title: Cormoran Strike

text: Cormoran Strike is a series of crime fiction novels written by British author J. K. Rowling, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The story chronicles the cases of private detective Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott. Six novels in the series have so far been published. Rowling stated after the third book that she has plans for at least another ten. The sixth novel, titled "The Ink Black Heart", was released on 30 August 2022 by Mulholland Books.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: The first two novels were adapted for BBC One and aired as a series of six episodes in summer 2017. A second series, based on the second book, "The Silkworm" aired as two episodes in September 2017. "Career of Evil", aired as two episodes in February and March 2018. A fourth series, an adaptation of "Lethal White", aired as four episodes in August and September 2020. A fifth series, an adaptation of "Troubled Blood", aired in December 2022.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: In 2010, Cormoran Strike (b. 23 Nov. 1974)—private detective, ex–Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch investigator and the illegitimate son of famous rock star Jonny Rokeby (the result of an affair with a notorious groupie, Leda Strike)—is broke, and his birth father's business agent is calling in the loan that he gave to Strike to open his agency. Strike lost the lower half of his right leg in an attack in Afghanistan. He had previously studied at Oxford, but left in his second year to join the Army following the death of his mother.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: The first novel, The Cuckoo's Calling, begins with Strike being hired by John Bristow, the brother of adopted supermodel Lula Landry, who had fallen from her balcony three months previously. Bristow wants Strike to investigate his sister's supposed suicide. Strike also meets Robin Ellacott (b. 9 Oct. 1984), who has been sent to act as his temporary secretary despite the fact he can barely afford her. Ellacott has just become engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Matthew, with their wedding set to happen later that year. Although Strike only hires her for one week, she turns out to be much more competent (and useful) than he first expects, and they end up extending her stay.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: Strike's personal life is complicated. He has just split from his long term partner and fiancée, Charlotte Campbell, who immediately marries another man. He is closest to his half-sister Lucy (his mother's second child), with whom he grew up, though he has seven other half-siblings (the other children of Rokeby) and one half-brother who is the son of his mother and her last husband Jeff Whittaker. Even his relationship with Lucy is somewhat fraught, and Strike finds himself becoming closer to Robin, who has always wanted to be a detective, than he at first feels entirely comfortable with.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: Near the first book's end, after solving the Landry case and before Ellacott is ready to leave for a permanent position elsewhere, Strike gives her the gift of a green silk dress she had previously tried on at the Vashti boutique as part of their investigation. This dress is significant to both of them, though its importance is unspoken by each. Finally, the two decide that Ellacott will stay on.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: The second book, The Silkworm, begins around eight months after the conclusion of book one. Strike is approached by Leonora Quine with a plea to locate her husband, notorious writer Owen Quine, who has seemingly disappeared without trace. Owen, once hailed as a literary rebel, has struggled for years to recreate the success of his original novel and has fallen out of public favour. Strike discovers that his disappearance coincides with the leak of a manuscript for his latest novel, "Bombyx Mori". The London literary community considers "Bombyx Mori" to be unpublishable: an unpleasant mix of rape, sadomasochism, torture, necrophilia and cannibalism, the hero is eventually tricked and eaten alive by various characters who are thinly veiled caricatures of people in Owen's life whom he considers responsible for the destruction of his career. The investigation soon takes a different and altogether more gruesome turn when Owen is found dead. During the investigation, Ellacott faces personal difficulties as her fiancé's mother dies, and she must make some difficult decisions about the balance between her career and her personal life.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: The third novel, Career of Evil, begins with Ellacott receiving a package from a courier, which she discovers contains the severed right leg of a woman. The package is accompanied by a note quoting from the Blue Öyster Cult song "Mistress of the Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)", a tattoo that Strike's mother, a famous groupie and BÖC fan, had above her crotch. Because of that link, Strike told the police that he believed that the package had been sent by someone from his own past with a grudge against him.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: Strike and Ellacott work out that the sender of the leg is also responsible for a number of other brutal attacks and reaches public infamy as the Shacklewell Ripper. Strike identifies four potential suspects from his past whom he believes would be capable of such crimes but, as the police want to concentrate on the one Strike believes to be least likely, they set out to investigate the other three. Ellacott informs Strike that she dropped out of university due to trauma from being raped, and the Shacklewell Ripper then stalks and seriously injures Ellacott in an attack. Later, Ellacott makes a decision while investigating one of their suspects that has profound and shocking consequences for their relationship, as Strike fires her and she then heads off to marry her fiancé Matthew. Strike sets a successful trap to catch the Shacklewell Ripper and drives all night to arrive at Ellacott's wedding ceremony at the end of the novel.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: The fourth novel, Lethal White, begins right at that point, as Ellacott learns about Strike's capture of the Ripper and that Matthew had deleted Strike's messages to her, which immediately strains their marriage. Ellacott accepts Strike's offer of a salaried partnership in the agency, which becomes very busy due to Strike's new-found fame, but she continues to struggle with PTSD from the rape and the attack by the Ripper. A year later, the agency is hired by a government minister to investigate and stop an attempted blackmail against him, although he will not tell Strike or Ellacott the details of his actions. They find evidence of embezzlement against one of the blackmailers, but then their client dies in an apparent suicide. One of his children then hires Strike to investigate the death, because she believes her stepmother was behind it. Ellacott finds Matthew cheating on her and leaves him, temporarily going to live with her friend detective Vanessa Ekwensi. When Strike figures out the motive for the murder, he and Ellacott take their evidence to the police. While reviewing the state of the case at Scotland Yard, the murderer lures Ellacott into a trap by posing as the now-estranged Matthew. Ellacott successfully stalls the murderer long enough for Strike and the police to realize the situation and intervene. Ellacott moves in with Strike's friends Nick and Ilsa before moving in permanently with a friend of Ilsa's.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: The fifth novel begins in August 2013 and ends on 9 October 2014. While visiting his dying aunt Joan, Strike is approached by Anna Phipps, who wants to hire his firm to investigate the disappearance of her mother, Margot Bamborough, a general practitioner in London, almost 40 years previously. As a result of their previous successes, Strike and Ellacott (still a salaried partner) now employ three contract investigators and an office manager. Both are dealing with their own irritations: Strike over his aunt's illness, suicide threats from his ex-fiancée Campbell (now a married mother of two) and the attempts of his half-siblings to get him to attend a party honouring his rock star biological father Johnny Rokeby; Ellacott over Matthew's intransigence in their divorce, her continuing PTSD and her unsettled personal life, brought into clearer focus by her brother and his wife having their first child. The police's principal suspect in the disappearance was a then unidentified serial killer named Dennis Creed, now incarcerated in Broadmoor.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: Phipps gives the agency a one-year contract to go over the case. However, thanks to the large workload at the small firm, it takes several months for them to run down the surviving witnesses and investigators (or their children). During the year, Strike's aunt dies, Matthew grants Ellacott the divorce because his mistress/girlfriend becomes pregnant, and the heavy work schedule combined with a lack of communication about their issues contributes to several personal misunderstandings and disagreements, including the termination of one of the contractors for repeated inappropriate behaviour toward Ellacott. In August 2014, although the firm still has leads to pursue, Phipps and her wife end the contract, but Strike and Ellacott continue to investigate. They abruptly achieve several minor breakthroughs whilst also securing an interview with Creed. Strike induces him to confess to one of the last unsolved murders he was long suspected of, before revealing he has already deduced the identity of Bamborough's real killer. Having tipped off the police about Creed's victim, Ellacott locates and uncovers Bamborough's remains, whilst Strike apprehends her killer. The agency's investigation thus solves two cold cases, and after the partners shelter from the ensuing media storm, they celebrate Ellacott's 30th birthday together.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: The sixth novel picks up in the immediate aftermath of the previous. Following Ellacott's birthday festivities, Strike attempts to kiss her. Ellacott pulls away, an instinctual reaction due to past trauma, but Strike mistakes the reaction as possible disgust. The potential budding romance between them is stopped cold and Strike later begins dating another woman. Ellacott is approached by Edie Ledwell, the co-creator of a popular animated series titled "The Ink Black Heart". Edie wishes the Strike agency to investigate the continued online harassment directed at her by individual known only as "Anomie," whose online handle originates from a term referring to a lack of usual social or ethical standards. Ellacott declines the case, citing, among other reasons, the fact that the Strike agency does not specialize in cybercrimes. Ledwell is later found murdered by stabbing, her co-creator Josh Blay badly injured but alive. Ellacott and Strike then receive a request to investigate the case made by those at the production company who are planning to turn the franchise into a feature film. They explain that they have already explored all possible normal cyber-investigation avenues and Strike and Ellacott accept the case.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: Anomie is the co-creator of "Drek's Game", a free fan-created online game based around one of the main characters of "The Ink Black Heart". Anomie seals new registrations to the game, but Ellacott manages to gain access via a previously created account. She and Strike then dive deep into the world of the game and those associated with the production of "The Ink Black Heart". In the course of their investigation, they discover that the game has been infiltrated by members of The Halvening, a far-right terrorist group which mainly harasses left-leaning women online, often with the goal of trying to drive them to suicide. Although their office is bombed by members of The Halvening, their investigation leads them to believe that it is not, in fact, The Halvening that is responsible for Ledwell's murder. They eventually discover Anomie be the teenage son of one of those associated with the production and capture him in a violent confrontation in which he threatens to rape and kill Ellacott and seriously injures Strike. Anomie turns out to be a disgruntled fan who was attempting to exert control on the production and was aggravated by the decision to move "The Ink Black Heart" from YouTube to Netflix and to make a film. As Ellacott visits Strike in the hospital, he reveals that when he had the office remodeled in the aftermath of the bombing, he replaced the logo on the glass of the door so that it now reads "Strike and Ellacott Detective Agency." Having recently broken up with his girlfriend, he is troubled when he learns that she is now dating a police detective, as he still harbors latent romantic feelings for her.


