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James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell (February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891) was 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 that rivaled the popularity of British poets. These writers usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside.

Lowell graduated from Harvard College in 1838, despite his reputation as a troublemaker, and went on to earn a law degree from Harvard Law School. He published his first collection of poetry in 1841 and married Maria White in 1844. The couple had several children, though only one survived past childhood.

He became involved in the movement to abolish slavery. Lowell used poetry to express his anti-slavery views and took a job in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the editor of an abolitionist newspaper. After moving back to Cambridge, Lowell was one of the founders of a journal called The Pioneer, which lasted only three issues. He gained notoriety in 1848 with the publication of A Fable for Critics, a book-length poem satirizing contemporary critics and poets. The same year, he published The Biglow Papers, which increased his fame. He went on to publish several other poetry collections and essay collections throughout his literary career.

Maria died in 1853, and Lowell accepted a professorship of languages at Harvard in 1854. He traveled to Europe before officially assuming his teaching duties in 1856, and married Frances Dunlap shortly thereafter in 1857. That year, Lowell also became editor of The Atlantic Monthly. He continued to teach at Harvard for twenty years.

He received his first political appointment, the ambassadorship to the Kingdom of Spain 20 years later. He was later appointed ambassador to the Court of St. James's. He spent his last years in Cambridge in the same estate where he was born, and died there in 1891.

Lowell believed that the poet played an important role as a prophet and critic of society. He used poetry for reform, particularly in abolitionism. However, his commitment to the anti-slavery cause wavered over the years, as did his opinion on African-Americans. He attempted to emulate the true Yankee accent in the dialogue of his characters, particularly in The Biglow Papers. This depiction of the dialect, as well as his many satires, was an inspiration to writers such as Mark Twain and H. L. Mencken.

Early life
James Russell Lowell was born February 22, 1819. He was a member of the eighth generation of the Lowell family, the descendants of Percival Lowle who settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1639. His parents were the Reverend Charles Lowell (1782–1861), a minister at a Unitarian church in Boston who had previously studied theology at Edinburgh, and Harriett Brackett Spence Lowell. By the time that James was born, the family owned a large estate in Cambridge called Elmwood. He was the youngest of six children; his siblings were Charles, Rebecca, Mary, William, and Robert. Lowell's mother built in him an appreciation for literature at an early age, especially in poetry, ballads, and tales from her native Orkney. He attended school under Sophia Dana, who later married George Ripley; he later studied at a school run by a particularly harsh disciplinarian, where one of his classmates was Richard Henry Dana Jr.

Lowell attended Harvard College beginning at age 15 in 1834, though he was not a good student and often got into trouble. In his sophomore year, he was absent from required chapel attendance 14 times and from classes 56 times. In his last year there, he wrote, "During Freshman year, I did nothing, during Sophomore year I did nothing, during Junior year I did nothing, and during Senior year I have thus far done nothing in the way of college studies." In his senior year, he became one of the editors of Harvardiana, a literary magazine, to which he contributed prose and poetry that he admitted was of low quality. As he said later, "I was as great an ass as ever brayed & thought it singing." During his undergraduate years, Lowell was a member of Hasty Pudding and served both as secretary and poet. While at Harvard, he became lifelong friends with fellow troublemaker George W. Minns.

Lowell was elected the poet of the class of 1838 and, as was tradition, was asked to recite an original poem on Class Day, the day before Commencement on July 17, 1838. He was suspended, however, and not allowed to participate. Instead, his poem was printed and made available thanks to subscriptions paid by his classmates. He had composed the poem in Concord, where he had been exiled by the Harvard faculty to the care of the Rev. Barzallai Frost because of his neglect of his studies. During his stay in Concord, he became friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson and got to know the other Transcendentalists. His Class Day poem satirized the social movements of the day; abolitionists, Thomas Carlyle, Emerson, and the Transcendentalists were treated.

Lowell did not know what vocation to choose after graduating, and he vacillated among business, the ministry, medicine, and law. He ultimately enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1840 and was admitted to the bar two years later. While studying law, however, he contributed poems and prose articles to various magazines. During this time, he was admittedly depressed and often had suicidal thoughts. He once confided to a friend that he held a cocked pistol to his forehead and considered killing himself at the age of 20.

Marriage and family
In late 1839, Lowell met Maria White through her brother William, a classmate at Harvard, and the two became engaged in the autumn of 1840. Maria's father Abijah White, a wealthy merchant from Watertown, insisted that their wedding be postponed until Lowell had gainful employment. They were finally married on December 26, 1844, shortly after the groom published Conversations on Some of the Old Poets, a collection of his previously published essays. A friend described their relationship as "the very picture of a True Marriage". Lowell himself believed that she was made up "half of earth and more than half of Heaven". She, too, wrote poetry, and the next twelve years of Lowell's life were deeply affected by her influence. He said that his first book of poetry A Year's Life (1841) "owes all its beauty to her", though it only sold 300 copies.

Maria's character and beliefs led her to become involved in the movements directed against intemperance and slavery. She was a member of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and persuaded her husband to become an abolitionist. James had previously expressed antislavery sentiments, but Maria urged him towards more active expression and involvement. His second volume of poems Miscellaneous Poems expressed these antislavery thoughts, and its 1,500 copies sold well.

Maria was in poor health, and the couple moved to Philadelphia shortly after their marriage, thinking that her lungs could heal there. In Philadelphia, he became a contributing editor for the Pennsylvania Freeman, an abolitionist newspaper. In the spring of 1845, the Lowells returned to Cambridge to make their home at Elmwood. They had four children, though only one (Mabel, born 1847) survived past infancy. Blanche was born December 31, 1845, but lived only fifteen months; Rose, born in 1849, survived only a few months as well; their only son Walter was born in 1850 but died in 1852. Lowell was very affected by the loss of almost all of his children. His grief over the death of his first daughter in particular was expressed in his poem "The First Snowfall" (1847). He again considered suicide, writing to a friend that he thought "of my razors and my throat and that I am a fool and a coward not to end it all at once".

Literary career
Lowell's earliest poems were published without remuneration in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1840. He was inspired to new efforts towards self-support and joined with his friend Robert Carter in founding the literary journal The Pioneer. The periodical was distinguished by the fact that most of its content was new rather than material that had been previously published elsewhere, and by the inclusion of very serious criticism, which covered not only literature but also art and music. Lowell wrote that it would "furnish the intelligent and reflecting portion of the Reading Public with a rational substitute for the enormous quantity of thrice-diluted trash, in the shape of namby-pamby love tales and sketches, which is monthly poured out to them by many of our popular Magazines." William Wetmore Story noted the journal's higher taste, writing that "it took some stand & appealled to a higher intellectual Standard than our puerile milk or watery namby-pamby Mags with which we are overrun". The first issue of the journal included the first appearance of "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. Lowell was treated for an eye disease in New York shortly after the first issue, and in his absence Carter did a poor job of managing the journal. The magazine ceased publication after three monthly numbers beginning in January 1843, leaving Lowell $1,800 (~$ in ) in debt. Poe mourned the journal's demise, calling it "a most severe blow to the cause—the cause of a Pure Taste".

Despite the failure of The Pioneer, Lowell continued his interest in the literary world. He wrote a series on "Anti-Slavery in the United States" for the Daily News, though his series was discontinued by the editors after four articles in May 1846. He had published these articles anonymously, believing that they would have more impact if they were not known to be the work of a committed abolitionist. In the spring of 1848, he formed a connection with the National Anti-Slavery Standard of New York, agreeing to contribute weekly either a poem or a prose article. After only one year, he was asked to contribute half as often to the Standard to make room for contributions from Edmund Quincy, another writer and reformer.

A Fable for Critics was one of Lowell's most popular works, published anonymously in 1848. It proved a popular satire, and the first 3,000 copies sold out quickly. In it, he took good-natured jabs at his contemporary poets and critics—but not all the subjects were pleased. Edgar Allan Poe was referred to as part genius and "two-fifths sheer fudge"; he reviewed the work in the Southern Literary Messenger and called it "'loose'—ill-conceived and feebly executed, as well in detail as in general ... we confess some surprise at his putting forth so unpolished a performance." Lowell offered his New York friend Charles Frederick Briggs all the profits from the book's success (which proved relatively small), despite his own financial needs.

In 1848, Lowell also published The Biglow Papers, later named by the Grolier Club as the most influential book of 1848. The first 1,500 copies sold out within a week and a second edition was soon issued—though Lowell made no profit, as he had to absorb the cost of stereotyping the book himself. The book presented three main characters, each representing different aspects of American life and using authentic American dialects in their dialogue. Under the surface, The Biglow Papers was also a denunciation of the Mexican–American War and war in general.

First trip to Europe
In 1850, Lowell's mother died unexpectedly, as did his third daughter, Rose. Her death left Lowell depressed and reclusive for six months, despite the birth of his son Walter by the end of the year. He wrote to a friend that death "is a private tutor. We have no fellow-scholars, and must lay our lessons to heart alone." These personal troubles as well as the Compromise of 1850 inspired Lowell to accept an offer from William Wetmore Story to spend a winter in Italy. To pay for the trip, Lowell sold land around Elmwood, intending to sell off further acres of the estate over time to supplement his income, ultimately selling off 25 of the original 30 acre. Walter died suddenly in Rome of cholera, and Lowell and his wife, with their daughter Mabel, returned to the United States in October 1852. Lowell published recollections of his journey in several magazines, many of which would be collected years later as Fireside Travels (1867). He also edited volumes with biographical sketches for a series on British Poets.

