Sir Michael Caine is an English retired actor. Known for his distinctive Cockney accent, he has appeared in more than 160 films over a career that spanned eight decades and is considered a British film icon. He has received numerous awards including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. As of 2017, the films in which Caine has appeared have grossed over $7.8 billion worldwide. Caine is one of only five male actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in five different decades. In 2000, he received a BAFTA Fellowship and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. The novel is a Bildungsroman and depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens' second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman & Hall published the novel in three volumes.
John Robert Fowles was an English novelist, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others.
Little Lord Fauntleroy is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was published as a serial in St. Nicholas Magazine from November 1885 to October 1886, then as a book by Scribner's in 1886. The illustrations by Reginald B. Birch set fashion trends and the novel set a precedent in copyright law when Burnett won a lawsuit in 1888 against E. V. Seebohm over the rights to theatrical adaptations of the work.
The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1969 postmodern historical fiction novel by John Fowles. The plot explores the fraught relationship of gentleman and amateur naturalist Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff, the former governess and independent woman with whom he falls in love. The novel builds on Fowles' authority in Victorian literature, both following and critiquing many of the conventions of period novels.
Miss Havisham is a character in Charles Dickens' 1861 novel Great Expectations. She is a wealthy spinster, once jilted at the altar, who insists on wearing her wedding dress for the rest of her life. She lives in a ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella. Dickens describes her as looking like "the witch of the place". In the novel, she schemes to have the young orphan, Pip, fall in love with Estella, so that Estella can "break his heart".
Spetses is an island in Attica, Greece. It is counted among the Saronic Islands group. Until 1948, it was part of the old prefecture of Argolis and Corinthia Prefecture, which is now split into Argolis and Corinthia. In ancient times, it was known as Pityussa.
Lifeforce is a 1985 British science fiction horror film directed by Tobe Hooper, adapted by Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby, and starring Steve Railsback, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Mathilda May, and Patrick Stewart. Based on Colin Wilson's 1976 novel The Space Vampires, the film portrays the events that unfold after a trio of humanoids in a state of suspended animation are brought to Earth after being discovered in the hold of an alien space ship by the crew of a European Space Shuttle.
Great Expectations is a 1946 British drama film directed by David Lean, based on the 1861 novel by Charles Dickens and starring John Mills and Valerie Hobson. The supporting cast included Bernard Miles, Francis L. Sullivan, Anthony Wager, Jean Simmons, Finlay Currie, Martita Hunt and Alec Guinness.
The Magus is a 1968 British mystery film directed by Guy Green and starring Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, Candice Bergen and Anna Karina. The screenplay was written by John Fowles based on his 1965 novel of the same name.
There have been many and varied references to the Marquis de Sade in popular culture, including fictional works, biographies and more minor references. The namesake of the psychological and subcultural term sadism, his name is used variously to evoke sexual violence, licentiousness and freedom of speech. In modern culture his works are simultaneously viewed as masterful analyses of how power and economics work, and as erotica. Sade's sexually explicit works were a medium for the articulation of the corrupt and hypocritical values of the elite in his society, which caused him to become imprisoned. He thus became a symbol of the artist's struggle with the censor. Sade's use of pornographic devices to create provocative works that subvert the prevailing moral values of his time inspired many other artists in a variety of media. The cruelties depicted in his works gave rise to the concept of sadism. Sade's works have to this day been kept alive by artists and intellectuals because they espouse a philosophy of extreme individualism that became reality in the economic liberalism of the following centuries.
Great Expectations is a 1974 film made for television based on the Charles Dickens 1861 novel of the same name. It was directed by Joseph Hardy, with screenwriter Sherman Yellen and music by Maurice Jarre, starring Michael York as Pip, Simon Gipps-Kent as Young Pip and Sarah Miles as Estella. The production, for Transcontinental Films and ITC, was made for US television and released to cinemas in the UK. It broke with tradition by having the same actress play both the younger and older Estella. The film was shot by Freddie Young. It was filmed in Eastmancolor and it was entered into the 9th Moscow International Film Festival in 1975.
Olufemi Terry is a Sierra Leone-born writer. He won the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing for his second short story "Stickfighting Days," which was originally published in Chimurenga. The judges said he was "a talent with an enormous future". He hopes to publish his debut novel soon.
Little Lord Fauntleroy is a 1980 British family drama television film directed by Jack Gold and adapted by Blanche Hanalis from Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1886 children's novel of the same name. The film stars Alec Guinness, Rick Schroder, Eric Porter, Connie Booth, and Colin Blakely.
Great Expectations is a three-part BBC television drama adaptation by Sarah Phelps of the Charles Dickens’s 1861 novel of the same name, starring Ray Winstone as Magwitch, Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham, Douglas Booth as Pip, Vanessa Kirby as Estella and David Suchet as Jaggers. The adaptation was first broadcast on British television over the Christmas period in 2011.
Maurice is a traditionally masculine given name, also used as a surname. It originates as a French name derived from the Latin Mauritius or Mauricius and was subsequently used in other languages. Its popularity is due to Mauritius, a saint of the Theban Legion. Mauritius is otherwise attested as a given name of the Roman Empire period, in origin meaning "one from Mauretania", i.e. "the Moor".
John Stefanidis is a British-based, Egyptian-born interior designer and founder of the London-based interior design firm John Stefanidis Brands, Ltd. His clients include the Bank of England, Claridges and Rocco Forte's Le Richemond Hotel.
A Gambler's Anatomy is a 2016 novel by American author Jonathan Lethem. The plot concerns Alexander Bruno, a professional backgammon player with "psychic tendencies". The novel received mixed reviews and was compared negatively to other novels by Lethem.
Great Expectations is a British television series which first aired on BBC 1 in 1967. It is an adaptation of the 1861 novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, which follows a humble orphan suddenly becoming a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor.
Great Expectations is a historical drama television miniseries developed by Steven Knight, based on the 1861 novel by Charles Dickens. It premiered on BBC One on 26 March 2023, followed by its US premiere on FX on Hulu later the same day.