title: Cormoran Strike

text: In December 2014, it was announced that the novel series would be adapted for television by the BBC. In September 2016, Tom Burke was confirmed as having been cast as Cormoran Strike. Holliday Grainger was cast as Robin Ellacott later in November. Filming of seven hour-long episodes of the "Cormoran Strike" television series began in November 2016. The series was picked up by HBO for distribution in the United States and Canada, It premiered on 27 August 2017 on BBC.


title: As You Like It

text: As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility.


title: As You Like It

text: "As You Like It" follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied by her cousin Celia to find safety and, eventually, love, in the Forest of Arden. In the forest, they encounter a variety of memorable characters, notably the melancholy traveller Jaques, who speaks many of Shakespeare's most famous speeches (such as "All the world's a stage", "too much of a good thing" and "A fool! A fool! I met a fool in the forest"). Jaques provides a sharp contrast to the other characters in the play, always observing and disputing the hardships of life in the country.


title: As You Like It

text: Historically, critical response has varied, with some critics finding the play a work of great merit and some finding it to be of lesser quality than other Shakespearean works. The play has been adapted for radio, film, and musical theatre.


title: As You Like It

text: The play is set in a duchy in France, but most of the action takes place in a location called the Forest of Arden. This may be intended as the Ardennes, a forested region covering an area located in southeast Belgium, western Luxembourg and northeastern France, or Arden, Warwickshire, near Shakespeare's home town, which was the ancestral origin of his mother's family—whose surname was Arden.


title: As You Like It

text: Frederick has usurped the duchy and exiled his older brother, Duke Senior. Duke Senior's daughter, Rosalind, has been permitted to remain at court because she is the closest friend of Frederick's only child, Celia. Orlando, a young gentleman of the kingdom who at first sight has fallen in love with Rosalind, is forced to flee his home after being persecuted by his older brother, Oliver. Frederick becomes angry and banishes Rosalind from court. Celia and Rosalind decide to flee together accompanied by the court fool, Touchstone, with Rosalind disguised as a young man and Celia disguised as a poor lady.


title: As You Like It

text: Rosalind, now disguised as Ganymede ("Jove's own page"), and Celia, now disguised as Aliena (Latin for "stranger"), arrive in the Arcadian Forest of Arden, where the exiled Duke now lives with some supporters, including "the melancholy Jaques", a malcontent figure, who is introduced weeping over the slaughter of a deer. "Ganymede" and "Aliena" do not immediately encounter the Duke and his companions. Instead, they meet Corin, an impoverished tenant, and offer to buy his master's crude cottage.


title: As You Like It

text: Orlando and his servant Adam, meanwhile, find the Duke and his men and are soon living with them and posting simplistic love poems for Rosalind on the trees. It has been said that the role of Adam was played by Shakespeare, though this story is also said to be without foundation. Rosalind, also in love with Orlando, meets him as Ganymede and pretends to counsel him to cure him of being in love. Ganymede says that "he" will take Rosalind's place and that "he" and Orlando can act out their relationship.


title: As You Like It

text: The shepherdess, Phebe, with whom Silvius is in love, has fallen in love with Ganymede (Rosalind in disguise), though "Ganymede" continually shows that "he" is not interested in Phoebe. Touchstone, meanwhile, has fallen in love with the dull-witted shepherdess Audrey, and tries to woo her, but eventually is forced to be married first. William, another shepherd, attempts to marry Audrey as well, but is stopped by Touchstone, who threatens to kill him "a hundred and fifty ways".


title: As You Like It

text: Finally, Silvius, Phebe, Ganymede, and Orlando are brought together in an argument with each other over who will get whom. Ganymede says he will solve the problem, having Orlando promise to marry Rosalind, and Phebe promise to marry Silvius if she cannot marry Ganymede.


title: As You Like It

text: Orlando sees Oliver in the forest and rescues him from a lioness, causing Oliver to repent for mistreating Orlando. Oliver meets Aliena (Celia's false identity) and falls in love with her, and they agree to marry. Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia, Silvius and Phebe, and Touchstone and Audrey are all married in the final scene, after which they discover that Frederick has also repented his faults, deciding to restore his legitimate brother to the dukedom and adopt a religious life. Jaques, ever melancholic, declines their invitation to return to the court, preferring to stay in the forest and to adopt a religious life as well. Finally Rosalind speaks an epilogue, commending the play to both men and women in the audience.


title: As You Like It

text: The direct and immediate source of "As You Like It" is Thomas Lodge's "Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie", written 1586–87 and first published in 1590. Lodge's story is based upon "The Tale of Gamelyn".


title: As You Like It

text: "As You Like It" was first printed in the collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, known as the First Folio, during 1623. No copy of it in Quarto exists, for the play is mentioned by the printers of the First Folio among those which "are not formerly entered to other men". By means of evidences, external and internal, the date of composition of the play has been approximately fixed at a period between the end of 1598 and the middle of 1599.


title: As You Like It

text: "As You Like It" was entered into the Register of the Stationers' Company on 4 August 1600 as a work which was "to be stayed", i.e., not published till the Stationers' Company were satisfied that the publisher in whose name the work was entered was the undisputed owner of the copyright. Thomas Morley's "First Book of Ayres", published in London in 1600 contains a musical setting for the song "It was a lover and his lass" from "As You Like It". This evidence implies that the play was in existence in some shape or other before 1600.


title: As You Like It

text: It seems likely this play was written after 1598, since Francis Meres did not mention it in his "Palladis Tamia". Although twelve plays are listed in "Palladis Tamia", it was an incomplete inventory of Shakespeare's plays to that date (1598). The new Globe Theatre opened some time in the summer of 1599, and tradition has it that the new playhouse's motto was "Totus mundus agit histrionem"—"all the Globe's a stage"—an echo of Jaques' famous line "All the world's a stage" (II.7). This evidence posits September 1598 to September 1599 as the time frame within which the play was likely written.


title: As You Like It

text: In Act III, vi, Phebe refers to the famous line "Whoever loved that loved not at first sight" taken from Marlowe's "Hero and Leander", which was published in 1598. This line, however, dates from 1593 when Marlowe was killed, and the poem was likely circulated in unfinished form before being completed by George Chapman. It is suggested in Michael Wood's "In Search of Shakespeare" that the words of Touchstone, "When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room", allude to Marlowe's assassination. According to the inquest into his death, Marlowe had been killed in a brawl following an argument over the "reckoning" of a bill in a room in a house in Deptford, owned by the widow Eleanor Bull in 1593. The 1598 posthumous publication of "Hero and Leander" would have revived interest in his work and the circumstances of his death. These words in Act IV, i, in Rosalind's speech, "I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain", may refer to an alabaster image of Diana which was set up in Cheapside in 1598. However, it should be remembered Diana is mentioned by Shakespeare in at least ten other plays, and is often depicted in myth and art as at her bath. Diana was a literary epithet for Queen Elizabeth I during her reign, along with Cynthia, Phoebe, Astraea, and the Virgin Mary. Certain anachronisms exist as well, such as the minor character Sir Oliver Martext's possible reference to the Marprelate Controversy which transpired between 1588 and 1589. On the basis of these references, it seems that "As You Like It" may have been composed in 1599–1600, but it remains impossible to say with any certainty.


title: As You Like It

text: Though the play is consistently one of Shakespeare's most frequently performed comedies, scholars have long disputed over its merits. George Bernard Shaw complained that "As You Like It" is lacking in the high artistry of which Shakespeare was capable. Shaw liked to think that Shakespeare wrote the play as a mere crowdpleaser, and signalled his own middling opinion of the work by calling it "As You Like It"—as if the playwright did not agree. Tolstoy objected to the immorality of the characters and Touchstone's constant clowning. Other critics have found great literary value in the work. Harold Bloom has written that Rosalind is among Shakespeare's greatest and most fully realised female characters.


title: As You Like It

text: The elaborate gender reversals in the story are of particular interest to modern critics interested in gender studies. Through four acts of the play, Rosalind, who in Shakespeare's day would have been played by a boy, finds it necessary to disguise herself as a boy, whereupon the rustic Phebe, also played by a boy, becomes infatuated with this "Ganymede", a name with homoerotic overtones. In fact, the epilogue, spoken by Rosalind to the audience, states rather explicitly that she (or at least the actor playing her) is not a woman. In several scenes, "Ganymede" impersonates Rosalind so a boy actor would have been playing a girl disguised as a boy impersonating a girl.


title: As You Like It

text: Arden is the name of a forest located close to Shakespeare's home town of Stratford-upon-Avon, but Shakespeare probably had in mind the French Arden Wood, featured in "Orlando Innamorato", especially since the two Orlando epics, "Orlando Innamorato" and "Orlando Furioso", have other connections with the play. In the Orlando mythos, Arden Wood is the location of Merlin's Fountain, a magic fountain causing anyone who drinks from it to fall out of love. The Oxford Shakespeare edition rationalises the confusion between the two Ardens by assuming that "Arden" is an anglicisation of the forested Ardennes region of France, where Lodge set his tale, and alters the spelling to reflect this. Other editions keep Shakespeare's "Arden" spelling, since it can be argued that the pastoral mode depicts a fantastical world in which geographical details are irrelevant. The Arden edition of Shakespeare makes the suggestion that the name "Arden" comes from a combination of the classical region of Arcadia and the biblical garden of Eden, as there is a strong interplay of classical and Christian belief systems and philosophies within the play. Arden was also the maiden name of Shakespeare's mother and her family home is located within the Forest of Arden.


title: As You Like It

text: Love is the central theme of "As You Like It", like other romantic comedies of Shakespeare. Following the tradition of a romantic comedy, "As You Like It" is a tale of love manifested in its varied forms. In many of the love-stories, it is love at first sight. This principle of "love at first sight" is seen in the love-stories of Rosalind and Orlando, Celia and Oliver, as well as Phebe and Ganymede. The love-story of Audrey and Touchstone is a parody of romantic love. Another form of love is between women, as in Rosalind and Celia's deep bond.


