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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Thomas Macaulay
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(1800–59, baron 1857) Historian who was from the start a precocious child (answering at four a kind enquiry after he had hurt himself with 'Thank you, madam, the agony is abated' and writing at eight a Compendium of Universal History). He won literary fame in his twenties with essays contributed to the quarterly Edinburgh Review. His *Lays of Ancient Rome (1842) were immediately popular and The History of England (4 vols, 1849–55) sold as no book of history ever had before. Its narrative excitements compensated for its very narrow range compared to the broad claims of the title; intended originally to run from 1688 to 1830 (as an account of pre-Reform constitutional monarchy), it progressed no further than the end of the 17C.
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