges to form a Schiff base attached to putrescine, which is attacked by lysine to release putrescine product and reform PLP-bound ODC. This is the first step and the rate-limiting step in humans for the production of polyamines, compounds required for cell division.

Spermidine synthase can then catalyze the conversion of putrescine to spermidine by the attachment of an aminopropyl moiety. Spermidine is a precursor to other polyamines, such as spermine and its structural isomer thermospermine.

Structure

The active form of ornithine decarboxylase is a homodimer. Each monomer contains a barrel domain, consisting of an alpha-beta barrel, and a sheet domain, composed of two beta-sheets. The domains are connected by loops. The monomers connect to each other via interactions between the barrel of one monomer and the sheet of the other. Binding between monomers is relatively weak, and ODC interconverts rapidly between monomeric and dimeric forms in the cell.

The pyridoxal phosphate cofactor binds lysine 69 at the C-terminus end of the barrel domain. The active site is at the interface of the two domains, in a cavity formed by loops from both monomers.

Function
The ornithine decarboxylation reaction catalyzed by ornithine decarboxylase is the first and committed step in the synthesis of polyamines, particularly putrescine, spermidine and spermine. Polyamines are important for stabilizing DNA structure, the DNA double strand-break repair pathway and as antioxidants. Therefore, ornithine decarboxylase is an essential enzyme for cell growth, producing the polyamines necessary to stabilize newly synthesized DNA. Lack of ODC causes cell apoptosis in embryonic mice, induced by DNA damage.

Proteasomal degradation
ODC is the most well-characterized cellular protein subject to ubiquitin-independent proteasomal degradation. Although most proteins must first be tagged with multiple ubiquitin molecules before they are bound and degraded by the proteasome, ODC degradation is instead mediated by several recognition sites on the protein and its accessory factor antizyme. The ODC degradation process is regulated in a negative feedback loop by its reaction products.

Until a report by Sheaff et al. (2000), which demonstrated that the cyclin-dependent kinase (Cdk) inhibitor p21Cip1 is also degraded by the proteasome in a ubiquitin-independent manner, ODC was the only clear example of ubiquitin-independent proteasomal degradation.

Clinical significance
ODC is a transcriptional target of the oncogene Myc and is upregulated in a wide variety of cancers. The polyamine products of the pathway initialized by ODC are associated with increased cell growth and reduced apoptosis. Ultraviolet light, asbestos and androgens released by the prostate gland are all known to induce increased ODC activity associated with cancer. Inhibitors of ODC such as eflornithine have been shown to effectively reduce cancers in animal models, and drugs targeting ODC are being tested for potential clinical use. The mechanism by which ODC promotes carcinogenesis is complex and not entirely known. Along with their direct effect on DNA stability, polyamines also upregulate gap junction genes and downregulate tight junction genes. Gap junction genes are involved in communication between carcinogenic cells and tight junction genes act as tumor suppressors.

Mutations of the ODC1 gene have been shown to cause Bachmann-Bupp syndrome (BABS), a rare neurometabolic disorder characterized by global developmental delay, alopecia, macrocephaly, dysmorphic features, and behavioral abnormalities. BABS is typically caused by an autosomal dominant de novo ODC1 variant.

ODC gene expression is induced by a large number of biological stimuli including seizure activity in the brain. Inactivation of ODC by difluoromethylornithine (DMFO, eflornithine) is used to treat cancer and facial hair growth in postmenopausal females.

ODC is also an enzyme indispensable to parasites like Trypanosoma, Giardia, and Plasmodium, a fact exploited by the drug eflornithine.

Immunological significance
In antigen-activated T cells, ODC enzymatic activity increases after activation, which corresponds with increase in polyamine synthesis in T cells after activation. As with ODC and cancer, MYC, also referred to as c-Myc for cellular Myc, is the master regulator of polyamine biosynthesis in T cells.