title: As You Like It

text: Gender poses as one of the play's integral themes. While disguised as Ganymede, Rosalind also presents a calculated perception of affection that is "disruptive of [the] social norms" and "independent of conventional gender signs" that dictate women's behavior as irrational. In her book "As She Likes It: Shakespeare's Unruly Women", Penny Gay analyzes Rosalind's character in the framework of these gender conventions that ascribe femininity with qualities such as "graciousness, warmth ... [and] tenderness". However, Rosalind's demanding tone in her expression of emotions towards Orlando contradicts these conventions. Her disobedience to these features of femininity proves a "deconstruction of gender roles", since Rosalind believes that "the wiser [the woman is], the waywarder" she is. By claiming that women who are wild are smarter than those who are not, Rosalind refutes the perception of women as passive in their pursuit of men.


title: As You Like It

text: Usurpation and injustice are significant themes of this play. The new Duke Frederick usurps his older brother Duke Senior, while Oliver parallels this behavior by treating his younger brother Orlando so ungenerously as to compel him to seek his fortune elsewhere. Both Duke Senior and Orlando take refuge in the forest, where justice is restored "through nature".


title: As You Like It

text: The play highlights the theme of usurpation and injustice on the property of others. However, it ends happily with reconciliation and forgiveness. Duke Frederick is converted by a hermit and he restores the dukedom to Duke Senior who, in his turn, restores the forest to the deer. Oliver also undergoes a change of heart and learns to love Orlando. Thus, the play ends on a note of rejoicing and merry-making.


title: As You Like It

text: Most of the play is a celebration of life in the country. The inhabitants of Duke Frederick's court suffer the perils of arbitrary injustice and even threats of death; the courtiers who followed the old duke into forced exile in the "desert city" of the forest are, by contrast, experiencing liberty but at the expense of some easily borne discomfort. (Act II, i). A passage between Touchstone, the court jester, and shepherd Corin establishes the contentment to be found in country life, compared with the perfumed, mannered life at court. (Act III, I). At the end of the play the usurping duke and the exiled courtier Jaques both elect to remain within the forest.


title: As You Like It

text: In this play, the universal globe, inhabited by ordinary mortals, is shown at the end as the audience liked it: happy and reconciled by love. However, the text can be seen as a pretext. “This wide and universal theatre present more woeful pageants” ("As You Like It", II, vii, 137-138). The comedy in fact establishes a respite from the so-called War Stage. “Are not these woods more free from peril than the envious court?” ("As You Like It", II, i, 3-4).


title: As You Like It

text: From Oliver’s description in "As You Like It" (IV, iii, 98-120), a golden green snake is instead seen by Orlando threateningly approaching the open mouth of “a wretched ragged man”, tightening around his neck, “but suddenly seeing Orlando, it unlinked itself and with glides did slip away into a bush” ("Ib.", IV, iii, 106, 110-113). It can be deduced that with the appearance of the actor on stage, envy suddenly disappears. He who had fought like a Hercules, a hero not by chance invoked by Rosalind (“Now Hercules be thy speed”,"Ib.", I, ii, 204-210), just before the challenge with “Charles, the wrestler”, in allusion to the figure of the insign of Globe Theater, which accompanied the presumed inscription: "Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem".


title: As You Like It

text: University of Wisconsin professor Richard Knowles, the editor of the 1977 New Variorum edition of this play, in his article "Myth and Type in "As You Like It"", pointed out that the play contains mythological references in particular to Eden and to Hercules.


title: As You Like It

text: "As You Like It" is known as a musical comedy because of the number of songs in the play. There are more songs in it than in any other play of Shakespeare. These songs and music are incorporated in the action that takes place in the forest of Arden, as shown below:


title: As You Like It

text: Shakespeare uses prose for about 55% of the text, with the remainder in verse. Shaw affirms that as used here the prose, "brief [and] sure", drives the meaning and is part of the play's appeal, whereas some of its verse he regards only as ornament. The dramatic convention of the time required the courtly characters to use verse, and the country characters prose, but in "As You Like It" this convention is deliberately overturned. For example, Rosalind, although the daughter of a Duke and thinking and behaving in high poetic style, actually speaks in prose as this is the "natural and suitable" way of expressing the directness of her character, and the love scenes between Rosalind and Orlando are in prose (III, ii, 277). In a deliberate contrast, Silvius describes his love for Phebe in verse (II, iv, 20). As a mood of a character changes, he or she may change from one form of expression to the other in mid-scene. In a metafictional touch, Jaques cuts off a prose dialogue with Rosalind because Orlando enters, using verse: "Nay then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse" (IV, i, 29). The defiance of convention is continued when the epilogue is given in prose.


title: As You Like It

text: Act II, Scene VII, features one of Shakespeare's most famous monologues, spoken by Jaques, which begins:


title: As You Like It

text: The arresting imagery and figures of speech in the monologue develop the central metaphor: a person's lifespan is a play in seven acts. These acts, or "seven ages", begin with "the infant/Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms" and work through six further vivid verbal sketches, culminating in "second childishness and mere oblivion,/Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything".


title: As You Like It

text: The main theme of pastoral comedy is love in all its guises in a rustic setting, the genuine love embodied by Rosalind contrasted with the sentimentalised affectations of Orlando, and the improbable happenings that set the urban courtiers wandering to find exile, solace or freedom in a woodland setting are no more unrealistic than the string of chance encounters in the forest which provoke witty banter and which require no subtleties of plotting and character development. The main action of the first act is no more than a wrestling match, and the action throughout is often interrupted by a song. At the end, Hymen himself arrives to bless the wedding festivities.


title: As You Like It

text: William Shakespeare's play "As You Like It" clearly falls into the Pastoral Romance genre; but Shakespeare does not merely use the genre, he develops it. Shakespeare also used the Pastoral genre in "As You Like It" to 'cast a critical eye on social practices that produce injustice and unhappiness, and to make fun of anti-social, foolish and self-destructive behaviour', most obviously through the theme of love, culminating in a rejection of the notion of the traditional Petrarchan lovers.


title: As You Like It

text: The stock characters in conventional situations were familiar material for Shakespeare and his audience; it is the light repartee and the breadth of the subjects that provide opportunities for wit that put a fresh stamp on the proceedings. At the centre the optimism of Rosalind is contrasted with the misogynistic melancholy of Jaques. Shakespeare would take up some of the themes more seriously later: the usurper Duke and the Duke in exile provide themes for "Measure for Measure" and "The Tempest".


title: As You Like It

text: The play, turning upon chance encounters in the forest and several entangled love affairs in a serene pastoral setting, has been found, by many directors, to be especially effective staged outdoors in a park or similar site.


title: As You Like It

text: There is no certain record of any performance before the Restoration. Evidence suggests that the premiere may have taken place at Richmond Palace on 20 Feb 1599, enacted by the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Another performance may possibly have taken place at Wilton House in Wiltshire, the country seat of the Earls of Pembroke. William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke hosted James I and his Court at Wilton House from October to December 1603, while Jacobean London was suffering an epidemic of bubonic plague. The King's Men were paid £30 to come to Wilton House and perform for the King and Court on 2 December 1603. A Herbert family tradition holds that the play acted that night was "As You Like It".


title: As You Like It

text: During the English Restoration, the King's Company was assigned the play by royal warrant in 1669. It is known to have been acted at Drury Lane in 1723, in an adapted form called "Love in a Forest;" Colley Cibber played Jaques. Another Drury Lane production seventeen years later returned to the Shakespearean text (1740).


title: As You Like It

text: Notable recent productions of "As You Like It" include the 1936 Old Vic Theatre production starring Edith Evans and the 1961 Shakespeare Memorial Theatre production starring Vanessa Redgrave. The longest-running Broadway production starred Katharine Hepburn as Rosalind, Cloris Leachman as Celia, William Prince as Orlando, and Ernest Thesiger as Jaques, and was directed by Michael Benthall. It ran for 145 performances in 1950. Another notable production was at the 2005 Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, which was set in the 1960s and featured Shakespeare's lyrics set to music written by Barenaked Ladies. In 2014, theatre critic Michael Billington said his favourite production of the play was Cheek by Jowl's 1991 production, directed by Declan Donnellan.


title: As You Like It

text: Thomas Morley () composed music for "It was a lover and his lass"; he lived in the same parish as Shakespeare, and at times composed music for Shakespeare's plays.


title: As You Like It

text: Roger Quilter set "Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind" for voice and piano (1905) in his 3 Shakespeare songs Op. 6


title: As You Like It

text: Florence Wickham wrote the music and lyrics for her opera "Rosalind", based on "As You Like It", which premiered at the open air Rockridge Theater in Carmel, New York, in August 1938.


title: As You Like It

text: In 1942, Gerald Finzi included a setting of "It was a lover and his lass" (V, iii) in his song cycle on Shakespearean texts "Let Us Garlands Bring".


title: As You Like It

text: Cleo Laine sang a jazz setting of "It was a lover and his lass" on her 1964 album "Shakespeare... and all that Jazz". The composer is credited as "Young".


title: As You Like It

text: Donovan set "Under the Greenwood Tree" to music and recorded it for "A Gift from a Flower to a Garden" in 1968.


title: As You Like It

text: Hans Werner Henze, in the first part of his sonata "Royal Winter Music", which portraits Shakespearean characters, included "Touchstone, Audrey and William" as its 5th movement, in 1976.


title: As You Like It

text: Rush's drummer and composer Neil Peart incorporated the passage “All the world’s indeed a stage / And we are merely players / Performers and portrayers / Each another’s audience / Outside the gilded cage” into the lyrics for "Limelight", from their 1981 progressive rock album "Moving Pictures".


title: As You Like It

text: According to the history of radio station WCAL in the US state of Minnesota, "As You Like It" may have been the first play ever broadcast. It went over the air in 1922.


