Fictional Places in Literature (2) Quiz

Answer: Barsetshire

Published between 1855 and 1867, Anthony Trollope's most famous work is a double-trilogy called "The Chronicles of Barsetshire". The series begins with "The Warden" and continues with "Barchester Towers", "Doctor Thorne", "Framley Parsonage", "The Small House at Allington" and finishes appropriately with "The Last Chronicle of Barset". Within the county, locations include the cathedral city of Barchester as well as the towns Silverbridge, Hogglestock and Greshamsbury.

Answer: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Born in Indianapolis IN in 1922, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a WWII veteran who was captured during the Battle of the Bulge. Held as a prisoner-of-war in the East German city of Dresden, he survived the Allied destruction of the city and based his 1969 novel, "Slaughterhouse-Five" on his experiences. The photograph is a clue to Vonnegut's other famous novel, the 1963 satirical look at the arms race, science, technology and religion, "Cat's Cradle".

The name of Vonnegut's fictional city in upstate-New York, Ilium, is also the Roman name for the ancient city of Troy. The modern-day city of Troy NY is not far from Schenectady.

Answer: Tarzan

The city of Opar first featured in the second of Edgar Rice Burrough's novels, "The Return of Tarzan", published in 1913. The city was used as a location in a handful of other Tarzan novels and in the 1916 film "Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar". Exiles from Opar also feature in Burroughs' 1936 juvenile story.

The name Opar may also have referenced the wealthy Biblical city of Ophir, source of King Solomon's great wealth.

Answer: Dragonlance

Arising from a meeting of 'Dungeons & Dragons' role-playing enthusiasts, the first novel in the Dragonlance universe, "Dragons of Autumn Twilight", was published in 1984. The concept has since spawned more than 50 novels, written by various authors, as well as numerous anthologies, licensed board games and miniature figures.

Krynn is a world occupied by humans, but also home to numerous other species such as elves, dwarves, gnomes and minotaurs. The humanoid characters also include Gods and wizards. Of course, there are also dragons here, both good and evil.

By way of a clue, the photograph shows the species 'Dracaena draco', the Canary Islands dragon tree, the natural symbol of the island of Tenerife.

Answer: A Clockwork Orange

Published in 1962, Anthony Burgess's classic novel, "A Clockwork Orange", is set in an England of the near future in which a culture of extreme youth violence is the norm. The Korova Milk Bar ('korova' means cow in Russian) is where the novel's protagonist, Alex DeLarge, goes for his fix when he wants to get ready for what he calls "a bit of the old ultra-violence".

In Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film adaptation of the book, the bar is furnished with furniture shaped like naked women with their nipples dispensing the drug-laced 'milk'.

Not clockwork, but the pictured sundial is a form of timepiece, so perhaps it provided just enough of a clue for some who are not familiar with the novel.

Answer: The Chronicles of Narnia

Isn't the scene in the photograph just how you picture Narnia when the children emerge from the back of the wardrobe? A classic of children's literature, the seven-book series of fantasy novels, C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia", have sold more than 100 million copies in 47 languages.

In "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", Jadis the White Witch claims the title 'Chatelaine of Cair Paravel'. At the end of the book, when the four children are crowned as kings and queens of Narnia, Cair Paravel becomes both the location of their court and capital of Narnia. Centuries later (in Narnia time), in "Prince Caspian", Cair Paravel is a ruin and in "The Last Battle" it is at the centre of the city that is at the heart of the story.

Answer: Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis's 1920 novel, "Main Street", was set in the small town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, which was clearly based upon the author's home town of Sauk Centre MN. Many residents objected to Lewis's portrayal of their town, so he created a whole fictional state in which he could set a series of novels. The result was Winnemac, a generic region of America's Midwest with towns, cities and institutions that would be familiar to readers without annoying the locals in any specific place.

Lewis used Winnemac, and specifically the towns of Zenith (populatio0n 361,000, Lewis tells us) and Mohalis, as the settings for numerous novels in the 1920s. The first book set here was "Babbitt" in 1922, followed by "Gideon Planish", "Arrowsmith", "Elmer Gantry" and "Dodsworth". Lewis was thus able to write satirically about American culture, behaviour and typical middle-class society without anyone feeling he was specifically insulting them. The result was the 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Many of Lewis's books set in Winnemac also became successful movies too, notaby "Arrowsmith" in 1931 starring Ronald Colman and Helen Hayes, and "Elmer Gantry" in 1960, for which both Burt Lancaster and Shirley Jones won Oscars.

Answer: Jilly Cooper

Born Jilly Sallitt in 1937 in Essex, Jilly Cooper published her first romantic novel, "Emily", in 1975. "Riders", published in 1986, was the first in the series that became known as "The Rutshire Chronicles", a series packed with adultery, illegitimate children, scandal and death.

The primary character in the series, Rupert Edward Algernon Campbell-Black, is a brutish, womanizing, adulterous cad. He is on his second marriage, to Agatha 'Taggie' O'Hara and he already has five children, two from his first marriage, two adopted and one illegitimate. Cooper has stated that the character is based on the former husband of Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.

The ninth book in the series, "Jump!", was published in 2010. This is a wonderful series for anyone who enjoys seeing upper-class twits doing what upper-class twits do best.

(The photo is, of course, a barrel, and barrels are traditionally made by coopers. Sorry, but it was the best I could do.)

Answer: H.G. Wells

Along with Frenchman Jules Verne and the Luxemburg-born American writer Hugo Gemsback, H.G. Wells is acknowledged as one of the fathers of the science-fiction genre. Born in Kent in 1866, Herbert George Wells also wrote historical, political and social works as well as textbooks.

"Aepyornis Island" tells the story of a man who is hired to find Aepyornis eggs in Madagascar. Following a struggle with two natives, the man finds himself cast adrift in a canoe with two dead bodies and a solitary egg. After landing on a deserted island, the egg eventually hatches and the castaway names the bird that emerges 'Man Friday'.

I won't spoil the story by telling you what happens. Suffice it to say that it is worth finding a copy if you haven't read it.

Answer: Honorverse

The "Honorverse" series explores the universe created by David Weber through the eyes of military heroine Honor Harrington, born on October 1, 3962. As the series develops, the back story of mankind's exploration of the universe is filled out. Just as history is said to repeat itself, so the universe inhabited by Honor echoes the history of 18th-20th century Europe.

The character of Harrington herself in loosely based on Admiral Horatio Nelson and the stories themselves pay homage to C.S Forester's "Horatio Hornblower" series.