His wife Maria, who had been suffering from poor health for many years, became very ill in the spring of 1853 and died on October 27 of tuberculosis. Just before her burial, her coffin was opened so that her daughter Mabel could see her face while Lowell "leaned for a long while against a tree weeping", according to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his wife, who were in attendance. In 1855, Lowell oversaw the publication of a memorial volume of his wife's poetry, with only fifty copies for private circulation. Despite his self-described "naturally joyous" nature, life for Lowell at Elmwood was further complicated by his father becoming deaf in his old age, and the deteriorating mental state of his sister Rebecca, who sometimes went a week without speaking. He again cut himself off from others, becoming reclusive at Elmwood, and his private diaries from this time period are riddled with the initials of his wife. On March 10, 1854, for example, he wrote: "Dark without & within. M.L. M.L. M.L." Longfellow, a friend and neighbor, referred to Lowell as "lonely and desolate".

Professorship and second marriage
At the invitation of his cousin John Amory Lowell, James Russell Lowell was asked to deliver a lecture at the prestigious Lowell Institute. Some speculated the opportunity was because of the family connection, offered as an attempt to bring him out of his depression. Lowell chose to speak on "The English Poets", telling his friend Briggs that he would take revenge on dead poets "for the injuries received by one whom the public won't allow among the living". The first of the twelve-part lecture series was to be on January 9, 1855, though by December, Lowell had only completed writing five of them, hoping for last-minute inspiration. His first lecture was on John Milton and the auditorium was oversold; Lowell had to give a repeat performance the next afternoon. Lowell, who had never spoken in public before, was praised for these lectures. Francis James Child said that Lowell, whom he deemed was typically "perverse", was able to "persist in being serious contrary to his impulses and his talents". While his series was still in progress, Lowell was offered the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages at Harvard, a post vacated by Longfellow, at an annual salary of $1,200, though he never applied for it. The job description was changing after Longfellow; instead of teaching languages directly, Lowell would supervise the department and deliver two lecture courses per year on topics of his own choosing. Lowell accepted the appointment, with the proviso that he should have a year of study abroad. He set sail on June 4 of that year, leaving his daughter Mabel in the care of a governess named Frances Dunlap. Abroad, he visited Le Havre, Paris, and London, spending time with friends including Story, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Leigh Hunt. Primarily, however, Lowell spent his time abroad studying languages, particularly German, which he found difficult. He complained: "The confounding genders! If I die I shall have engraved on my tombstone that I died of der, die, das, not because I caught them but because I couldn't."

He returned to the United States in the summer of 1856 and began his college duties. Towards the end of his professorship, then-president of Harvard Charles William Eliot noted that Lowell seemed to have "no natural inclination" to teach; Lowell agreed, but retained his position for twenty years. He focused on teaching literature, rather than etymology, hoping that his students would learn to enjoy the sound, rhythm, and flow of poetry rather than the technique of words. He summed up his method: "True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exists, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment." Still grieving the loss of his wife, during this time Lowell avoided Elmwood and instead lived on Kirkland Street in Cambridge, an area known as Professors' Row. He stayed there, along with his daughter Mabel and her governess Frances Dunlap, until January 1861.

Lowell had intended never to remarry after the death of his wife Maria White. However, in 1857, surprising his friends, he became engaged to Frances Dunlap, whom many described as simple and unattractive. Dunlap, niece of the former governor of Maine Robert P. Dunlap, was a friend of Lowell's first wife and formerly wealthy, though she and her family had fallen into reduced circumstances. Lowell and Dunlap married on September 16, 1857, in a ceremony performed by his brother. Lowell wrote, "My second marriage was the wisest act of my life, & as long as I am sure of it, I can afford to wait till my friends agree with me."

War years and beyond
In the autumn of 1857, The Atlantic Monthly was established, and Lowell was its first editor. With its first issue in November of that year, he at once gave the magazine the stamp of high literature and of bold speech on public affairs. In January 1861, Lowell's father died of a heart attack, inspiring Lowell to move his family back to Elmwood. As he wrote to his friend Briggs, "I am back again to the place I love best. I am sitting in my old garret, at my old desk, smoking my old pipe ... I begin to feel more like my old self than I have these ten years." Shortly thereafter, in May, he left The Atlantic Monthly when James T. Fields took over as editor; the magazine had been purchased by Ticknor and Fields for $10,000 two years before. Lowell returned to Elmwood by January 1861 but maintained an amicable relationship with the new owners of the journal, continuing to submit his poetry and prose for the rest of his life. His prose, however, was more abundantly presented in the pages of the North American Review during the years 1862–1872. For the Review, he served as a coeditor along with Charles Eliot Norton. Lowell's reviews for the journal covered a wide variety of literary releases of the day, though he was writing fewer poems. One essay of his for the North American Review, an acerbic review of the life and work of the recently deceased Henry David Thoreau titled "Letters to Various Persons," contributed to a decades-long critical consensus of disdain for Thoreau.

As early as 1845, Lowell had predicted the debate over slavery would lead to war and, as the Civil War broke out in the 1860s, Lowell used his role at the Review to praise Abraham Lincoln and his attempts to maintain the Union. Lowell lost three nephews during the war, including Charles Russell Lowell Jr., who became a brigadier general and fell at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Lowell himself was generally a pacifist. Even so, he wrote, "If the destruction of slavery is to be a consequence of the war, shall we regret it? If it be needful to the successful prosecution of the war, shall anyone oppose it?" His interest in the Civil War inspired him to write a second series of The Biglow Papers, including one specifically dedicated to the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation called "Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line" in 1862.

Shortly after Lincoln's assassination, Lowell was asked to present a poem at Harvard in memory of graduates killed in the war. His poem, "Commemoration Ode", cost him sleep and his appetite, but was delivered on July 21, 1865, after a 48-hour writing binge. Lowell had high hopes for his performance but was overshadowed by the other notables presenting works that day, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes. "I did not make the hit I expected", he wrote, "and am ashamed at having been tempted again to think I could write poetry, a delusion from which I have been tolerably free these dozen years." Despite his personal assessment, friends and other poets sent many letters to Lowell congratulating him. Emerson referred to his poem's "high thought & sentiment" and James Freeman Clarke noted its "grandeur of tone". Lowell later expanded it with a strophe to Lincoln.

In the 1860s, Lowell's friend Longfellow spent several years translating Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and regularly invited others to help him on Wednesday evenings. Lowell was one of the main members of the so-called "Dante Club", along with William Dean Howells, Charles Eliot Norton and other occasional guests. Shortly after serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of friend and publisher Nathaniel Parker Willis on January 24, 1867, Lowell decided to produce another collection of his poetry. Under the Willows and Other Poems was released in 1869, though Lowell originally wanted to title it The Voyage to the Vinland and Other Poems. The book, dedicated to Norton, collected poems Lowell had written within the previous twenty years and was his first poetry collection since 1848.

Lowell intended to take another trip to Europe. To finance it, he sold off more of Elmwood's acres and rented the house to Thomas Bailey Aldrich; Lowell's daughter Mabel, by this time, had moved into a new home with her husband Edward Burnett, the son of a successful businessman-farmer from Southborough, Massachusetts. Lowell and his wife set sail on July 8, 1872, after he took a leave of absence from Harvard. They visited England, Paris, Switzerland, and Italy. While overseas, he received an honorary Doctorate of Law from the University of Oxford and another from Cambridge University. They returned to the United States in the summer of 1874.

Political appointments
Lowell resigned from his Harvard professorship in 1874, though he was persuaded to continue teaching through 1877. It was in 1876 that Lowell first stepped into the field of politics. That year, he served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes won the nomination and, eventually, the presidency. In May 1877, President Hayes, an admirer of The Biglow Papers, sent William Dean Howells to Lowell with a handwritten note proffering an ambassadorship to either Austria or Russia; Lowell declined, but noted his interest in Spanish literature. Lowell was then offered and accepted the role of Minister to the court of Spain at an annual salary of $12,000. Lowell sailed from Boston on July 14, 1877, and, though he expected he would be away for a year or two, did not return to the United States until 1885, with the violinist Ole Bull renting Elmwood for a portion of that time. The Spanish media referred to him as "José Bighlow". Lowell was well-prepared for his political role, having been trained in law, as well as being able to read in multiple languages. He had trouble socializing while in Spain, however, and amused himself by sending humorous dispatches to his political bosses in the United States, many of which were later collected and published posthumously in 1899 as Impressions of Spain. Lowell's social life improved when the Spanish Academy elected him a corresponding member in late 1878, allowing him contribute to the preparation of a new dictionary. In January 1880, Lowell was informed of his appointment as Minister to England, his nomination made without his knowledge as far back as June 1879. He was granted a salary of $17,500 with about $3,500 for expenses. While serving in this capacity, he addressed an importation of allegedly diseased cattle and made recommendations that predated the Pure Food and Drug Act. Queen Victoria commented that she had never seen an ambassador who "created so much interest and won so much regard as Mr. Lowell". Lowell held this role until the close of Chester A. Arthur's presidency in the spring of 1885, despite his wife's failing health. Lowell was already well known in England for his writing and, during his time there, befriended fellow author Henry James, who referred to him as "conspicuously American". Lowell also befriended Leslie Stephen many years earlier and became the godfather to his daughter, future writer Virginia Woolf. Lowell was popular enough that he was offered a professorship at Oxford after his recall by President Grover Cleveland, though the offer was declined. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1883.