title: As You Like It

text: On 1 March 2015, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a new production directed by Sally Avens with music composed by actor and singer Johnny Flynn of the folk rock band Johnny Flynn and The Sussex Wit. The production included Pippa Nixon as Rosalind, Luke Norris as Orlando, Adrian Scarborough as Touchstone, William Houston as Jaques, Ellie Kendrick as Celia and Jude Akuwudike as Corin.


title: As You Like It

text: "As You Like It" was Laurence Olivier's first Shakespeare film. Olivier, however, served only in an acting capacity (performing the role of Orlando), rather than producing or directing the film. J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, wrote the treatment. Made in England and released in 1936, "As You Like It" also starred director Paul Czinner's wife Elisabeth Bergner, who played Rosalind with a thick German accent. Although it is much less "Hollywoody" than the versions of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Romeo and Juliet" made at about the same time, and although its cast was made up entirely of Shakespearean actors, it was not considered a success by either Olivier or the critics. Still, it's a visual delight with eccentric characters in an enchanting forest rife with animals: sheep, goats, peacocks, storks, a huge snake and skulking lioness.


title: As You Like It

text: Helen Mirren starred as Rosalind in the 1978 BBC videotaped version of "As You Like It", directed by Basil Coleman.


title: As You Like It

text: In 1992, Christine Edzard made another film adaptation of the play. It features James Fox, Cyril Cusack, Andrew Tiernan, Griff Rhys Jones, and Ewen Bremner. The action is transposed to a modern and bleak urban world.


title: As You Like It

text: A film version of "As You Like It", set in 19th-century Japan, was released in 2006, directed by Kenneth Branagh. It stars Bryce Dallas Howard, David Oyelowo, Romola Garai, Alfred Molina, Kevin Kline, and Brian Blessed. Although it was actually made for cinemas, it was released to theatres only in Europe, and had its U.S. premiere on HBO in 2007. Although it was not a made-for-television film, Kevin Kline won a Screen Actors Guild award for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries for his performance as Jaques.


title: As You Like It

text: "The Seven Doors of Danny", by Ricky Horscraft and John McCullough is based on the "Seven Ages of Man" element of the "All the world's a stage" speech and was premiered in April 2016.


title: Wizkid

text: Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun (born 16 July 1990), known professionally as Wizkid, is a Nigerian singer and songwriter. A prominent figure in the modern day Afrobeats music scene, Wizkid is regarded as one of the biggest and most influential African artists of all time. He began recording music at the age of 11 and released a collaborative album with the Glorious Five (5), a group he and a couple of his church friends formed. In 2009, Wizkid signed a record deal with Banky W's Empire Mates Entertainment (E.M.E). He later rose to the limelight after releasing "Holla at Your Boy", the lead single from his debut studio album, "Superstar" (2011), which also spawned the singles "Tease Me/Bad Guys" and "Don't Dull".


title: Wizkid

text: In September 2014, he released the self-titled second studio album, "Ayo." The album was supported by six singles, including the song "Jaiye Jaiye". Wizkid left E.M.E after his contract expired. In 2016, Wizkid achieved international recognition following his collaboration with Drake on the hit single "One Dance", which reached number-one on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, and topped the charts in 14 additional countries. The song broke multiple records, making Wizkid the first Afrobeats artist to appear in the "Guinness World Records." In March 2017, he signed a multi-album deal with RCA Records; and released his third studio album "Sounds from the Other Side", later that year. The album was supported by five singles, including "Come Closer" featuring Drake.


title: Wizkid

text: In 2018, he was featured on the song "Checklist" by Normani and Calvin Harris, which reached number-one on the "Billboard" World Digital Song Sales chart. The following year, he was featured on Beyoncé's project "" on the single "Brown Skin Girl", which also reached number-one on the World Digital Song Sales chart, and won him a Grammy Award for Best Music Video. In October 2020, he released his fourth album, "Made in Lagos", which received commercial success and acclaim, reaching number-one on the "Billboard" World Album Chart. The album includes the single "Essence" featuring Tems, which became the first Nigerian song to chart on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and reached the top ten following a remix released by Justin Bieber. Wizkid's fifth album "More Love, Less Ego" was released on 11 November 2022.


title: Wizkid

text: By February 2021, Wizkid was the most-streamed Nigerian artist of all time on Spotify, with over 3.4 billion streams across all credits.


title: Wizkid

text: Wizkid was born Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun on 16 July 1990, in Surulere, Lagos. He grew up in an interfaith household with twelve female siblings. His mother is a Pentecostal Christian and his father practices Islam. Wizkid attended Ijebu Ode Grammar School. He grew up listening to King Sunny Ade, Fela Kuti and Bob Marley. In a radio interview with Tim Westwood in 2012, he said "his father has three wives". In another interview with Adesope of Factory 78 TV, Wizkid said he formed a group called the Glorious Five with a couple of his church friends. They managed to release an album prior to disbanding. Wizkid went by the stage name Lil Prinz until 2006. He later met OJB Jezreel, a record producer who prevented him from recording for a year. While visiting OJB's Point Beat Studios frequently, he watched 2 Face Idibia record songs for his "Grass 2 Grace" album. He was also present during the recording sessions for Sound Sultan's debut album "Jagbajantis". He cited Naeto C as one of the people who mentored and coached him when he was 15 years old. Wizkid inked a record deal with Empire Mates Entertainment in 2009. He co-wrote "Omoge You Too Much", a song from Banky W.'s "The W Experience" album. He also worked with Naeto C, Ikechukwu and M.I while developing his craft. In mid-2009, he dropped out of Lagos State University (LASU). He later attended Lead City University, but dropped out after completing two sessions.


title: Wizkid

text: Wizkid began recording his debut studio album "Superstar" in 2009. He released "Holla at Your Boy" as the album's lead single on 2 January 2010. The song was nominated for Best Pop Single, and earned him the Next Rated award at The Headies 2011. In addition to winning the award, he was awarded a 2012 Hyundai Sonata courtesy of the organizers. Its music video was nominated for Most Gifted Newcomer Video at the 2011 Channel O Music Video Awards.


title: Wizkid

text: On 2 April 2010, Wizkid released "Tease Me/Bad Guys" as the album's second single. It was initially released as a freestyle rap. "Don't Dull", the album's third single, was released on 6 December 2010. "Superstar" was recorded in English and Yoruba. It was released on 12 June 2011 by Empire Mates Entertainment. The album incorporates elements of Afrobeats, R&B, dancehall and reggae. While working on "Superstar", Wizkid collaborated with record producers such as E-Kelly, Jay Sleek, Shizzi, DJ Klem, Masterkraft, Q-Beats and Samklef. The album features guest appearances from Banky W., Skales, D'Prince and Wande Coal. It was initially scheduled for release on 14 February 2011, but was later pushed back. On 12 June 2011, Wizkid hosted a launch party for the album at the Expo Hall of the Eko Hotel and Suites. The launch party featured performances from Banky W, Skales, 2face Idibia, Samklef, Wande Coal, D'Prince, Olamide, eLDee, Jesse Jagz, Ice Prince, Lynxxx and Seyi Shay. "Superstar" garnered Best Album of the Year at the 2012 Nigeria Entertainment Awards, and was nominated for Album of the Year at The Headies 2012.


title: Wizkid

text: Wizkid toured London in 2012 and performed at the HMV Apollo on 4 June 2012. He worked with Banky W., Skales, Shaydee and Niyola to record E.M.E's compilation album "Empire Mates State of Mind" (2012). Following the album's release, E.M.E acts toured the United States. The tour kicked off in July and ended in September 2012. EME acts performed in several cities, including Houston, Dallas, Toronto, Vancouver, New York City, Providence, Calgary, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. On 12 November 2012, Wizkid performed at the BBC Radio 1Xtra Live 02 Academy in Brixton alongside Trey Songz, Tulisa, Kendrick Lamar and Angel.


title: Wizkid

text: Between 2012 and 2014, Wizkid recorded his second studio album "Ayo". It features guest appearances from Femi Kuti, Banky W., Seyi Shay, Phyno, Tyga, Akon and Wale. The album's production was handled by Sarz, Shizzi, Uhuru, Del B, Dokta Frabz, Maleek Berry, Legendury Beatz and Spellz. It was initially titled "Chosen". According to MTV Base, the album suffered from a pushed back release date. It was reported earlier that the album would feature Don Jazzy, Efya and Olamide. On 6 September 2014, Wizkid revealed the album's cover art and track listing. Prior to announcing plans for a second studio album, Wizkid had plans to release a mixtape in April 2013. In an interview with Ok!Nigeria TV at Disturbing Headquarters in London, he said the mixtape would be released in April. He also said it would feature Wale and Tinie Tempah. Wizkid later announced that he would be releasing his second studio album on 12 June 2013. In an interview with HipTV, Banky W revealed the album's title and commented on the albums delay. He also gave an estimated time-frame for the album's release.


title: Wizkid

text: On 2 May 2013, Wizkid released the album's lead single "Jaiye Jaiye". It features Grammy-nominated Nigerian musician Femi Kuti. Wizkid told Showtime Celebrity he collaborated with Femi Kuti to prevent people from depicting him as an artist whose lyrics revolve around girls, cars and materialistic things. On 17 October 2013, he performed at the 2013 edition of Felabration, a yearly concert dedicated to Fela Kuti. The Del B-produced "On Top Your Matter" was released as the album's second single on 26 October 2013. The song's music video directed and shot in South Africa by Sesan. On 2 November 2013, Wizkid performed at the Guinness Colorful World of More concert alongside D'banj, Tiwa Savage, P-Square, Davido, Ice Prince, Burna Boy, Olamide and Phyno. The concert took place at the Eko Convention Centre in the Eko Hotels and Suites. On 23 November 2013, he performed at the Guinness Big Eruption Concert in Accra, Ghana.


title: Wizkid

text: In February 2014, Wizkid became the first Nigerian musician to have over one million followers on Twitter. In July 2014, Wizkid visited The Beat 99.9 FM studio in Lagos and told Toolz he had collaborated with Barbadian singer Rihanna. Wizkid was invited as a special guest for some shows on Tinie Tempah's tour of the UK in 2014.