A 2020 study by Wu et al. using T-cell specific ODC cKO mice showed that T cells can function and proliferate normally in vivo and other polyamine synthesis pathways can compensate for lack of ODC. However, blocking polyamine synthesis via ODC with DMFO and polyamine uptake with AMXT 1501 depleted the polyamine pool and inhibited T-cell proliferation and suppressed T-cell inflammation.

Recent studies have shown the importance of ODC and polyamine synthesis in T helper cell fate commitment. A 2021 study by Puleston et al. showed that TH1 and TH2 cells express higher levels of ODC than regulatory T (Treg) cells and TH17 cells, which corresponded to higher levels of polyamine biosynthesis in TH1 and TH2. A 2021 study by Wagner et al. showed a promotion of a Treg program in Odc1-/- mice. They concluded that polyamine-related enzyme expression was enhanced in pathogenic TH17 and suppressed in Treg cells.

title: Ornithine decarboxylase


text:
Talk:Sonic the Hedgehog 3

New interview translation
There's quite a juicy interview with Naka about the development of various early Sonic games here: http://shmuplations.com/sonic/

Newer Legacy in a Streaming Series
Has anyone watched Sonic Prime on Netflix lately? In episode 7 is a cut-scene alluding to Sonic's first encounter with Knuckles. The scene is rendered in 2D graphics resembling this videogame with re-used sound effects and BGM, but the fighting between the characters is far more elaborate, and the two even talk. Is that worth mentioning in the article? Nebulous2357 (talk) 17:49, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

 * Probably not, but the bare minimum for inclusion would be if a reliable source points it out. (WP:VG/S outlines the type of sources that are and aren't usable.) Without a source, it'd be original search, which is not allowed on Wikipedia. Sergecross73   msg me  20:11, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * That scene is from Sonic & Knuckles, not Sonic 3 2001:16A2:E835:2000:399B:8126:F57C:3F18 (talk) 10:53, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

About Yuji Naka "confirming" Jackson's involvement
The article currently says: "In 2022, Naka confirmed that Jackson had been involved and said that the development team had visited Jackson's home at Neverland Ranch. He expressed surprise that Sega did not use Jackson's music in Sonic Origins.", with Eurogamer as the source. This is factually wrong, as the cited Eurogamer article misinterprets a tweet by Naka claiming MJ music was used in the "SEGA Official" TikTok account, taking it as confirmation that MJ worked in Sonic 3 itself.

Naka further clarified he meant the TikTok account in a later tweet he made in response to this and other similar articles that surfaced during the time. Some sites corrected themselves or otherwise covered this response as well. When trying to correct this, I got reverted twice by different users. I know making the same edit two times is close to warring, but considering it's literally false information, I decided to proceed anyway.

In any case, the statement that "Naka confirmed Jackson had been involved" needs to be either reworded or removed.

I do take issue with how more active/experienced users tend to handle these situations; I was reverted with extremely vague reasoning, essentially forcing me into the talk page and having to explain myself two times (three if counting the self-explanatory edit itself) before being offered any substantial counter-argument. I can only assume these users do not consider this to be false or misleading information, but I'm having trouble seeing why as I genuinely believe it's extremely self-evident. A simple explanation would be nice. Gabo 200 (talk) 21:05, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