His second wife, Frances, died on February 19, 1885, while still in England.

Later years and death
He returned to the United States by June 1885, living with his daughter and her husband in Southboro, Massachusetts. He then spent time in Boston with his sister before returning to Elmwood in November 1889. By this time, most of his friends were dead, including Quincy, Longfellow, Dana, and Emerson, leaving him depressed and contemplating suicide again. Lowell spent part of the 1880s delivering various speeches, and his last published works were mostly collections of essays, including Political Essays, and a collection of his poems Heartsease and Rue in 1888. His last few years he traveled back to England periodically and when he returned to the United States in the fall of 1889, he moved back to Elmwood with Mabel, while her husband worked for clients in New York and New Jersey. That year, Lowell gave an address at the centenary of George Washington's inauguration. Also that year, the Boston Critic dedicated a special issue to Lowell on his seventieth birthday to recollections and reminiscences by his friends, including former presidents Hayes and Benjamin Harrison and British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone as well as Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Francis Parkman.

In the last few months of his life, Lowell struggled with gout, sciatica in his left leg, and chronic nausea; by the summer of 1891, doctors believed that Lowell had cancer in his kidneys, liver, and lungs. His last few months, he was administered opium for the pain and was rarely fully conscious. He died on August 12, 1891, at Elmwood. After services in the Appleton Chapel, he was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery. After his death, Norton served as his literary executor and published several collections of Lowell's works and his letters.

Writing style and literary theory
Early in his career, James Russell Lowell's writing was influenced by Swedenborgianism, a Spiritualism-infused form of Christianity founded by Emanuel Swedenborg, causing Frances Longfellow (wife of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) to mention that "he has been long in the habit of seeing spirits". He composed his poetry rapidly when inspired by an "inner light" but could not write to order. He subscribed to the common nineteenth-century belief that the poet was a prophet but went further, linking religion, nature, and poetry, as well as social reform. Evert Augustus Duyckinck and others welcomed Lowell as part of Young America, a New York-based movement. Though not officially affiliated with them, he shared some of their ideals, including the belief that writers have an inherent insight into the moral nature of humanity and have an obligation for literary action along with their aesthetic function. Unlike many of his contemporaries, including members of Young America, Lowell did not advocate for the creation of a new national literature. Instead, he called for a natural literature, regardless of country, caste, or race, and warned against provincialism which might "put farther off the hope of one great brotherhood". He agreed with his neighbor Longfellow that "whoever is most universal, is also most national". As Lowell said:

"I believe that no poet in this age can write much that is good unless he gives himself up to [the radical] tendency ... The proof of poetry is, in my mind, that it reduces to the essence of a single line the vague philosophy which is floating in all men's minds, and so render it portable and useful, and ready to the hand ... At least, no poem ever makes me respect its author which does not in some way convey a truth of philosophy."

A scholar of linguistics, Lowell was one of the founders of the American Dialect Society. He applied this passion to some of his writings, most famously in The Biglow Papers, in which he presents an early 19th-century rural Yankee dialect, complete with nonstandard local grammar and quasi-phonetic spelling —a literary method called eye dialect. In using this vernacular, Lowell intended to get closer to the common man's experience and was rebelling against more formal and, as he thought, unnatural representations of Americans in literature. As he wrote in his introduction to The Biglow Papers, "few American writers or speakers wield their native language with the directness, precision, and force that are common as the day in the mother country" (i.e. England). Though intentionally humorous, this precise representation of an early New England dialect was pioneering work within American literature. For example, Lowell's character Hosea Biglow says in verse:

Lowell is considered one of the fireside poets, a group of writers from New England in the 1840s who all had a substantial national following and whose work was often read aloud by the family fireplace. Besides Lowell, the main figures from this group were Longfellow, Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier, and William Cullen Bryant.

Beliefs
Lowell was an abolitionist, but his opinions wavered concerning African-Americans. He advocated suffrage for blacks, yet he noted that their ability to vote could be troublesome. Even so, he wrote, "We believe the white race, by their intellectual and traditional superiority, will retain sufficient ascendancy to prevent any serious mischief from the new order of things." Freed slaves, he wrote, were "dirty, lazy & lying". Even before his marriage to abolitionist Maria White, Lowell wrote: "The abolitionists are the only ones with whom I sympathize of the present extant parties." After his marriage, Lowell at first did not share his wife's enthusiasm for the cause, but he was eventually pulled in. The couple often gave money to fugitive slaves, even when their own financial situation was not strong, especially if they were asked to free a spouse or child. Even so, he did not always fully agree with the followers of the movement. The majority of these people, he said, "treat ideas as ignorant persons do cherries. They think them unwholesome unless they are swallowed, stones and all." Lowell depicted Southerners very unfavorably in his second collection of The Biglow Papers but, by 1865, admitted that Southerners were "guilty only of weakness" and, by 1868, said that he sympathized with Southerners and their viewpoint on slavery. Enemies and friends of Lowell alike questioned his vacillating interest in the question of slavery. Abolitionist Samuel Joseph May accused him of trying to quit the movement because of his association with Harvard and the Boston Brahmin culture: "Having got into the smooth, dignified, self-complacent, and change-hating society of the college and its Boston circles, Lowell has gone over to the world, and to 'respectability'."

Lowell was also involved in other reform movements. He urged better conditions for factory workers, opposed capital punishment, and supported the temperance movement. His friend Longfellow was especially concerned about his fanaticism for temperance, worrying that Lowell would ask him to destroy his wine cellar. There are many references to Lowell's drinking during his college years, and part of his reputation in school was based on it. His friend Edward Everett Hale denied these allegations. Lowell considered joining the "Anti-Wine" club at Harvard, and he became a teetotaler during the early years of his first marriage. However, as he gained notoriety, he became popular in social circles and clubs and he drank rather heavily when away from his wife. When he drank, he had wild mood swings, ranging from euphoria to frenzy.

Criticism and legacy
In 1849, Lowell said of himself, "I am the first poet who has endeavored to express the American Idea, and I shall be popular by and by." Poet Walt Whitman said: "Lowell was not a grower—he was a builder. He built poems: he didn't put in the seed, and water the seed, and send down his sun—letting the rest take care of itself: he measured his poems—kept them within formula." Fellow fireside poet John Greenleaf Whittier praised Lowell by writing two poems in his honor and calling him "our new Theocritus" and "one of the strongest and manliest of our writers–a republican poet who dares to speak brave words of unpopular truth". British author Thomas Hughes referred to Lowell as one of the most important writers in the United States: "Greece had her Aristophanes; Rome her Juvenal; Spain has had her Cervantes; France her Rabelais, her Molière, her Voltaire; Germany her Jean Paul, her Heine; England her Swift, her Thackeray; and America has her Lowell." Lowell's satires and use of dialect were an inspiration for writers like Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, H. L. Mencken, and Ring Lardner.

Contemporary critic and editor Margaret Fuller wrote, "his verse is stereotyped; his thought sounds no depth, and posterity will not remember him." Evert Augustus Duyckinck thought Lowell was too similar to other poets like William Shakespeare and John Milton. Ralph Waldo Emerson noted that, though Lowell had significant technical skill, his poetry "rather expresses his wish, his ambition, than the uncontrollable interior impulse which is the authentic mark of a new poem ... and which is felt in the pervading tone, rather than in brilliant parts or lines." Even his friend Richard Henry Dana Jr. questioned Lowell's abilities, calling him "very clever, entertaining & good humored ... but he is rather a trifler, after all." In the twentieth century, poet Richard Armour dismissed Lowell, writing: "As a Harvard graduate and an editor for the Atlantic Monthly, it must have been difficult for Lowell to write like an illiterate oaf, but he succeeded." The poet Amy Lowell featured her relative James Russell Lowell in her poem A Critical Fable (1922), the title mocking A Fable for Critics. Here, a fictional version of Lowell says he does not believe that women will ever be equal to men in the arts and "the two sexes cannot be ranked counterparts". Modern literary critic Van Wyck Brooks wrote that Lowell's poetry was forgettable: "one read them five times over and still forgot them, as if this excellent verse had been written in water." His The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848), was called "one of the worst constructed poems written in English" and "the most disorganized poem ever written". Nonetheless, in 1969 the Modern Language Association established a prize named after Lowell, awarded annually for "an outstanding literary or linguistic study, a critical edition of an important work, or a critical biography."

Lowell's poem "The Present Crisis", an early work that addressed the national crisis over slavery leading up to the Civil War, has had an impact in the modern civil rights movement. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People named its newsletter The Crisis after the poem, and Martin Luther King Jr. frequently quoted the poem in his speeches and sermons. The poem was also the source of the hymn "Once to Every Man and Nation". American composer Emily Bruce Roelofson used Lowell's text in her song "From the Close Shut Window".

List of selected works
Poetry collections
 * A Year's Life (1841)
 * Miscellaneous Poems (1843)
 * The Biglow Papers (1848)
 * A Fable for Critics (1848)
 * Poems (1848)
 * The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848)
 * Under the Willows (1869)
 * The Cathedral (1870)
 * Heartsease and Rue (1888)

Essay collections
 * Conversations on Some of the Old Poets (1844)
 * Fireside Travels (1864)
 * Among My Books (1870)
 * My Study Windows (1871)
 * Among My Books (second collection, 1876)
 * Democracy and Other Addresses (1886)
 * Political Essays (1888)

title: James Russell Lowell


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Regent's Park

Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies 410 acre in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden (and historically between Marylebone and Saint Pancras parishes). In addition to its large central parkland and ornamental lake, it contains various structures and organizations both public and private, generally on its periphery, including Regent's University and London Zoo.