title: Wizkid

text: On 5 January 2015, Wizkid released the music video for "Ojuelegba", a song that highlights the struggles he endured in the early years of his recording career. The song's official remix features vocals from Drake and Skepta; it premiered on OVO Sound Radio in July 2015. Wizkid first announced that he was working on a new album during a visit to London in October 2014. He revealed "African Bad Gyal" as his collaborative single with Chris Brown and said it would be the lead single from his third studio album. In April 2015, both Wizkid and Chris Brown performed "African Bad Gyal" at Brown's concert in Durban, South Africa. Wizkid released "Expensive Shit", an Afrobeats song built on light guitars, saxophone lines and acoustic percussion in May 2015; the song was reported as being a likely inclusion on the album. In July 2015, Wizkid announced on Twitter that Angélique Kidjo would be featured on the album. In September 2015, he said he was dropping his EP and postponing the release of his third studio album. He made this announcement on Instagram shortly after the conclusion of 2Face Idibia's Fortified tribute concert.


title: Wizkid

text: On 5 April 2016, Wizkid became Nigeria's first artist to be listed on "Billboard"s Twitter Last 24 hours chart, following his guest feature on Drake's Afrobeats-infused "One Dance" single, which charted at number 21. On 12 May 2016, the song reached number-one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, a position it kept for 10 non-consecutive weeks. "One Dance" went on to become an international smash hit, topping the charts in 15 countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France and Germany. The single became Wizkid's first number-one single as a featured artist in these territories.


title: Wizkid

text: Wizkid released the promotional single "Like This" on 5 June. The song premiered on Drake's OVO Sound Radio the same month. It was produced by Amsterdam-based Ghanaian producer DJ Henry X. "Pitchfork" writer Sheldon Pearce said the song is a "frolicking, summery jam that revels in all the work he [Wizkid]'s put in." In May 2015, Wizkid joined Chris Brown on his "One Hell of a Nite" world tour.


title: Wizkid

text: In March 2017, he signed a record deal with RCA Records. Wizkid released his third studio album "Sounds from the Other Side" on 14 July 2017. Primarily a Caribbean-influenced record, "SFTOS" encompasses several other genres, including Afrobeats, EDM, R&B, and house. The album features guest appearances from Drake, Major Lazer, Chris Brown, Ty Dolla Sign, Efya, Bucie and Trey Songz. Its production was handled by Sarz, Del B, Spellz, Dre Skull, DJ Mustard, Major Lazer, and the Picard Brothers. The album was made available for purchase and online streaming on several music platforms, including Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, Deezer and Google Play. "SFTOS" debuted at number 107 on the US "Billboard" 200. It also debuted at number 58 on the Canadian Albums Chart. The album's release was preceded by three singles: "Daddy Yo" featuring Efya, "Sweet Love", and "Come Closer" featuring Drake. "African Bad Gyal" was released alongside the pre-order for the album on 9 June 2017, and "Naughty Ride" was released as a promotional track on 23 June 2017.


title: Wizkid

text: Wizkid became the first Afrobeats artist to appear in the 2018 "Guinness World Records" for his contribution to "One Dance". His song "Soco" became his first Afrobeats single to be certified Gold in Canada. Later that year, he appeared on Normani and Calvin Harris’ EP "Normani x Calvin Harris", on the song "Checklist", which peaked at number one on Billboard World Digital Song Sales chart.


title: Wizkid

text: In mid-2019, Wizkid was featured on Beyoncé's "Brown Skin Girl", taken from the critically acclaimed "" soundtrack. It was described as one of his "shining" moments of 2019, thanks to numerous nominations at major international awards, earning him two Soul Train Music Awards, a NAACP Image Award, a BET Awards, and his first Grammy Award, for Best Music Video. Later that year, he also released the singles "Joro" and "Ghetto Love".


title: Wizkid

text: On 6 December 2019, Wizkid's label Starboy Entertainment released the EP "Soundman Vol. 1", centering mainly on Wizkid, and containing features from Chronixx, and a variety of other artists.


title: Wizkid

text: During 2020, Wizkid featured on various singles, including "Escape" by Akon, "Gbese 2.0" with DJ Tunes and Spax, "Eve Bounce" by Yung L, and "Consider II" with Walshy Fire. He also released a collaboration with American singer, H.E.R., titled "Smile". On 17 September, Wizkid released the single "No Stress", and announced that he would be releasing his fourth album, "Made in Lagos", on 15 October 2020. The album launch was later postponed due to the Nigerian End SARS protests nationwide, until 30 October 2020. Essence", a single from the album, became the first Nigerian song to chart on the US "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Wizkid

text: At the 27th annual South African Music Awards, "Made in Lagos" received a nomination for the Rest of Africa Award.


title: Wizkid

text: On 13 August 2021, he released a remix of "Essence", featuring Canadian singer Justin Bieber. The song became the highest-charting song on the "Billboard" Hot 100 by an African act, peaking at No. 11 on October 4, 2021.


title: Wizkid

text: In November 2021, at the 64th Annual Grammy Award, his album, "Made in Lagos" and his song "Essence" earned him two Grammy nominations. In the same month, he also received four Soul Train Awards nominations, winning one for "Essence" for Best collaboration.


title: Wizkid

text: On the first anniversary of "Made in Lagos", Wizkid announced his fifth album "More Love, Less Ego", originally set for release on the last day of the Made in Lagos tour, January 22, 2022.


title: Wizkid

text: In September 2022, Wizkid headlined the Rolling Loud Toronto hip hop festival, becoming the first African artist in history to achieve this feat.


title: Wizkid

text: In 2012, Wizkid signed a one-year endorsement deal with Pepsi reportedly worth US$350,000. He travelled to Beirut, Lebanon, with Tiwa Savage for a Pepsi commercial shoot. On 28 May 2013, "Premium Times" reported that Wizkid had signed a one-year deal with MTN Nigeria. The newspaper also reported that Wizkid's Pepsi contract was renewed for two more years. In November 2013, Wizkid signed an endorsement deal with Guinness for the Guinness World of More concert, held at the Eko Convention Centre of the Eko Hotel and Suites on Victoria Island, Lagos. In June 2015, Pulse Nigeria reported that Wizkid had left MTN and signed a ₦128 million deal with GLO.


title: Wizkid

text: In February 2013, Wizkid tweeted a subliminal message and tweaked his Twitter account. He also moved out of the E.M.E mansion in Lagos and acquired his own home in the Lekki Phase 1 area. Prior to Wizkid's subliminal tweets, Banky W pacified fans by assuring them that nothing was amiss. Furthermore, it was reported that troubles within E.M.E began as early as the E.M.E All Stars concert in 2012. It was also reported that money was at the centre of the controversy. On 30 April 2013, "Nigerian Entertainment Today" reported that Wizkid and E.M.E had reunited after contract negotiations. Wizkid departed E.M.E following the release of his second studio album and the expiration of his five-year contract. In a video interview with Capital Xtra in October 2019, Wizkid said he left E.M.E without any money.


title: Wizkid

text: Wizkid established Starboy Entertainment in March 2013. He revealed to Yvonne Ekwere of Silverbird Television that he planned on signing new acts to the label. Wizkid first signed Maleek Berry and Legendury Beatz to the label, while Berry became an in-house producer. In August 2013, Wizkid signed L.A.X to Starboy, as its first recording act. In February 2016, DJ Tunez became the in-house disc jockey, and in May 2016, Efya, R2Bees, and Mr Eazi were signed to the label. Other artists signed to the label include Legendury Beatz, R2Bees, Terri, and Efya. The label is currently managed by Jada P. Starboy Entertainment has been nominated for a best record label award one by the City People Entertainment Awards and four times by The Beatz Awards.


title: Wizkid

text: In 2017, "Billboard" reported that Wizkid signed a multi-album worldwide record deal with RCA Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music.


title: Wizkid

text: Wizkid has four children with three different women. The children were born in 2011, 2016, 2017, and 2022.


title: Wizkid

text: In August 2011, "Nigerian Entertainment Today" reported that the singer fathered his first child at the age of 21. After a thorough investigation, the newspaper concluded Wizkid impregnated then-undergraduate student Sola Ogudugu. When the story broke, close friends and associates of Wizkid did not confirm it because DNA results were pending at the time. Wizkid broke his silence on the story during several interviews. In an interview with a "Nigerian Entertainment Today" editor, he denied having a child. In another interview conducted in Ogudu-GRA, Lagos, he said he really did not want to find himself in that peculiar situation. In December 2012, Wizkid denied the baby scandal during an interview with Nonye Ben-Nwankwo of "The Punch". In October 2013, he uploaded a picture of himself and his 2-year-old son, Boluwatife Balogun, to his Instagram account. The photo confirmed the 2011 report published by "Nigerian Entertainment Today".


title: Wizkid

text: Wizkid became engulfed in battles on Twitter with several artists, including his erstwhile boss Banky W and former label mate Skales. Other artists include Davido, Dammy Krane, Saeon, Samklef, Reekado Banks and blogger Linda Ikeji.


title: Wizkid

text: In an interview with Alex Frank of "Vogue" magazine in February 2015, Wizkid said he wears a mixture of street wear and traditional Nigerian clothes. He cited Pharrell Williams as one of his fashion style icons. Moreover, he revealed plans to establish a clothing line following the release of "Sounds from the Other Side".