 * Part of the reason you were reverted was because your added wording was sloppy and unencyclopedic, like you were writing a verbal argument against someone or something. Im sorry you "took issue" with getting reverted, but that's how Wikipedia works - edits get undone and you have to hash it out on the talk page. You're going to have a hard time here if you're going to get offended every time it happens. It's a very basic core part of the website.
 * We can see what others say and come to a decision from that. My two cents: I can see softening the wording some to make it sound less certain, but I'm still struggling with some of your counterpoint here. Even after Naka's correction, the whole conversation doesn't really make any sense unless Jackson was involved. Why would Naka even make his revised comment unless Jackson was involved? Sergecross73   msg me  00:14, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * This Game Informer article mentions what I'm trying to get at here: "Funny enough, Sega referencing Michael itself is even more surprising than Naka's perceived confirmation and only further hammers home that, yes, Jackson lent a hand in Sonic 3's music." Sergecross73   msg me  14:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Examining the sources, I think Gabo has a reasonable point. Several sources that reported this later updated their articles to say that Naka had, in fact, not exactly confirmed Jackson's involvement. See, ,
 * Per WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE, I have amended the article to remove the claim that Naka confirmed anything. Instead, we should just report the other stuff Naka said: that the team visited Jackson's home, and that Naka was surprised that the music had changed in Sonic Origins. Popcornfud (talk) 15:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi, without discussion of the content itself on my part, I wanted to address this concern of yours: I was reverted with extremely vague reasoning, essentially forcing me into the talk page and having to explain myself two times (three if counting the self-explanatory edit itself) before being offered any substantial counter-argument. Using the talk page is a part of the collegial atmosphere of Wikipedia. Whether you consider your changes self-evident or not, if you’re reverted it should be considered controversial as at least someone has disagreed with your change, and it’s worth discussing your proposed changes at talk to establish a consensus. This isn’t “forcing”, it’s the natural order of things - and as the old expression goes, you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.  Red Phoenix  talk  18:08, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I feel like there's probably more that could be pulled from that source, but regardless, my main objection was these prose additions, so as long as that's gone I'm fine. Sergecross73   msg me  19:48, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, the prose additions were convoluted and in some cases not grammatically correct ("the alleged Jackson's music"). Popcornfud (talk) 01:49, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Origins' replacement tracks allegedly being "new" remixes made by Jun Senoue
Discussion moved to Talk:Sonic_Origins

Amy Rose in Sonic 3 and Knuckles
I added a footnote about Amy Rose now being a playable character in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Knuckles for Sonic Origins. Has anyone a better way of conveying this on the article? Nebulous2357 (talk) 04:23, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

 * Perhaps as a sentence in the last paragraph of the Ports section which focuses exclusively on the Origins port? Red Phoenix  talk  12:09, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I believe that's how I've seen other editors do it on the other Origins game articles. Sergecross73   msg me  14:18, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I've merged this into the article with sources. I removed the footnote around Hyper Tails's name or whatever as that seems like trivia to me. Popcornfud (talk) 14:40, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

New Jackson source

 * https://nintendoeverything.com/sonic-3-michael-jackson-involvement/

Not entirely sure what to make of this. The plus side is that there's a Sega staffer directly stating Jackson worked on the soundtrack. But they make it sound like all of his work was scrapped, and that wouldn't really explain the soundtrack changes in Origins (unless that's covered outside of what Nintendo Everything transcribed.) Sergecross73   msg me  00:15, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

 * From a quick glance, Hector's just telling the story he's always told (and is already in the article)—that Jackson worked on the soundtrack but his contributions were removed. Looks like this might give us a bit more to work with, though. JOE BRO 64  01:15, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I don't really see this as changing the story much as we know it. It seems there's always been confusion among the people involved here about exactly what happened and how much of the MJ material remained in the game.
 * I wouldn't be surprised if Hector never even played the finished version of Sonic 3 or had any idea which pieces of music were composed by different people. I once worked with a business director of an AAA game studio who asked me what "RPG" stood for. Popcornfud (talk) 15:08, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've always thought that was the case. He implies that Drossin made a lot of music but Drossin has listened to the soundtrack and only pointed out the S&K title screen theme, new Knuckles' theme, and their related jingles as his. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 16:05, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, honestly, after re-reading the section, I forgot how much we already knew about all of this by now. That guy getting all fired up about that Yuki Naka quote last month was making me think we had less "confirmed" about the MJ saga than we really do. I think its one of those situations where I forgot where we're at as far as "what's confirmed by reliable sources in the Wikipedia sense" and "what's confirmed by the fanbase on the fansites". I was thinking there was more of a discrepancy than there really was. This can be disregarded. Sergecross73   msg me  16:15, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sonic the Hedgehog 3