What is now Regent's Park came into possession of the Crown upon the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1500s, and was used for hunting and tenant farming. In the 1810s, the Prince Regent proposed turning it into a pleasure garden. The park was designed by John Nash and James and Decimus Burton. Its construction was financed privately by James Burton after the Crown Estate rescinded its pledge to do so, and included development on the periphery of townhouses and expensive terrace dwellings. The park is Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Description
The park has an outer ring road called the Outer Circle (4.45 km) and an inner ring road called the Inner Circle (1 km), which surrounds the most carefully tended section of the park, Queen Mary's Gardens. Apart from two link roads between these two, the park is reserved for pedestrians (with the exception of The Broad Walk between Chester Road and the Outer Circle, which is a shared use path). The south, east and most of the west side of the park are lined with elegant white stucco terraces of houses designed by John Nash and Decimus Burton. Running through the northern end of the park is Regent's Canal, which connects the Grand Union Canal to London's historic docks. The 166 ha park is mainly open parkland with a wide range of facilities and amenities, including gardens; a lake with a heronry, waterfowl and a boating area; sports pitches; and children's playgrounds. The northern side of the park is the home of London Zoo and the headquarters of the Zoological Society of London. There are several public gardens with flowers and specimen plants, including Queen Mary's Gardens in the Inner Circle, in which the Open Air Theatre stands; the formal Italian Gardens and adjacent informal English Gardens in the south-east corner of the park; and the gardens of St John's Lodge. Winfield House, the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, stands in private grounds in the western section of the park, near the capital's first large mosque.

South of the Inner Circle is dominated by Regent's University London, home of the European Business School London, Regent's American College London (RACL) and Webster Graduate School among others.

Abutting the northern side of Regent's Park is Primrose Hill, another park which, with a height of 64 m, has a clear view of central London to the south-east, as well as Belsize Park and Hampstead to the north. Primrose Hill is also the name given to the immediately surrounding district.

Management
The public areas of Regent's Park are managed by The Royal Parks, a charity. The Crown Estate Paving Commission is responsible for managing certain aspects of the built environment of Regent's Park. The park lies within the boundaries of the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, but those authorities have only peripheral input to the management of the park. The Crown Estate owns the freehold of Regent's Park.

History

In the Middle Ages the land was part of the manor of Tyburn, acquired by Barking Abbey. The 1530s Dissolution of the Monasteries meant Henry VIII appropriated it, under that statutory forfeiture with minor compensation scheme. It has been state property since. It was set aside as a hunting and forestry park, Marylebone Park, from that Dissolution until 1649 after which it was let as small-holdings for hay and dairy produce.

Development by John Nash, James Burton, and Decimus Burton
Although the park was initially the idea of the Prince Regent, and was named for him, James Burton, the pre-eminent London property developer, was responsible for the social and financial patronage of the majority of John Nash's London designs, and for their construction. Architectural scholar Guy Williams has written, "John Nash relied on James Burton for moral and financial support in his great enterprises. Decimus had showed precocious talent as a draughtsman and as an exponent of the classical style... John Nash needed the son's aid, as well as the father's". Subsequent to the Crown Estate's refusal to finance them, James Burton agreed to personally finance the construction projects of John Nash at Regent's Park, which he had already been commissioned to construct: consequently, in 1816, Burton purchased many of the leases of the proposed terraces around, and proposed villas within Regent's Park, and, in 1817, Burton purchased the leases of five of the largest blocks on Regent Street. The first property to be constructed in or around Regent's Park by Burton was his own mansion: The Holme, which was designed by his son, Decimus Burton, and completed in 1818. Burton's extensive financial involvement "effectively guaranteed the success of the project". In return, Nash agreed to promote the career of Decimus Burton. Such were James Burton's contributions to the project that the Commissioners of Woods described James, not Nash, as "the architect of Regent's Park".

Contrary to popular belief, the dominant architectural influence in many of the Regent's Park projects – including Cornwall Terrace, York Terrace, Chester Terrace, Clarence Terrace, and the villas of the Inner Circle, all of which were constructed by James Burton's company – was Decimus Burton, not John Nash, who was appointed architectural "overseer" for Decimus's projects. To the chagrin of Nash, Decimus largely disregarded his advice and developed the Terraces according to his own style, to the extent that Nash sought the demolition and complete rebuilding of Chester Terrace, but in vain. Decimus's terraces were built by his father James.

The Regent's Park scheme was integrated with other schemes built for the Prince Regent by the triplet of Nash, James Burton, and Decimus Burton: these included Regent Street and Carlton House Terrace in a grand sweep of town planning stretching from St. James's Park to Primrose Hill. The scheme is considered one of the first examples of a garden suburb and continues to influence the design of suburbs. The park was first opened to the general public in 1835, initially two days a week. The 1831 diary of William Copeland Astbury describes in detail his daily walks in and around the park, with references to the Zoo, the canal, and surrounding streets, as well as features of daily life in the area.

Subsequent history
On 15 January 1867, forty people died when the ice cover on the boating lake collapsed and over 200 people plunged into the lake. The lake was subsequently drained and its depth reduced to four feet before being reopened to the public. Late in 1916, the Home Postal Depot, Royal Engineers moved to a purpose-built wooden building (200,000 sq ft) on Chester Road, Regent's Park. This new facility contained the depot's administration offices, a large parcel office and a letter office, these last two previously being at the Mount Pleasant Mail Centre. HM King George V and HM Queen Mary visited the depot on 11 December 1916. The depot vacated the premises in early 1920.

Queen Mary's Gardens, in the Inner Circle, were created in the 1930s, bringing that part of the park into use by the general public for the first time. The site had originally been used as a plant nursery and had later been leased to the Royal Botanic Society.

In July 1982, an IRA bomb was detonated at the bandstand, killing seven soldiers.

The sports pitches, which had been relaid with inadequate drainage after the Second World War, were relaid between 2002 and 2004, and in 2005 a new sports pavilion was constructed.

On 7 July 2006 the park held an event for people to remember the events of the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Members of the public placed mosaic tiles on to seven purple petals. Later bereaved family members laid yellow tiles in the centre to finish the mosaic.

Sport
Sports are played in the park including cycling, tennis, netball, athletics, cricket, softball, rounders, football, hockey, Australian rules football, rugby, ultimate Frisbee, and running. Belsize Park Rugby Football Club play their home games in the park.

There are three playgrounds and there is boating on the lake.

Sports take place in an area called the Northern Parkland, and are centred on the Hub. This pavilion and underground changing rooms was designed by David Morley Architects and Price & Myers engineers, and opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005. It won the IStructE Award for Community or Residential Structures in 2006.

The Outer Circle is used by road cyclists. One circuit is 4.45 km. A number of amateur cycling clubs that meet regularly to complete laps of the Outer Circle for exercise and leisure. Prominent clubs include: Regent's Park Rouleurs (RPR), London Baroudeurs (LBCC), Islington Cycling Club (ICC), Cycle Club London (CCL), Rapha Cycle Club (RCC). Many cyclists track & log their rides using the online social network site Strava. As at January, 2018 – some 22,000 cyclists had completed & logged 1.6mn laps of the park using the Strava app. In 2015, Regent's Park Cyclists was formed to represent the interest of cyclists and cycling clubs that use the Inner & Outer Circle.

The park was scheduled to play a role in the 2012 Summer Olympics, hosting the baseball and softball events, but these sports were dropped from the Olympic programme with effect from 2012. The Olympic cycling road race was supposed to go through Regent's Park, as was the cycling road race in the 2012 Summer Paralympics, but the routes were changed.

Terraces

The neoclassical terraces are grand examples of the English townhouse. Sometimes they are collectively called the "Nash terraces", but other architects contributed. Clockwise from the north, they are:
 * Gloucester Gate: A terrace of 11 houses designed by Nash and built by Richard Mott in 1827.
 * Cumberland Terrace: Designed by Nash and built by William Mountford Nurse in 1826.
 * Chester Terrace: The longest façade in the park designed by Nash and Decimus Burton. Was built by James Burton in 1825.
 * Cambridge Terrace: Designed by Nash and built by Richard Mott in 1825. Cambridge Gate was added in 1876–80.
 * York Terrace: Designed by Nash and Decimus Burton the eastern half built by James Burton and the western half built by William Mountford Nurse.
 * Cornwall Terrace: Consists of 19 houses designed by Decimus Burton and built by James Burton.
 * Clarence Terrace: The smallest terrace, designed by Decimus Burton.
 * Sussex Place: Originally 26 houses designed by Nash and built by William Smith in 1822–23, rebuilt in the 1960s behind the original façade to house the London Business School.
 * Hanover Terrace: Designed by Nash in 1822 and built by John Mckell Aitkens.
 * Kent Terrace: Designed by Nash and built by William Smith in 1827.

Immediately south of the park are Park Square and Park Crescent, also designed by Nash.