title: Wizkid

text: Wizkid's contributions to the Nigerian music industry have earned him several achievements, including the Grammy Award for Best Music Video as a lead artist on Beyoncé's "Brown Skin Girl"; his first ever Grammy Award. He is the most awarded African artist at the BET Awards (3), Soul Train Awards (3), Billboard Awards (3), iHeartRadio Music Awards (2) and MOBO Awards (6). He is also a recipient of an ASCAP plaque for his songwriting contributions to Drake's "One Dance", which also earned two Guinness World Records, for being the first song to reach a billion streams on Spotify, and at the time being the most streamed song on Spotify. Wizkid was cited as one of the Top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2019. He is also the most awarded artiste in The Headies award history. He was nominated in the Best Global Music Album and the Best Global Music Performance categories in the 64th Annual Grammy Awards for "Made in Lagos Deluxe Edition" and "Essence" respectively. In November 2021, Apple Music Awards announced him as the winner of Artist of the Year (Africa).


title: UFC 272

text: UFC 272: Covington vs. Masvidal was a mixed martial arts event produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship that took place on March 5, 2022, at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, part of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area, United States.


title: UFC 272

text: A UFC Featherweight Championship trilogy bout between current champion Alexander Volkanovski and former champion Max Holloway was originally expected to headline the event. The pairing first met at UFC 245, where Volkanovski defeated Holloway via unanimous decision to capture the title. Their second meeting took place at UFC 251, with Volkanovski successfully defending the title via split decision (a result which was met with controversy by fans, fellow fighters, and media outlets alike). However, two days after the trilogy announcement, Holloway withdrew due to an aggravated previous injury. He was replaced by former title challenger Chan Sung Jung and the bout was moved to UFC 273 on April 9.


title: UFC 272

text: A UFC Bantamweight Championship title unification rematch between current champion Aljamain Sterling and former champion/current interim title holder Petr Yan was expected to take place at this event. The pairing previously met at UFC 259, with Sterling winning the title by disqualification (intentional illegal knee strike) in the fourth round, becoming the first fighter to win a UFC title by disqualification. The rematch was initially expected to take place at UFC 267, however Sterling withdrew from the contest due to lingering neck issues and an interim title bout between Yan and Cory Sandhagen was set. The UFC then opted to move the pairing from this event to UFC 273.


title: UFC 272

text: After the postponement of the title fights, a welterweight bout between former interim UFC Welterweight Champion Colby Covington and former title challenger Jorge Masvidal headlined the event.


title: UFC 272

text: A heavyweight bout between Greg Hardy and Sergey Spivak was originally scheduled for UFC 270, but it was moved to this event after Hardy suffered a finger injury.


title: UFC 272

text: A five round lightweight bout between former UFC Lightweight Champion Rafael dos Anjos and Rafael Fiziev was originally scheduled to headline , but it was postponed to this event due to visa issues with Fiziev. However, Fiziev was forced to withdraw due to testing positive for COVID-19. He was replaced by Renato Moicano on just 4 days notice at a catchweight of 160 pounds.


title: UFC 272

text: A lightweight bout between Devonte Smith and Erick Gonzalez was scheduled for the event. However, Gonzalez was forced to withdraw from the event due to a foot injury. He was replaced by Ľudovít Klein.


title: UFC 272

text: Former UFC Women's Flyweight Championship challenger Jessica Eye was expected to face Manon Fiorot in a women's flyweight bout at the event. However, a week before the event, Eye withdrew due to injury and the bout was cancelled.


title: UFC 272

text: During the event's broadcast, former UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov was announced as the next "modern wing" UFC Hall of Fame inductee.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Shirley Hardie Jackson (December 14, 1916 – August 8, 1965) was an American writer known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Over the duration of her writing career, which spanned over two decades, she composed six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 short stories.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Born in San Francisco, California, Jackson attended Syracuse University in New York, where she became involved with the university's literary magazine and met her future husband Stanley Edgar Hyman. After they graduated, the couple moved to New York and began contributing to "The New Yorker," with Jackson as a fiction writer and Hyman as a contributor to "Talk of the Town". The couple settled in North Bennington, Vermont, in 1945, after the birth of their first child, when Hyman joined the faculty of Bennington College.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: After publishing her debut novel "The Road Through the Wall" (1948), a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood in California, Jackson gained significant public attention for her short story "The Lottery", which presents the sinister underside of a bucolic American village. She continued to publish numerous short stories in literary journals and magazines throughout the 1950s, some of which were assembled and reissued in her 1953 memoir "Life Among the Savages". In 1959, she published "The Haunting of Hill House", a supernatural horror novel widely considered to be one of the best ghost stories ever written. Jackson's 1962 novel "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" is a Gothic mystery which has been described as Jackson's masterpiece.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: By the 1960s, Jackson's health began to deteriorate significantly, ultimately leading to her death due to a heart condition in 1965 at the age of 48.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Jackson was born December 14, 1916, in San Francisco, California, to Leslie Jackson and his wife Geraldine (née Bugby).


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Jackson was raised in Burlingame, California, an affluent suburb of San Francisco, where her family resided in a two-story brick home located at 1609 Forest View Road. Her relationship with her mother was strained, as her parents had married young and Geraldine had been disappointed when she immediately became pregnant with Shirley, as she had been looking forward to "spending time with her dashing husband". Jackson was often unable to fit in with other children and spent much of her time writing, much to her mother's distress. Geraldine made no attempt to hide her favoritism towards her son, Barry, who explained his mother's antagonism towards Shirley by saying, "[Geraldine] was just a deeply conventional woman who was horrified by the idea that her daughter was not going to be deeply conventional." When Shirley was a teenager, her weight fluctuated, resulting in a lack of confidence that she would struggle with throughout her life.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: She attended Burlingame High School, where she played violin in the school orchestra. During her senior year of high school, the Jackson family relocated to Rochester, New York, after which she attended Brighton High School, receiving her diploma in 1934. She then attended the nearby University of Rochester, where her parents felt they could maintain supervision over her studies. Jackson was unhappy in her classes there, and took a year-long hiatus from her studies before transferring to Syracuse University, where she flourished both creatively and socially. Here she received her bachelor's degree in journalism. While a student at Syracuse, Jackson became involved with the campus literary magazine, through which she met her future husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman, who later became a noted literary critic. While attending Syracuse, the university's literary magazine published Jackson's first story, "Janice", about a teenager's suicide attempt.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Jackson was of English ancestry, and her mother Geraldine traced her family heritage to the Revolutionary War hero General Nathanael Greene. Jackson's maternal great-grandfather, John Stephenson, had been a prominent lawyer in San Francisco—later a Superior Court Judge in Alaska—while her great-great grandfather was Samuel Charles Bugbee, an architect whose works included the homes of Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker and the Mendocino Presbyterian Church. Jackson said:


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Jackson's maternal grandmother, nicknamed "Mimi", was a Christian Science practitioner who continued to practice spiritual healing on members of the family after her retirement. Jackson was known to critically assess such attempts, recounting a time when Mimi claimed to have broken her leg and healed it through prayer overnight, though she had really only lightly sprained her ankle. When Mimi died, Jackson told her daughter that she "died of Christian Science." While she believed that religion could easily become a vehicle for harm, the religious influences from her childhood are clear in Jackson's writing, which includes themes of mysticism, mental power, and witchcraft.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: After graduating, Jackson and Hyman married in 1940, and had brief sojourns in New York City and Westport, Connecticut, ultimately settling in North Bennington, Vermont, where Hyman had been hired as an instructor at Bennington College. Jackson began writing material as Hyman established himself as a critic. Jackson and Hyman were known for being colorful, generous hosts who surrounded themselves with literary talents, including Ralph Ellison. They were both enthusiastic readers whose personal library was estimated at 25,000 books. They had four children, Laurence (Laurie), Joanne (Jannie), Sarah (Sally), and Barry, who later achieved their own brand of literary fame as fictionalized versions of themselves in their mother's short stories. In an era when women were not encouraged to work outside the home, Jackson became the chief breadwinner while also raising the couple's children. "She did work hard," her son Laurence said. "She was always writing, or thinking about writing, and she did all the shopping and cooking, too. The meals were always on time. But she also loved to laugh and tell jokes. She was very buoyant that way." For examples of her wit, he refers readers to her many humorous cartoons, one of which depicts a husband cautioning a wife not to carry heavy things during pregnancy, but not offering to help.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: According to Jackson's biographers, her marriage was plagued by Hyman's infidelities, notably with his students, and she reluctantly agreed to his proposition of maintaining an open relationship. Hyman also controlled their finances (meting out portions of her earnings to her as he saw fit), despite the fact that after the success of "The Lottery" and later work she earned far more than he did.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: In 1948, Jackson published her debut novel, "The Road Through the Wall", which tells a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood growing up in Burlingame, California, in the 1920s. Jackson's most famous story, "The Lottery", first published in "The New Yorker" on June 26, 1948, established her reputation as a master of the horror tale. The story prompted over 300 letters from readers, many of them outraged at its conjuring of a dark aspect of human nature, characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation, and old-fashioned abuse". In the July 22, 1948, issue of the "San Francisco Chronicle", Jackson offered the following in response to persistent queries from her readers about her intentions: "Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives."


title: Shirley Jackson

text: The critical reaction to the story was unequivocally positive; the story quickly became a standard in anthologies and was adapted for television in 1952. In 1949, "The Lottery" was published in a short story collection of Jackson's titled "The Lottery and Other Stories".


