Gay
Gay names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Gay JOHN, an English poet
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN, an English poet; born near Barnstaple, Devonshire, England, in 1685. He was apprenticed to a silk mercer in London. In 1713 he published his "Rural Sports." ." In 1712 he became secretary to Anne, Duchess of Monmouth. "Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London," appeared in the same year. In 1714 his caricature of Ambrose Philips's pastoral poetry was published, "The Shepherd's Week." He was appointed secretary to the Earl of Clarendon, in his embassy to the court of Hanover. In 1715 appeared his burlesque drama of "What d'ye Call it?" "Three Hours after Marriage," a farce, altogether failed. In 1720 he published his poems by subscription, in 1723 his tragedy, "The Captives," and in 1726 his well-known "Fables." His "Beggar's Opera," the notion of which seems to have been afforded by Swift, was first acted in 1727, at Lincoln's Inn Fields, where it ran for 63 nights, but the lordchamberlain refused to license for performance a second part entitled "Polly." The latter part of his life was spent in the house of the Duke of Queensberry, where he wrote his sonata "Acis and Galatea" and the opera "Achilles." He died in London, Dec. 4, 1732.
Gay WALTER, an American artist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
WALTER, an American artist; born in Hingham, Mass., Jan. 22, 1856; was educated in Boston; studied art under Bonnat in Paris, where he was in frequent exhibitions. His paintings, which won many medals, include "Benedicite" (Bless ye), now in the Museum of Amiens, France, "Las Cigarreras" (The Cigarette Sellers), in the Luxembourg, Paris; and canvases in the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and several noted collections in Europe. pe. The French Government made him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1894, and an officer of the order in 1906.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 could give this headword to two men named Gay without a second thought; today a reader searching "gay" is almost certainly after the word's modern sense of homosexual, which spread from subcultural slang into general and self-chosen public use over the middle and later 20th century. John Gay's standing has if anything risen since 1921, largely because "The Beggar's Opera" was reworked by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill as "Die Dreigroschenoper" in 1928, and the suppressed sequel "Polly" did eventually reach the London stage. Collier's also credits Gay with the "sonata" Acis and Galatea, where modern accounts are careful to say that Gay supplied the words and Handel the music. Walter Gay, whose medals and Legion of Honour the entry lists at length, is now a minor figure remembered chiefly for his quiet paintings of empty French interiors.
Written for this edition, 2026.