Villas
Nine villas were initially built in the park. There follows a list of their names as shown on Christopher and John Greenwood's map of London (second edition, 1830), with details of their subsequent fates:

Close to the western and northern edges of the park

 * Hertford Villa (later known as St Dunstan's): Damaged by fire. Rebuilt as Winfield House in the 1930s and now the American Ambassador's residence, with the second-largest private garden in London after the King's garden at Buckingham Palace.
 * Nuffield Lodge: A private residence currently owned by the Oman royal family), and previously owned by Robert Holmes à Court. Nuffield Lodge is said to have one of the largest gardens in central London after Buckingham Palace and Winfield House. The garden runs along the edge of Regent's Canal.
 * Hanover Lodge: A private residence was the subject of a Court Case in the early 21st century (won by Westminster City Council against the architect, Quinlan Terry, and contractor, Walter Lilly & Co) that ruled that two Grade II listed buildings on the property had been illegally demolished while the property was leased to Conservative peer Lord Bagri.
 * Albany Cottage: Demolished. Site now occupied by London Central Mosque.
 * Holford House (Stanford's map of 1862): Built in 1832 north of Hertford House, it was the largest of the villas at that time. From 1856 it was occupied by Regent's Park College (which subsequently moved to Oxford in 1927). In 1944 Holford House was destroyed by a bomb during World War II. Demolished in 1948.
 * Between 1988 and 2004, six new villas were built by the Crown Estate and property developers at the north western edge of the park, between the Outer Circle and the Regent's Canal. They were designed by the English Neo-Classical architect Quinlan Terry, who designed each house in a different classical style, intended to be representative of the variety of classical architecture, naming them the Veneto Villa, Doric Villa, Corinthian Villa, Ionic Villa, Gothick Villa and the Regency Villa respectively.

Around the Inner Circle

 * St John's Lodge: A private residence (Brunei royal family) but part of its garden, designed by Colvin and Moggridge Landscape Architects in 1994, is open to the public. St John's Lodge was the first villa to be constructed in the park by John Raffield.
 * The Holme: A private residence (Saudi royal family) but its garden is open several days a year via the National Gardens Scheme. It has been described as 'one of the most desirable private homes in London' by architectural scholar Guy Williams, and as 'a definition of Western civilization in a single view' by architectural critic Ian Nairn. The Holme was the second villa to be built in Regent's Park.
 * South Villa: Site of George Bishop's Observatory, which closed when its owner died in 1861 (instruments and dome moved to Meadowbank, Twickenham in 1863). Regent's University London now stands on the site, one of the two largest groups of buildings in the park, alongside London Zoo.
 * Regent's University London has its campus just southwest of the Inner Circle. Previously was home to Bedford College.

Close to the eastern edge of the park

 * Sir Herbert Taylor's Villa: Demolished. Site now part of open parkland. He was Master of St Katherine's Hospital when it was based at Regent's Park.
 * International Students House, London
 * The Diorama, 18 Park Square East, opened in 1823, closed 1852. A forerunner of the cinema.

More attractions

 * Park Crescent's breathtaking façades by John Nash have been preserved, although the interiors were rebuilt as offices in the 1960s.
 * The Camden Green Fair is held in Regent's Park as part of an ongoing effort to encourage citizens of London to go Green.
 * The fountain erected through the gift of Cowasji Jehangir Readymoney is on The Broadwalk, between Chester Road and the Outer Circle.

Nearest Tube stations
There are five London Underground stations located on or near the edges of Regent's Park:
 * Regent's Park
 * Baker Street
 * Great Portland Street
 * Warren Street Station
 * Marylebone

Nearest railway stations

 * Camden Road
 * Marylebone

In film and television

 * In 28 Weeks Later (2007), the surviving members of the American military escort Tammy and Andy to Regent's Park to get evacuated out of London.
 * Regent's Park is the setting and closing scene for the black comedy film Withnail and I (1987).
 * The Regent's Park is also the primary setting of the season three episode "Three Legs Good" of the cozy mystery television series Rosemary & Thyme.
 * Regent's Park is the setting of Cruella de Vil's fashion show in Disney's live-action prequel film Cruella (2021).
 * Regent's Park is the setting of the modern headquarters of MI5 for the spy thriller television series Slow Horses (2022).
 * In Disney's 101 Dalmatians (1961), Pongo is barking the alert from Regent's Park. As stated by the great dane.

In gaming

 * Much like the example above, the video game tie-in for Disney's live-action film 102 Dalmatians (2000) features Regent's Park as the game's first level.

In literature

 * In Elizabeth Bowen's wartime novel The Heat of the Day the park appears a number of times, most memorably in a long atmospheric description of the park in an autumn dusk. Regents Park also appears in her short story of wartime London, "Mysterious Kor".
 * In Agatha Christie's short story "The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman", Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings travel in a taxicab to Regent's Park to investigate a murder that has taken place in "Regent's Court", a fictional block of modern flats nearby.
 * In Agatha Christie's novel The Secret Adversary, Tommy Beresford proposes to Prudence "Tuppence" Cowley and Julius Hersheimmer proposes to Jane Finn while in Regent's Park, on their way home from a celebratory dinner for defeating the protagonist of the story, the infamous Mr. Brown.
 * Rosamund Stacey, protagonist of Margaret Drabble's novel The Millstone (1965), lives in "a nice flat, on the fourth floor of a large block of an early twentieth-century building, and in very easy reach of Regent's Park".
 * Ian Fleming's James Bond novels frequently mention the headquarters of MI6 as a "tall, grey building near Regent's Park."
 * In Charlie Higson's post-apocalyptic young adult horror novel The Enemy (2009), a group of children make a perilous trek through an overgrown St. Regent's Park, en route to Buckingham Palace, where they seek safe refuge, after a worldwide sickness has infected adults turning them into something akin to zombies. In the park, diseased monkeys from the nearby zoo attack the group, killing several children and wounding others.
 * In Ruth Rendell's crime novel The Keys to the Street (1996), much of the action (and murders) take place in and around Regent's Park.
 * In J. K. Rowling's first novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997) and the eponymous film, Harry goes to the London Zoo for his cousin's birthday.
 * In Dodie Smith's children's novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956), the protagonist dalmatian dogs live near Regent's Park and are taken there for walks by their human family, the Dearlys. Regent's Park is also featured in the films based on Smith's book.
 * The Regent's Park is the setting for several scenes in Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925).
 * In Mick Herron's Slough House books, the headquarters of MI5 is referred to as "Regent's Park," even though MI5's real headquarters is adjacent to the Thames, about 2.5 miles from Regent's Park.

In music

 * In Madness' single "Johnny The Horse" (1999), the eponymous character ends his days in the park after taking "his battered bones and broken dreams to Regent's Park at sunset".
 * The artwork to Coil's 1986 album Horse Rotorvator contains a photograph of the bandstand in Regent's Park.
 * Bruno Major's song "Regent's Park" is based on the location.

In art

 * British artist Marion Coutts recreated Regent's, along with Battersea and Hyde Park, as a set of asymmetrical ping-pong tables for her interactive installation Fresh Air (1998–2001)

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

title: Regent's Park


text:
Talk:Demchugdongrub

Untitled
Source consulted during the article writing: Both in Simplified Chinese.
 * 1) An online chronology: an informal on-line discussion of Mongolian culture
 * 2) * gone now
 * 3) 1 paragraph

His "Genghis" quote as the commander is translated from Chinese: “我誓願繼承成吉司汗的偉大精神，收復蒙古固有疆土，完成民族復興大業”.

This article indeed needs a lot of work. Due to political situation, there are few sources taking perspective of the Mongols on him. Among them, Jagchid Sechin's 我所知道的徳王和當時的内蒙古 is an excellent but incomplete work. The last Mongol prince : the life and times of Demchugdongrob, 1902-1966 by Jagchid Sechin would be a nice English source although I have not read it yet. --Nanshu 02:56 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Names
I have made some technical changes in the names section: I always assumed that Demchugdongrub was some transcription from Mongolian, not (directly) from Tibetan. For brevity, I also deleted transcriptions of transcriptions -they look basically similar to what is already there. Teh wang is probably the most common name in English, so it of course remained. The translation of the first character of the Chinese transcription of his name, 德, in this context seemed entirely irrelevant, about as useful translating the "Mao" in "Chairman Mao". De Noyon looks more like a generic form of adress (Mr. De, not really sure here, though, but it was unsourced anyway). I also deleted another form of adress (德王爺) that was not sourced. Yaan (talk) 22:46, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Weasel words
In regard to the "weasel words" template, please state the type of problem that you see in this article with at least one specific example. --Bejnar (talk) 19:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Name is incorrect
A better translation from mongolian is "Demchigdonrov" not Demchugdongrub, it should be changed to this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.227.33.141 (talk) 15:22, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Demchugdongrub


text:
David Croft (TV producer)

Major David John Croft, (born David John Andrew Sharland; 7 September 1922 – 27 September 2011) was an English television comedy screenwriter, producer and director. He produced and wrote a string of BBC sitcoms with partners Jimmy Perry and Jeremy Lloyd, including Dad's Army, Are You Being Served?, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Hi-de-Hi! and 'Allo 'Allo!

Early life
Croft was born into a show business family: his father, Reginald Sharland (1886–1944), had a successful career as a radio actor in Hollywood, and his mother, Annie Croft (1896–1959), was a famous stage actress who had starred in the 1927 silent film On With The Dance, she was also the first woman to own a West End theatre company. His first public appearance was at the age of seven, when he was seen in a commercial which aired in cinemas. After that, his acting career in films "began and ended" with his uncredited appearance as Perkins in the film Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939).

