The Isle of Wight is an island, English county and unitary authority in the English Channel, 2 to 5 miles off the coast of Hampshire, across the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island in England. Referred to as "The Island" by residents, the Isle of Wight has resorts that have been popular holiday destinations since Victorian times. It is known for its mild climate, coastal scenery, and verdant landscape of fields, downland, and chines. The island is historically part of Hampshire. The island is designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. With a land area of 380 km2 (150 sq mi), it is about half the size of Singapore.
Dorothy Gladys "Dodie" Smith was an English novelist and playwright. She is best known for writing I Capture the Castle (1948) and the children's novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956). Other works include Dear Octopus (1938) and The Starlight Barking (1967). The Hundred and One Dalmatians was adapted into a 1961 animated film and a 1996 live-action film, both produced by Disney. Her novel I Capture the Castle was voted number 82 as "one of the nation's 100 best-loved novels" by the British public as part of the BBC's The Big Read (2003), and was adapted into a film released the same year.
Postmodernity is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist after modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in the 1980s or early 1990s – and that it was replaced by postmodernity, and still others would extend modernity to cover the developments denoted by postmodernity. The idea of the postmodern condition is sometimes characterized as a culture stripped of its capacity to function in any linear or autonomous state like regressive isolationism, as opposed to the progressive mind state of modernism.
Julian Patrick Barnes is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with The Sense of an Ending, having been shortlisted three times previously with Flaubert's Parrot, England, England, and Arthur & George. Barnes has also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. In addition to novels, Barnes has published collections of essays and short stories.
Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist and philosopher with an interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as hyperreality. Baudrillard wrote about diverse subjects, including consumerism, critique of economy, social history, aesthetics, Western foreign policy, and popular culture. Among his most well-known works are Seduction (1978), Simulacra and Simulation (1981), America (1986), and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism. Nevertheless, Baudrillard had also opposed post-structuralism, and had distanced himself from postmodernism.
Carisbrooke Castle is a historic motte-and-bailey castle located in the village of Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight, England. Charles I was imprisoned at the castle in the months prior to his trial.
Sandown is a seaside resort town and civil parish on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight, England. The resort of Shanklin and the settlement of Lake are sited just to the south of the town. Sandown has a population of 11,654, according to the 2021 Census; together with Shanklin and Lake, it forms a built-up area of around 25,000 inhabitants. It is the northernmost town of Sandown Bay, with an easily accessible, sandy shoreline with beaches that run continuously from the cliffs at Battery Gardens in the south to Yaverland in the north.
Ventnor is a seaside resort town and civil parish established in the Victorian era on the southeast coast of the Isle of Wight, England, eleven miles (18 km) from Newport. It is situated south of St Boniface Down, and built on steep slopes leading down to the sea. The higher part is referred to as Upper Ventnor ; the lower part, where most amenities are located, is known as Ventnor. Ventnor is sometimes taken to include the nearby and older settlements of St Lawrence and Bonchurch, which are covered by its town council. The population is 5,567 according to the 2021 Census
Elinor Glyn was a British novelist and scriptwriter who specialised in romantic fiction, which was considered scandalous for its time, although her works are relatively tame by modern standards. She popularized the concept of the it-girl, and had tremendous influence on early 20th-century popular culture and, possibly, on the careers of notable Hollywood stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson and, especially, Clara Bow.
The Reverse of the Medal is the eleventh historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1986. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.
Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimental literature emerged strongly in the United States in the 1960s through the writings of authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Philip K. Dick, Kathy Acker, and John Barth. Postmodernists often challenge authorities, which has been seen as a symptom of the fact that this style of literature first emerged in the context of political tendencies in the 1960s. This inspiration is, among other things, seen through how postmodern literature is highly self-reflexive about the political issues it speaks to.
The ancient 'Kynges Towne' of Brading is the main town of the civil parish of the same name. The ecclesiastical parish of Brading used to cover about a tenth of the Isle of Wight. The civil parish now includes the town itself and Adgestone, Morton, Nunwell and other outlying areas between Ryde, St Helens, Bembridge, Sandown and Arreton. Alverstone was transferred to the Newchurch parish some thirty years ago.
Freshwater is a large village and civil parish at the western end of the Isle of Wight, England. The southern, coastal part of the village is Freshwater Bay, named for the adjacent small cove. Freshwater sits at the western end of the region known as the Back of the Wight or the West Wight, a popular tourist area.
White Noise is the eighth novel by Don DeLillo, published by Viking Press in 1985. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.
As an island, the Isle of Wight maintains a culture close to, but distinct from, that of the south of England. A high proportion of the population are now 'overners' rather than locally born, and so with a few notable exceptions it has more often formed the backdrop for cultural events of wider rather than island-specific significance.
A media event, also known as a pseudo-event, is an event, activity, or experience conducted for the purpose of creating media publicity. It may also be any event that is covered in the mass media or was hosted largely with the media in mind.
Shanklin Chine is a geological feature and tourist attraction in the town of Shanklin, on the Isle of Wight, England. A wooded coastal ravine, it contains waterfalls, trees and lush vegetation, with footpaths and walkways allowing paid access for visitors, and a heritage centre explaining its history.
Back of the Wight is an area on the Isle of Wight in England. The area has a distinct historical and social background, and is geographically isolated by the chalk hills, immediately to the North, as well as poor public transport infrastructure. Primarily agricultural, the Back of the Wight is made up of small villages spread out along the coast, including Brighstone, Shorwell and Mottistone.
The Courtship of Morrice Buckler is an 1896 novel by the English author AEW Mason. It bears the subtitle A Romance : Being a Record of the Growth of an English Gentleman during the years 1685–1687, under strange and difficult circumstances / written some while afterwards in his own hand, and now edited by / A.E.W. Mason.