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Jackson's second novel, "Hangsaman" (1951), contained elements similar to the mysterious real-life December 1, 1946, disappearance of an 18-year-old Bennington College sophomore Paula Jean Welden. This event, which remains unsolved to this day, took place in the wooded wilderness of Glastenbury Mountain near Bennington in southern Vermont, where Jackson and her family were living at the time. The fictional college depicted in "Hangsaman" is based in part on Jackson's experiences at Bennington College, as indicated by Jackson's papers in the Library of Congress. The event also served as inspiration for her short story "The Missing Girl" (first published in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" in 1957, and posthumously in "Just an Ordinary Day" [1996]).


title: Shirley Jackson

text: The following year, she published "Life Among the Savages", a semi-autobiographical collection of short stories based on her own life with her four children, many of which had been published prior in popular magazines such as "Good Housekeeping", "Woman's Day" and "Collier's". Semi-fictionalized versions of her marriage and the experience of bringing up four children, these works are "true-to-life funny-housewife stories" of the type later popularized by such writers as Jean Kerr and Erma Bombeck during the 1950s and 1960s.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Reluctant to discuss her work with the public, Jackson wrote in Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft's "Twentieth Century Authors" (1955):


title: Shirley Jackson

text: "The persona that Jackson presented to the world was powerful, witty, even imposing," wrote Zoë Heller in "The New Yorker." "She could be sharp and aggressive with fey Bennington girls and salesclerks and people who interrupted her writing. Her letters are filled with tartly funny observations. Describing the bewildered response of "The New Yorker" readers to 'The Lottery,' she notes, 'The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washing machine at the end would amaze you."


title: Shirley Jackson

text: In 1954, Jackson published "The Bird's Nest" (1954), which detailed a woman with multiple personalities and her relationship with her psychiatrist. One of Jackson's publishers, Roger Straus, deemed "The Bird's Nest" "a perfect novel", but the publishing house marketed it as a psychological horror story, which displeased her. Her following novel, "The Sundial", was published four years later and concerned a family of wealthy eccentrics who believe they have been chosen to survive the end of the world. She later published two memoirs, "Life Among the Savages" and "Raising Demons".


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Jackson's fifth novel, "The Haunting of Hill House" (1959), follows a group of individuals participating in a paranormal study at a reportedly haunted mansion. The novel, which interpolated supernatural phenomena with psychology, went on to become a critically esteemed example of the haunted house story, and was described by Stephen King as one of the most important horror novels of the twentieth century. Also in 1959, Jackson published the one-act children's musical "The Bad Children", based on "Hansel and Gretel".


title: Shirley Jackson

text: By the time "The Haunting of Hill House" had been published, Jackson suffered numerous health problems. She was a heavy smoker, which resulted in chronic asthma, joint pain, exhaustion, and dizziness leading to fainting spells, which were attributed to a heart problem. Near the end of her life, Jackson also saw a psychiatrist for severe anxiety, which had kept her housebound for extended periods of time, a problem worsened by a diagnosis of colitis, which made it physically difficult to travel even short distances from her home. To ease her anxiety and agoraphobia, the doctor prescribed barbiturates, which at that time were considered a safe, harmless drug. For many years, she also had periodic prescriptions for amphetamines for weight loss, which may have inadvertently aggravated her anxiety, leading to a cycle of prescription drug abuse using the two medications to counteract each other's effects. Any of these factors, or a combination of all of them, may have contributed to her declining health. Jackson confided to friends that she felt patronized in her role as a "faculty wife", and ostracized by the townspeople of North Bennington. Her dislike of this situation led to her increasing abuse of alcohol in addition to tranquilizers and amphetamines.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Despite her failing health, Jackson continued to write and publish several works in the 1960s, including her final novel, "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" (1962), a Gothic mystery novel. It was named by "Time" magazine as one of the "Ten Best Novels" of 1962. The following year, she published "Nine Magic Wishes", an illustrated children's novel about a child who encounters a magician who grants him numerous enchanting wishes. The psychological aspects of her illness responded well to therapy, and by 1964 she began to resume normal activities, including a round of speaking engagements at writers' conferences, as well as planning a new novel titled "Come Along with Me," which was to be a major departure from the style and subject matter of her previous works.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: In 1965, Jackson died in her sleep at her home in North Bennington, at the age of 48. Her death was attributed to a coronary occlusion due to arteriosclerosis or cardiac arrest. She was cremated, as was her wish.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: In 1968, Jackson's husband released a posthumous volume of her work, "Come Along with Me", containing her unfinished last novel, as well as 14 previously uncollected short stories (among them "Louisa, Please Come Home") and three lectures she gave at colleges or writers' conferences in her last years.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: In 1996, a crate of unpublished stories was found in a barn behind Jackson's house. A selection of those stories, along with previously uncollected stories from various magazines, were published in the 1996 volume "Just an Ordinary Day". The title was taken from one of her stories for "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction", "One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts".


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Jackson's papers are available in the Library of Congress. In its August 5, 2013, issue "The New Yorker" published "Paranoia", which the magazine said was discovered at the library. "Let Me Tell You", a collection of stories and essays by Jackson (mostly unpublished) was released in 2015.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: In December 2020, the short story "Adventure on a Bad Night" was published for the first time, appearing in "The Strand Magazine".


title: Shirley Jackson

text: In 2007, the Shirley Jackson Awards were established with permission of Jackson's estate. They are in recognition of her legacy in writing, and are awarded for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. The awards are presented at Readercon.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: In 2014, Susan Scarf Merrell published a well-received thriller, "Shirley: A Novel", about Jackson, her husband, a fictional couple who move in with them, and a missing girl. In 2020, the novel was adapted into a feature film, "Shirley", directed by Josephine Decker. Elisabeth Moss portrays Jackson and Michael Stuhlbarg costars as Stanley Edgar Hyman.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: In 2016, journalist Ruth Franklin published "Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life", a biography examining the influence of Jackson's upbringing, marriage, and addictions upon her work, while positioning Jackson as a major figure in American literature and examiner of postwar American anxieties via "domestic horror." Franklin's biography would go on to receive the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the Edgar Award for Critical/Biographical Work, and the Bram Stoker Award for Best Non-Fiction. Franklin also wrote the foreword for the upcoming publication "Shirley Jackson: A Companion." To be published in 2021, this collection features comprehensive critical engagement with Jackson's works, including those that have received less scholarly attention.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Since at least 2015, Jackson's adopted home of North Bennington has honored her legacy by celebrating Shirley Jackson Day on June 27, the day the fictional story "The Lottery" took place.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Jackson has been cited as an influence on a diverse set of authors, including Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Sarah Waters, Nigel Kneale, Claire Fuller, Joanne Harris, and Richard Matheson.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Lenemaja Friedman's "Shirley Jackson" (Twayne Publishers, 1975) was the first published survey of Jackson's life and work. Judy Oppenheimer also covers Shirley Jackson's life and career in "Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson" (Putnam, 1988). S. T. Joshi's "The Modern Weird Tale" (2001) offers a critical essay on Jackson's work.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: A comprehensive overview of Jackson's short fiction is Joan Wylie Hall's "Shirley Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction" (Twayne Publishers, 1993). The only critical bibliography of Jackson's work is Paul N. Reinsch's "A Critical Bibliography of Shirley Jackson, American Writer (1919–1965): Reviews, Criticism, Adaptations" (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001). Darryl Hattenhauer also provides a comprehensive survey of all of Jackson's fiction in "Shirley Jackson's American Gothic" (State University of New York Press, 2003). Bernice Murphy's "Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy" (McFarland & Company, 2005) is a collection of commentaries on Jackson's work. Colin Hains's "Frightened by a Word: Shirley Jackson & Lesbian Gothic" (2007) explores the lesbian themes in Jackson's major novels.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: According to the post-feminist critic Elaine Showalter, Jackson's work is the single most important mid-twentieth-century body of literary output yet to have its value reevaluated by critics. In a March 4, 2009, podcast distributed by the business publisher "The Economist", Showalter also noted that Joyce Carol Oates had edited a collection of Jackson's work called "Shirley Jackson Novels and Stories" that was published in the Library of America series.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Oates wrote of Jackson's fiction: "Characterized by the caprice and fatalism of fairy tales, the fiction of Shirley Jackson exerts a mordant, hypnotic spell."


title: Shirley Jackson

text: Jackson's husband wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years". Hyman insisted that the dark visions found in Jackson's work were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but, rather, comprised "a sensitive and faithful anatomy" of the Cold War era in which she lived, "fitting symbols for [a] distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb". Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as indicated by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned 'The Lottery', and she felt that "they" at least understood the story".


title: Shirley Jackson

text: The 1980s witnessed considerable scholarly interest in Jackson's work. Peter Kosenko, a Marxist critic, advanced an economic interpretation of "The Lottery" that focused on "the inequitable stratification of the social order". Sue Veregge Lape argued in her Ph.D. thesis that feminist critics who did not consider Jackson to be a feminist played a significant role in her lack of earlier critical attention. In contrast, Jacob Appel has written that Jackson was an "anti-regionalist writer" whose criticism of New England proved unpalatable to the American literary establishment.


title: Shirley Jackson

text: In 2009, critic Harold Bloom published an extensive study of Jackson's work, challenging the notion that it was worthy of inclusion in the Western canon; Bloom wrote of "The Lottery", specifically: "Her art of narration [stays] on the surface, and could not depict individual identities. Even 'The Lottery' wounds you once, and once only."


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: The case involved Mildred Loving, a woman of color, and her white husband Richard Loving, who in 1958 were sentenced to a year in prison for marrying each other. Their marriage violated Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which criminalized marriage between people classified as "white" and people classified as "colored". The Lovings appealed their conviction to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which upheld it. They then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear their case.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: In June 1967, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in the Lovings' favor and overturned their convictions. Its decision struck down Virginia's anti-miscegenation law and ended all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States. Virginia had argued that its law was not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause because the punishment was the same regardless of the offender's race, and thus it "equally burdened" both whites and non-whites. The Court found that the law nonetheless violated the Equal Protection Clause because it was based solely on "distinctions drawn according to race" and outlawed conduct—namely, getting married—that was otherwise generally accepted and which citizens were free to do.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: Beginning in 2013, the decision was cited as precedent in U.S. federal court decisions holding restrictions on same-sex marriage in the United States unconstitutional, including in the Supreme Court decision "Obergefell v. Hodges" (2015).