The family lived in Poole, Dorset. Nearby is St Aldhelm's Church, St Aldhelm's Rd, Branksome, Poole BH13 6BT and Croft later gave that name to the church in Dad's Army. He was educated at two [independent] schools: at St John's Wood prep school in North London, followed by Rugby School in Warwickshire.

Military service
He enlisted in the Royal Artillery in 1942. He served during the Second World War in North Africa, India and Singapore. After contracting rheumatic fever in North Africa, was sent home to convalesce and then underwent officer training at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Croft was posted to India, arriving as the war in Europe ended, and was assigned to the Essex Regiment, rising to the rank of Major. When his military service ended he began working in the entertainment industry, as an actor, singer and writer.

Career
Croft met Freddie Carpenter, who produced many pantomimes for Howard & Wyndham across the UK, resulting in Croft writing scripts such as Aladdin, Cinderella and Babes in the Wood. Through his lifelong friend, composer/conductor Cyril Ornadel, Croft met the producer Fiona Bentley, who had obtained rights to adapt and musicalise a number of Beatrix Potter stories. Croft wrote the scripts and lyrics for a series released on His Master's Voice Junior Record Club, narrated by Vivien Leigh and starring several singer-actors and actresses including Barbara Brown, Graham Stark and Cicely Courtneidge. David Croft himself played a number of roles, including Timmy Willie in Johnny Town-Mouse, Kep in Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Old Brown in Squirrel Nutkin.

Croft relocated to the Northeast of England to work at Tyne Tees Television, where he produced many editions of the variety show The One O'Clock Show. For Tyne Tees, Croft also directed and produced the admags Ned's Shed and Mary Goes to Market, as well as producing his first sitcom, Under New Management, set in a derelict pub in the North of England.

After leaving Tyne Tees Television to work at the BBC in the mid-1960s, he produced several of the Corporation's sitcoms such as Beggar My Neighbour, A World of His Own, Further Up Pompeii! and Hugh and I. It was while producing Hugh and I that he was introduced to actor Jimmy Perry, who handed him an unsolicited script for a pilot called The Fighting Tigers about the British Home Guard during the Second World War. Croft liked the idea. The two men co-wrote nine series of the show, which was retitled Dad's Army, as well as a feature film and a stage show based on it.

While Dad's Army was still running, Croft began to co-write Are You Being Served? with Jeremy Lloyd. He was to continue both writing partnerships for the rest of his career in several hit series including It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Hi-de-Hi! and You Rang, M'Lord? (with Perry) and 'Allo 'Allo! (with Lloyd). His last full series Oh, Doctor Beeching!, broadcast from 1995 to 1997, was co-written with Richard Spendlove. He created a television pilot in 2007, entitled Here Comes The Queen, with Jeremy Lloyd. This starred Wendy Richard and Les Dennis, but the show was not continued as a series. Of these, It Ain't Half Hot Mum "was David’s and my favourite", Jimmy Perry told journalist Neil Clark for a Daily Telegraph article in 2013.

As a producer, Croft's regular practice was to signal the end of an episode with the caption "You have been watching ...", followed by shots of the main cast.

Personal life
Croft married theatrical agent Ann Callender on 2 June 1952; the couple had seven children and sixteen grandchildren. In 1986, one daughter, Rebecca, married Simon Cadell, a star of Croft's comedy Hi-de-Hi!.

Croft was the subject of This Is Your Life on 20 December 1995, when he was surprised by Michael Aspel outside BBC Television Centre.

David Croft died in his sleep at his home in Portugal on 27 September 2011. He was 89 years old. His widow Ann died on 11 June 2016.

Awards and honours
Croft became an Officer of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire with Jimmy Perry in 1978 for services to television. He also received the 1981 Desmond Davis award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, for his outstanding contributions to the industry.

Croft's awards include:
 * (BAFTA awards): Best Light Entertainment Nominated: 1970 Dad's Army Best Light Entertainment Production 1971 Dad's Army (With Team) Nominated: 1971 Up Pompeii! Best Situation Comedy Series Nominated: 1973 Dad's Army Nominated: 1974 Dad's Army Best Situation Comedy Nominated: 1975 Dad's Army Nominated: 1977 Are You Being Served? Desmond Davis Award 1982 Lifetime Achievement Award Best Comedy Series Nominated: 1982 Hi-de-Hi! Nominated: 1983 Hi-de-Hi! Nominated: 1985 Hi-de-Hi! Nominated: 1986 Allo 'Allo! Nominated: 1987 Allo 'Allo! Nominated: 1988 Allo 'Allo! Nominated: 1989 Allo 'Allo!
 * (British Comedy Awards): 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award Writers' Guild of Great Britain 1969 Best Comedy Script Dad's Army 1970 Best Comedy Script Dad's Army 1971 Best Comedy Script Dad's Army

Production and writing career
In addition to writing most of the episodes for these television series, Croft also worked as producer, director and, later, executive producer.

Written with Jimmy Perry

 * 1968–1977 Dad's Army
 * 1974–1981 It Ain't Half Hot Mum
 * 1980–1988 Hi-de-Hi!
 * 1988–1993 You Rang, M'Lord?

Written with Jeremy Lloyd

 * 1972–1985 Are You Being Served?
 * 1977–1978 Come Back Mrs. Noah
 * 1980 Oh Happy Band!
 * 1982–1992 'Allo 'Allo! (Series 1–6)
 * 1992–1993 Grace & Favour
 * 1994 Which Way to the War
 * 2007 Here Comes the Queen

Written with Richard Spendlove

 * 1995–1997 Oh, Doctor Beeching!

Written by himself

 * 1972 Birds in the Bush

title: David Croft (TV producer)


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Maria White Lowell

Maria White Lowell (July 8, 1821 – October 27, 1853) was an American poet and abolitionist. Her poems were privately printed by her husband, James Russell Lowell, the poet, two years after her death.

Early life
Maria White was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, to a middle-class, intellectual family. She was raised under a strict ascetic discipline at an Ursuline convent which was burned by a mob in 1834.

Career
Lowell became involved in the temperance movement and was a supporter of women's rights. On November 6, 1839, she was one of the local women who attended the first "conversation" organized by women's rights advocate Margaret Fuller.

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.

In the winter of 1843–44, Maria White and her mother left the bleak neighborhood of Boston to spend the spring in the milder climate of Philadelphia. It happened that they went to a Friend's boarding-house in the city, and through the kind interest of their hostess, "Friend Parker", made the acquaintance of others, who introduced the Whites into other Friend homes. The Whites had no knowledge of Quakerism, but their simple sincere natures found much in common with members of that religion who in turn enjoyed getting to know the Whites. Strong friendships followed, and as a natural result of these, Maria White's tendency towards the antislavery movement, then in its unpopular beginnings, was strengthened and continued. When the weather grew warmer, and the east winds of New England had lessened, the mother and daughter returned to Watertown. Maria White was urged to remain longer in Philadelphia, and visit some of her new friends in their own homes, but her reply was characteristic: "No, no. I have left one in Cambridge who makes even the east wind warm for me." She was referring to James Russell Lowell, her fiancé.

Shortly after Lowell published Conversations on the Old Poets, a collection of his previously published essays, the couple married on December 26, 1844, at her father's house. The new husband believed she was made up "half of earth and more than of Heaven". A friend described their relationship as "the very picture of a True Marriage".

White, who become involved in movements against intemperance and slavery, joined the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and persuaded Lowell to become an abolitionist. The new Mrs. Lowell, however, was in poor health and the couple moved to Philadelphia shortly after their marriage in the hopes she would be healed there.

In 1845, the newly married pair came again to Philadelphia, and it was arranged that Mr. Lowell would do some editorial work on the Pennsylvania'a Freeman, an antislavery weekly of that city and also make regular contributions to the Antislavery Standard. Before leaving Philadelphia, the Lowells had their daguerreotypes taken by Langenheim. These were the only pictures taken in their early married life. In the spring of 1845, the Lowells returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts to make their home at Elmwood in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They had four children, though only one survived past infancy. Their first, Blanche, was born December 31, 1845, but lived only fifteen months; Rose, born in 1849, survived only a few months as well; their only son, Walter, was born in 1850 but died in 1852. Only their fourth child, Mabel, survived to adulthood.

Death
Frail, delicate, and plagued by ill-health throughout her life, Maria White Lowell died on October 27, 1853, at the age of 32 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is buried with her husband in Mount Auburn Cemetery. A volume of her poems was printed privately after her death (Cambridge, 1855). The best known of them are "The Alpine Shepherd" and "The Morning-Glory."

Critical response and influence
In 1870, when Emily Dickinson first met Thomas Wentworth Higginson, he mentioned the poetry of Maria White Lowell. Dickinson asked to know more and she may have been inspired by her work. One of Lowell's poems, "The Sick Room", has been described as "Dickinsonian". Her poem "The Grave of Keats" was published in the 1874 anthology Poems of Places, edited by former neighbor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Amy Lowell, a descendant of the family, praised Maria Lowell's writing: "That is poetry! It is better than anything her husband ever wrote, and he always said that she was a better poet than he."

Quotes

 * "Two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one." – translated by Lowell from Bellinghausen's drama, "Der Sohn der Wildnis (1842)" into the play Ingomar the Barbarian

title: Maria White Lowell


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User talk:Rrabbit

Good work on Beagle. It looks as though you are finding your way around here, hopefully you will want to stay. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. Welcome to the 'pedia! Regards -- sannse 21:50 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

title: User talk:Rrabbit


text:
Talk:Soong Mei-ling

Telegram?
In the 'Death' section, there is a sentence that reads as follows: 'Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), sent a telegram to Soong's relatives where he expressed deep condolences on her death.' (emphasis added). To me, this is worded improperly, as telegram is usually used in reference to the wireless telegram. However, the source reads as follows: 'Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), sent a message to the relatives of Madame Soong to mourn her death, calling Soong a noted and influential person in the modern era of Chinese history, who had been dedicated to the Chinese people's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, opposed to separating the nation, and hopeful for the peaceful reunification across the Taiwan Straits and the flourishing of the Chinese nation.' (emphasis added). I do not believe the replacement of the word message with telegram is a wise decision, as it's connotation is that Jia Qinglin used a wireless telegram to send his message to the family of Soong Mei-ling when that does not appear to be the case.

I believe the sentence should read as follows: 'Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), sent a message to Soong's relatives where he expressed deep condolences on her death.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.139.104.173 (talk) 02:15, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

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The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:54, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Soong May-ling giving a special radio broadcast.jpg

title: Talk:Soong Mei-ling


text:
Dizzy (series)

Dizzy is a series of video games, created by the Oliver Twins and published by Codemasters. It was one of the most successful British video game franchises of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Originally created for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, the series appeared on multiple home computer and video game console formats, with over a dozen games being published between 1987 and 1992.

The series is named for its main character, an anthropomorphic egg, called Dizzy for the way he somersaults and rolls around the landscape. The games are set in various fairytale-like locations and typically involve Dizzy trying to save his friends and family, the Yolkfolk, often from the schemes of his nemesis, the evil wizard Zaks.

Most of the games in the series were platform-adventure games, with an emphasis on puzzle solving, collecting objects and interacting with other characters. In addition to these core adventure games, the Dizzy branding and character also appeared in several action games with unrelated gameplay.

Since the demise of the series in the early 1990s, there have been numerous attempts to revive the series. These have included a remake for smartphone platforms, a Kickstarter campaign, and the publishing of several old games that were thought lost. The series has also served as the inspiration for other games, including many fangames.

Gameplay
The games of the Dizzy series are commonly categorised into either two or three groups. Core to the series and comprising over half its titles are the adventure games, all of which have similar gameplay and mechanics. The rest of the games in the series all have different gameplay from the adventure games and from one another, and are connected only by branding, themes and character. These are commonly referred to as the arcade games, but are sometimes further split into arcade and puzzle games.

The adventure games also included many elements of platform games, such as running and jumping to avoid enemies and hazards. They also relied heavily on object and inventory based puzzles to interact with the environment and non-player characters. For example, the opening screen of Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk tasked the player with escaping from a locked cell using a jug of water, a pile of leaves, and a box of matches.

Additional innovations were added as the series progressed. The ability to carry more than one item simultaneously was added in Treasure Island Dizzy and refined in Fantasy World Dizzy. Collectable items were also first introduced in Treasure Island Dizzy in the form of coins; later games retained the idea but often used other items such as diamonds or cherries. A health bar was first introduced in Magicland Dizzy, allowing Dizzy to be hit without dying.

Characters
The main protagonist and player character for the series is the eponymous Dizzy, an anthropomorphic egg with big eyes, a smiley face, boxing gloves and minimal identifying features. Named for the way he somersaults and rolls around the screen, Dizzy's design was kept deliberately simple. The idea was that this allows players to project themselves onto the character, and to imagine a character beyond what could be achieved by computer graphics of the time.

Throughout most of the series, Dizzy is joined by a cast of recurring characters, also eggs, known as the Yolkfolk, who make up his friends and family. Not present in the original Dizzy – The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure, the Yolkfolk are first mentioned in Treasure Island Dizzy and then appear on-screen in Fantasy World Dizzy. Including Dizzy, there are seven Yolkfolk in total: Dizzy, Daisy, Denzil, Dora, Dozy, Dylan, and Grand Dizzy. Introduced to allow for more story threads and more interesting characters, the Oliver Twins based each of them on a different character from popular culture. For example, Dora was modelled on Velma from Scooby-Doo and Denzil on Fonzie from Happy Days.

Except for Dizzy himself, the most prominent member of the Yolkfolk is his girlfriend, Daisy. She is often a damsel in distress, with her rescue being the key motivator to the plot of several of the games. Indeed, when Codemasters issued Dizzy collectable cards, Daisy's card acknowledged this: "The only problem with Daisy is that she's always getting captured". However, she eventually appears as a second playable character in Wonderland Dizzy.

Other than the Yolkfolk, prominent recurring characters are the evil wizard Zaks, who was the primary antagonist in several games of the series; and Dizzy's pet, Pogie, a small furry creature known as a Fluffle, who starred in the spin-off game Dreamworld Pogie.

Setting
The Dizzy games all take place in fantasy settings loosely based around fables and fairy tales. By alluding to other well known stories, the games are able to present scenarios and puzzles that are interesting and appealing, while also accessible even to a young audience. For instance, a puzzle in which the player must use magic beans to grow a giant beanstalk relies upon the player's pre-existing knowledge of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Similarly, the games' simple black-and-white morality, with many of them having the final goal of defeating the evil wizard Zaks, was also a nod to their fairy tales roots. Speaking on the subject, Andrew Oliver said that "it's common in any fairy tale to have an evil person to defeat, and so we went down this route".

Creation
Dizzy was created in 1987 by Andrew and Philip Oliver, collectively known as the Oliver Twins and published by Codemasters. Prior to Dizzy, they had mostly written simulation games for Codemasters such as Grand Prix Simulator, and they were eager to branch out into different types of games. The character of Dizzy was created before any of his games; the Olivers had noticed that most traditional characters in video games of the time had very small faces which were largely unable to express emotion. As such, they decided to create a new character who was little more than just a large face, rounded out with gloves and boots. They had also written a development tool, Panda Sprites, which could be used to easily rotate images on the screen, and they were eager to put it to use. Trying it out on their new character made him somersault and roll around the screen, which they believed gave him a unique feel and also gave rise to his name, Dizzy.

For the game itself, the Olivers aimed to create something with more story and characters than many contemporary games of the time. Their goal was a game that was more akin to an interactive cartoon, hence the game's subtitle, Dizzy: The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure. It was initially released for Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum since the two platforms' similar hardware (both use the Z80 microprocessor) made it easier to develop for both simultaneously. A port to the Commodore 64 followed.

At first, Codemasters' David Darling was not impressed by Dizzy, and wanted the Olivers to continue to create more Simulator games instead. However they mostly paid game developers only in royalties at that point, so they published it anyway since it constituted such a low risk for them. Initial sales were unremarkable, being similar to an average Codemasters game of the time, but unusually, they remained steady for a prolonged period rather than suffering drop off over time. This was enough for both Codemasters and the Olivers to want to produce a sequel.

Growth of the series
Treasure Island Dizzy was again written for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, using an updated version of the game engine from the original Dizzy, and a world editor that the Olivers had also written. Originally, it was just going to be called Dizzy 2, but they eventually took motivation from the naming of the James Bond series and decided to name it Treasure Island Dizzy, aiming to make it clearer that the game was a separate, stand-alone experience that could be enjoyed without having played the original.

One of the problems that they encountered during development was that it was possible to put the game into an unwinnable state. When the player lost a life, they respawned – effectively being brought back to life – in a safe location. One of the game's items was a snorkel that was required to move underwater and the twins found that it was possible to respawn in such a way that the snorkel was completely inaccessible, either under or across the water. Being unable to think of any other solution in time for release, they made the decision to give the player only one life. This removed the logic problem but also gave the game a reputation as the series' most difficult incarnation.

In addition to the three platforms that Dizzy had appeared on, Treasure Island Dizzy was also ported to the Amiga, Atari ST, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and DOS.

The third game of the series, Fast Food, saw a departure from the style of the first two games. Instead of the platform adventure gameplay they had, it was a maze game, inspired by Pac-Man. The Olivers have given various explanations for this change in interviews they have given over the years, including a desire to prove that the character of Dizzy was valuable even outside the adventure format, caution over not wanting to over-saturate the market with similar games, and even a desire to develop a game that could be made very quickly to be out in time for Christmas. Regardless of the reason for the change in format, it proved to be a successful one, with Philip Oliver later commenting that "people get more involved in the adventures but the arcade games sell just as well".

The next game, 1989's Fantasy World Dizzy, was a return to the adventure game format. It also saw the introduction of the Yolkfolk characters, who were prominent throughout the rest of the series. The extra characters allowed the Olivers to include more dialogue in the game, moving it further towards their original conception of an interactive cartoon. Following on from Fantasy World Dizzy later the same year came Kwik Snax, another maze game, though this time with a much greater emphasis on puzzle solving.

Handing off to Big Red Software
Kwik Snax was the last Dizzy game for the original Amstrad and Spectrum formats the Oliver Twins developed. By this point, it was clear that these formats were not going to survive for much longer and both Codemasters and the Olivers wanted to expand Dizzy into the video game console market. Not only could this allow them to reach a larger audience in the UK and Europe, but it could also allow them to break into lucrative foreign markets, such as the US. Even so, demand for Dizzy games on the original formats was still strong at the time, and it was Codemasters' biggest series. Spread too thin to work on new home computer titles themselves, the Olivers decided to contract out future development to Big Red Software.