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: Anti-miscegenation laws had been in place in certain states since the colonial period. In the Reconstruction Era in 1865, the Black Codes across the seven states of the lower South made interracial marriage illegal. The new Republican legislatures in six states repealed the restrictive laws. By 1894, when the Democratic Party in the South returned to power, restrictions were reimposed.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: A major concern was how to draw the line between black and white in a society in which white men had many children with enslaved black women. On the one hand, a person's reputation as black or white was usually what mattered in practice. On the other hand, most laws used a "one drop of blood" rule, which meant that one black ancestor made a person black in the view of the law. In 1967, 16 states still retained anti-miscegenation laws, mainly in the American South.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: Mildred Delores Loving was the daughter of Musial (Byrd) Jeter and Theoliver Jeter. She self-identified as Indian-Rappahannock, but was also reported as being of Cherokee, Portuguese, and African American ancestry. During the trial, it seemed clear that she identified herself as black, especially as far as her own lawyer was concerned. However, upon her arrest, the police report identified her as "Indian".


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: Richard Perry Loving was a white man, the son of Lola (Allen) Loving and Twillie Loving. Their families both lived in Caroline County, Virginia, which adhered to strict Jim Crow segregation laws, but their town of Central Point had been a visible mixed-race community since the 19th century. The couple met in high school and fell in love.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: Mildred became pregnant, and in June 1958, the couple traveled to Washington, D.C. to marry, thereby evading Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which made marriage between whites and non-whites a crime. A few weeks after they returned to Central Point, local police raided their home in the early morning hours of July 11, 1958, hoping to find them having sex, given that interracial sex was then also illegal in Virginia. When the officers found the Lovings sleeping in their bed, Mildred pointed out their marriage certificate on the bedroom wall. They were told the certificate was not valid in Virginia.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: The Lovings were charged under Section 20-58 of the Virginia Code, which prohibited interracial couples from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia, and Section 20-59, which classified miscegenation as a felony, punishable by a prison sentence of between one and five years.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty to "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth". They were sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence suspended on condition that the couple leave Virginia and not return together for at least 25 years. After their conviction, the couple moved to the District of Columbia.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: In 1963, frustrated by their inability to travel together to visit their families in Virginia, as well as their social isolation and financial difficulties in Washington, Mildred Loving wrote in protest to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU assigned volunteer cooperating attorneys Bernard S. Cohen and Philip J. Hirschkop, who filed a motion on behalf of the Lovings in Virginia's Caroline County Circuit Court, that requested the court to vacate the criminal judgments and set aside the Lovings' sentences on the grounds that the Virginia miscegenation statutes ran counter to the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: On October 28, 1964, after waiting almost a year for a response to their motion, the ACLU attorneys filed a federal class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. This prompted the county court judge in the case, Leon M. Bazile (1890–1967), to issue a ruling on the long-pending motion to vacate. Echoing Johann Friedrich Blumenbach's 18th-century interpretation of race, Bazile denied the motion with the words:


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: On January 22, 1965, a three-judge district court panel postponed decision on the federal class-action case while the Lovings appealed Judge Bazile's decision on constitutional grounds to the Virginia Supreme Court. On March 7, 1966, Justice Harry L. Carrico (later Chief Justice of the Court) wrote an opinion for the court upholding the constitutionality of the anti-miscegenation statutes. Carrico cited as authority the Virginia Supreme Court's decision in "Naim v. Naim" (1955) and ruled that criminalization of the Lovings' marriage was not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, because both the white and the non-white spouse were punished equally for miscegenation, a line of reasoning that echoed that of the United States Supreme Court in 1883 in "Pace v. Alabama". However, the court did find the Lovings' sentences to be unconstitutionally vague, ordering that they be resentenced in the Caroline County Circuit Court.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: The Lovings, still supported by the ACLU, appealed the state supreme court's decision to the Supreme Court of the United States, where Virginia was represented by Robert McIlwaine of the state's attorney general's office. The Supreme Court agreed on December 12, 1966, to accept the case for final review. The Lovings did not attend the oral arguments in Washington, but one of their lawyers, Bernard S. Cohen, conveyed the personal message he had been given by Richard Loving: "Mr. Cohen, tell the Court I love my wife, and it is just unfair that I can't live with her in Virginia."


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: Before "Loving v. Virginia", there had been several cases on the subject of interracial sexual relations. Within the state of Virginia, on October 3, 1878, in "Kinney v. The Commonwealth", the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled that the marriage legalized in Washington, D.C. between Andrew Kinney, a black man, and Mahala Miller, a white woman, was "invalid" in Virginia. In the national case of "Pace v. Alabama" (1883), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the conviction of an Alabama couple for interracial sex, affirmed on appeal by the Alabama Supreme Court, did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Interracial marital sex was deemed a felony, whereas extramarital sex ("adultery or fornication") was only a misdemeanor.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: On appeal, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the criminalization of interracial sex was not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause because whites and non-whites were punished in equal measure for the offense of engaging in interracial sex. The court did not need to affirm the constitutionality of the ban on interracial marriage that was also part of Alabama's anti-miscegenation law, since the plaintiff, Mr. Pace, had chosen not to appeal that section of the law. After "Pace v. Alabama", the constitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws banning marriage and sex between whites and non-whites remained unchallenged until the 1920s.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: In "Kirby v. Kirby" (1921), Mr. Kirby asked the state of Arizona for an annulment of his marriage. He charged that his marriage was invalid because his wife was of "negro" descent, thus violating the state's anti-miscegenation law. The Arizona Supreme Court judged Mrs. Kirby's race by observing her physical characteristics and determined that she was of mixed race, therefore granting Mr. Kirby's annulment.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: In the "Monks" case ("Estate of Monks", 4. Civ. 2835, Records of California Court of Appeals, Fourth district), the Superior Court of San Diego County in 1939 decided to invalidate the marriage of Marie Antoinette and Allan Monks because she was deemed to have "one eighth negro blood". The court case involved a legal challenge over the conflicting wills that had been left by the late Allan Monks; an old one in favor of a friend named Ida Lee, and a newer one in favor of his wife. Lee's lawyers charged that the marriage of the Monkses, which had taken place in Arizona, was invalid under Arizona state law because Marie Antoinette was "a Negro" and Alan had been white. Despite conflicting testimony by various expert witnesses, the judge defined Mrs. Monks' race by relying on the anatomical "expertise" of a surgeon. The judge ignored the arguments of an anthropologist and a biologist that it was impossible to tell a person's race from physical characteristics.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: Monks then challenged the Arizona anti-miscegenation law itself, taking her case to the California Court of Appeals, Fourth District. Monks' lawyers pointed out that the anti-miscegenation law effectively prohibited Monks as a mixed-race person from marrying anyone: "As such, she is prohibited from marrying a negro or any descendant of a negro, a Mongolian or an Indian, a Malay or a Hindu, or any descendants of any of them. Likewise ... as a descendant of a negro she is prohibited from marrying a Caucasian or a descendant of a Caucasian." The Arizona anti-miscegenation statute thus prohibited Monks from contracting a valid marriage in Arizona, and was therefore an unconstitutional constraint on her liberty. However, the court dismissed this argument as inapplicable, because the case presented involved not two mixed-race spouses but a mixed-race and a white spouse: "Under the facts presented the appellant does not have the benefit of assailing the validity of the statute." Dismissing Monks' appeal in 1942, the United States Supreme Court refused to reopen the issue.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: The turning point came with "Perez v. Sharp" (1948), also known as "Perez v. Lippold". In "Perez", the Supreme Court of California recognized that bans on interracial marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9–0 decision in favor of the Lovings that overturned their criminal convictions and struck down Virginia's anti-miscegenation law. The Court's opinion was written by chief justice Earl Warren, and all the justices joined it.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: The Court first addressed whether Virginia's Racial Integrity Act violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, which reads: "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Virginia officials had argued that the Act did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because it "equally burdened" both whites and non-whites, since the punishment for violating the statute was the same regardless of the offender's race; for example, a white person who married a black person was subject to the same penalties as a black person who married a white person.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: The Court had accepted this "equal burden" argument 84 years earlier in its 1883 decision "Pace v. Alabama". But in "Loving", the Court rejected the argument.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: The Court said that because the Virginia Racial Integrity Act used racial classification as a basis for imposing criminal culpability, the Equal Protection Clause required the Court to strictly scrutinize the Act's provisions.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: Applying the strict scrutiny standard of review, the Court concluded that Virginia's Act had no discernible purpose other than "invidious racial discrimination" that was designed to "maintain White Supremacy". The Court therefore ruled that the Act violated the Equal Protection Clause.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: The Court ended its opinion with a short section holding that Virginia's Racial Integrity Act also violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. The Court said that the freedom to marry is a fundamental constitutional right, and it held that depriving Americans of it on an arbitrary basis such as race was unconstitutional.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: Despite the Supreme Court's decision, anti-miscegenation laws remained on the books in several states, although the decision had made them unenforceable. State judges in Alabama continued to enforce its anti-miscegenation statute until 1970, when the Nixon administration obtained a ruling from a U.S. District Court in "United States v. Brittain". In 2000, Alabama became the last state to adapt its laws to the Supreme Court's decision, when 60% of voters endorsed a constitutional amendment, Amendment 2, that removed anti-miscegenation language from the state constitution.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: After "Loving v. Virginia", the number of interracial marriages continued to increase across the United States and in the South. In Georgia, for instance, the number of interracial marriages increased from 21 in 1967 to 115 in 1970. At the national level, 0.4% of marriages were interracial in 1960, 2.0% in 1980, 12% in 2013, and 16% in 2015, almost 50 years after "Loving".


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: "Loving v. Virginia" was discussed in the context of the public debate about same-sex marriage in the United States.


title: Loving v. Virginia

text: In "Hernandez v. Robles" (2006), the majority opinion of the New York Court of Appeals—that state's highest court—declined to rely on the "Loving" case when deciding whether a right to same-sex marriage existed, holding that "the historical background of "Loving" is different from the history underlying this case." In the 2010 federal district court decision in "Perry v. Schwarzenegger", overturning California's Proposition 8 which restricted marriage to opposite-sex couples, Judge Vaughn R. Walker cited "Loving v. Virginia" to conclude that "the [constitutional] right to marry protects an individual's choice of marital partner regardless of gender". On narrower grounds, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.