Speaking after the fact, the twins commented that they had previously contracted out development of ports of their games to other system, and that this felt like the natural next step for them. For the first game that Big Red developed, Magicland Dizzy, the Olivers still played a major role in the creation, collaborating on the game's story and overseeing the game's design. The next game, Panic Dizzy, was similar; for this falling block puzzle game, the Olivers came up with a design for the game which they sent to Big Red to create.

Big Red Software created two further Dizzy adventure games, Spellbound Dizzy and Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk, both released in 1991. By this time, they were working almost entirely independently, creating games that fit the pre-established formula with minimal oversight or input from the Olivers.

In 1992, Codemasters published Crystal Kingdom Dizzy as a full price game (approximately £10) when all previous games in the series had been budget releases (approximately £3-4). Crystal Kingdom Dizzy reached number one in the ZX Spectrum games chart, and ended up being the last Dizzy game.

Console woes
The first title to be specifically designed for the NES, Fantastic Dizzy (also known as The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy) followed the general formula of the adventure games, but also included arcade game sections as mini-games. Two of these mini-games were ported to home computer formats by Big Red as standalone games, becoming Bubble Dizzy and Dizzy Down the Rapids.

Working on the new system also proved to be something of a challenge for the Olivers, who were unused to the longer development cycles and higher degree of polish required for console games, where they had to compete against titles such as Super Mario. The game was completed in 1990, but its release was hampered by the conflict and legal case then ongoing between Codemasters and Nintendo over the Game Genie. It was released in April 1991, but it had missed the important Christmas release window, and lacked a license from Nintendo. Despite a generally favourable reception, the game sold only a quarter of its predicted half million copies.

Further development for consoles was disrupted by disagreements between Codemasters and the Olivers. Dreamworld Pogie, a spin-off starring Dizzy's pet, Pogie, was going to be a scrolling platform inspired by Super Mario, but was cancelled. There were other games that the Olivers had been designing as stand-alone releases which Codemasters only wanted to release as a compilation, The Excellent Dizzy Collection. Even then, one of the slated games, Wonderland Dizzy (a remake of Magicland Dizzy with an Alice in Wonderland theme), was removed from the compilation since Codemasters saw it as being too similar to Dizzy the Adventurer (a remake of Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk). The Excellent Dizzy Collection was eventually released for the Sega Game Gear, and included three games: Dizzy the Adventurer; a previously unreleased puzzle game, Go! Dizzy Go!; and Panic Dizzy, a renamed and updated version of Dizzy Panic.

With these strained relations, the Oliver Twins eventually fell out with Codemasters, and stopped working with or for the company. Since intellectual property rights for the series were split between the two parties, with the Olivers owning the copyright and Codemasters the trademark, this effectively put an end to the series.

Reception
The Dizzy series achieved both critical and commercial success, and was one of the largest and most popular British video game franchises of the late 80s and early 90s with twelve games from the series reaching number one in the charts. Speaking in 1992, Andrew Oliver stated that the Dizzy series received more fan-mail than all other Codemasters games combined. In addition to its success in its home market, the Dizzy games were also extremely popular in Russia and Eastern Europe.

The series was sufficiently popular that various merchandise was made for it, such as clothing, mugs and clocks, even though this was unusual for video games at the time. There were also discussions with Hanna-Barbera about the possibility of creating a cartoon series based on the franchise, though these ultimately never came to fruition due to concerns that the series did not have enough of a global appeal.

However, reception was not universally positive, with some of the arcade games in particular receiving poor reviews. For example, Adam Peters of Amstrad Action referred to Dizzy Panic as "a terrible game" and gave it a score of 12%. In a 2012 retrospective on the series, Richard Cobbett of PC Gamer described the quality of the games as ranging from "bad to mediyolkre [sic]", though also acknowledged that this was less important given the lower prices and generally lower standards of games at the time.

Appearances on cover tapes and disks
Dizzy games made numerous appearances on cover tapes and disks of British magazines, usually in the form of cut-down versions or demos. Indeed, the appearance of a version of the original Dizzy on an Amstrad Action cover tape has been credited with popularising the idea of covermounts in the UK. Sometimes, modified or themed versions of the games were used, such as Dizzy's Easter Eggstravaganza, an Easter-themed version of Fast Food that appeared on a 1993 Amiga Action cover disk.

A Crash magazine cover tape from 1991 included Dizzy 3 and a Half: Into Magicland. This was a short game, comprising only five screens, that served as a prequel for Magicland Dizzy, and was not commercially released or made available anywhere else. Crash also published a special edition of Treasure Island Dizzy.

Remakes and revival attempts
The Oliver Twins and Codemasters, who both own 50% of the intellectual property, have expressed interest in resurrecting the series, although the twins concede: ... if he were ever to make another appearance it would have to be something special ... he would have to compete with the likes of Jak and Daxter and Ratchet & Clank – and those types of games require big budgets and many months of development. If there's a publisher willing to commit to that kind of investment, though, then they can definitely count us in.

In October 2011, the website EggCitingNews.com was registered by Codemasters Software Ltd. The main page on the site featured a pair of eyes peering from an egg carton, accompanied by the phrase "Guess who's back?". The following month, the website DizzyGame.com was opened, featuring details of the new release: a port to mobile platforms of Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk. The game was developed by Paul Ranson, who worked on the original 1991 title, with updated music by Codemasters' sound designer Mark Knight, and updated art by Leigh Christian, who had also worked on the original game. Updates that were made to modernise the game included the addition of achievements and a hint system, and the removal of lives. It was released on 9 December of the same year for iOS and Android.

Oliver Twins launched a Kickstarter project titled Dizzy Returns in November 2012, and the game was to be the first official sequel in over 20 years. The Oliver Twins asked Dizzy fans to help pledge £350,000 to the Kickstarter campaign in order for the game to be made. By the Kickstarter project's deadline on 21 December, only £25,620 was pledged to the campaign. The Oliver Twins announced on the same day that Dizzy Returns was no longer in development. They attributed the failure to starting the campaign very early in pre-development and therefore not having anything concrete to show to potential backers and stated that while they were still interested in revisiting Dizzy in the future, any such project would have to have a "considerably different" vision.

In the 2010s, the Oliver Twins found the code for several lost NES games that were written during the 90s but never published, and subsequently released them. Wonderland Dizzy, a remake of Magicland Dizzy, was released on 24 October 2015. Mystery World Dizzy, a remake of Fantasy World Dizzy, was released on 8 April 2017. Dreamworld Pogie, a previously-unreleased spin-off, was discovered in 2011 and released in 2016.

A new game for the series, Wonderful Dizzy, in development by the Oliver Twins and based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was due to be released for the Spectrum Next in late 2018, but was finished in late 2020 as a regular ZX Spectrum title. A few days before the game's release date, the Oliver Twins stated on their website that it would be released on 18 December.

In November 2020, a completely new version of Fast Food (now titled Fast Food Dizzy) was released for the Nintendo Switch. It was developed and published by the Oliver Twins on the FUZE program for the console.

Fan-created games
In addition to the official Dizzy games, many fangames have also been created. Many of these were created with DizzyAGE (Dizzy Adventure Game Engine), a specialised game engine released in 2006 that enables fans to easily create their own games in the style of the original games. Fans had previously had to use other game engines, which were not always suited to the puzzle style of the Dizzy games. From 2006 to 2016, the makers of DizzyAGE ran a competition each year to find the best game from the previous year, with several of the competitions featuring prizes offered by the Oliver Twins. As of 2018, there are over a hundred fan games listed on the DizzyAGE website.

Related games
The Seymour series is a similar franchise, also developed by Big Red and published by Codemasters. The first game in the series, Seymour Goes to Hollywood, was originally conceived as a Dizzy game, but was rebranded due to a desire to keep Dizzy retained to fantasy settings.

Wibble World Giddy is a 1993 public domain parody game for the Amiga. It features similar gameplay to the Dizzy series and stars Giddy, an egg very much like Dizzy except that rather than wear boxing gloves he simply had very large hands. A sequel, Giddy 2, was released the following year, also on Amiga, with a third game, Giddy 3, being made in 2000 for DOS, then subsequently ported to multiple other formats.

Clover: A Curious Tale is a 2009 adventure game that has similar mechanics to and is considered an homage to the Dizzy series. The PC version was published by Blitz 1UP, part of the Oliver Twins' Blitz Games Studios.

title: Dizzy (series)


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David Whittaker (video game composer)

David Whittaker (born 24 April 1957 in Bury, England ) is an English video game composer. He is known for writing video game music in most of the 1980s and early 1990s for different formats.

Career
While composing music, Whittaker directly programmed music; instead of using music composition tools, he used a machine code monitor—then an assembler system or program—while including tools from Supersoft and Commodore. He frequently composed for the format on the Commodore 64 and was impressed with the Amiga's sound capabilities, later using sound effects in his compositions for Amiga.

His compositions appeared in Amiga games such as Shadow of the Beast, Obliterator, Beyond the Ice Palace, and Speedball. On the Commodore 64, his most popular compositions are in Glider Rider, Storm, Street Surfer, and Armageddon Man. His subtune 21 of Lazy Jones was the basis for the electronic song "Kernkraft 400" by Zombie Nation. Other formats he has composed for include Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Atari 8-bit computers, MSX, and ZX Spectrum.

After working for eight years in the US for Electronic Arts at Redwood Shores, he joined British video game developer Traveller's Tales in Knutsford, Cheshire, working as Head of Audio in September 2004.

title: David Whittaker (video game composer)