Collected Literary Oddities Vol. 2 Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Can you identify this famous 15th/16th century European writer who was captured by pirates and spent five years as a slave?

Answer: Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) was a Spanish novelist, playwright and poet. Although a prolific writer for his time it is as the creator of 'Don Quixote' that he is best known. He was an important figure in the history of Spanish literature.
He was a veteran of the famous sea battle at Lepanto (1571) where his left hand was maimed. Some years later he and his brother were later captured by Turkish pirates and the brothers were held as slaves for five years (1580) until their family raised the money for their ransom.

2. This American nineteenth-century novelist and prolific writer worked variously as a printer's apprentice, a river-boat pilot and a silver prospector. Can you name him?

Answer: Mark Twain

Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Clemens (1835-1910) one of America's most prolific and respected writers with over thirty novels and hundreds of short stories to his credit. He was an avid correspondent and his letters reveal him to have had wide contacts with the literati of his day including Robert Browning, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ivan Turgenev and William Dean Howells to name but a few.

3. Please identify this British novelist, broadcaster and playwright who refused a peerage or knighthood and who died on the same day as Truman Capote in 1984?

Answer: John Boynton Priestly

John Boynton Priestly (1894 - 1984). He was born in Bradford Yorkshire. He was a blunt and direct speaker and very popular in Britain and the Commonwealth as a result of his many radio broadcasts during World War Two. His political leanings were very much left of centre and he was a prominent member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in its early days.

In 1977 he refused a knighthood and a peerage, but accepted the Order of Merit.

Perhaps his most famous work was 'The Good Companions'. Priestly wrote and published over 120 books

4. Which military gentlemen with a unique London address had a cocked hat that writer Thomas Hardy was to later try on as research for his novel 'The Dynasts'?

Answer: Duke of Wellington

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769 - 1852). He was a famous military leader and is best remembered for being the victorious Commander at Waterloo when Napoleon Bonaparte was finally defeated. He was the most famous man of his time and a grateful British nation showered him with honours including, so legend has it, the accolade of the address "Number One, London".
Ironically, Wellington, who was a not gifted scholar, attended a French Military School (Angers) before taking up military duties.

5. Which 18th century writer, the son of a British Prime Minister and an MP himself was wounded during a robbery by the highwayman James Maclean?

Answer: Horace Walpole

Horace Walpole (1717-1797) was the son of Sir Robert Walpole. He was a distinguished man of letters and a noted art historian, novelist, playwright and publisher.

The activities of footpads and highwaymen troubled Britain for many years throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. For instance during the decade from 1775 the Prime Minister, Lord North, was robbed by highwaymen and so were the Prince of Wales and his brother the Duke of York. Also, The Lord Mayor of London was relieved of his belongings despite being accompanied by his retinue.

6. This person was an exotic and innovative dancer and bohemian figure whose behaviour caused Zelda Fitzgerald to throw herself down a flight of steps in jealous rage. Can you identify the dancer?

Answer: Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan (1878-1927) was credited by 'Wikipedia' as being the 'Mother of Modern Dance'. Much more popular in Europe than in her native USA she flouted traditional mores and morality in her professional and private lives.

7. Which 19th century American novelist had held the rank of midshipman in the US Navy?

Answer: James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper (1789 - 1851) was a prolific and popular American. He wrote historical romances, sea faring stories and created the American hero frontiersman 'Natty Bumppo'. My favourite is probably his best known work 'The Last of the Mohicans'.

8. Lord Alfred Douglas had achieved great notoriety for his relationship with Oscar Wilde which led to that writer's imprisonment for sexual offences. Ironically, twenty-eight years later, Lord Alfred himself was jailed for libelling another famous author, politician and statesman. Whom had he libelled?

Answer: Winston Churchill

Lord Alfred Douglas accused Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty during the First World War, of arranging the death of Lord Kitchener in conspiracy with Jewish financiers. Churchill brought a successful private prosecution for criminal libel, and Lord Arthur spent six months in jail.

9. During a voyage to Australia in 1891 the then world famous British author John Galsworthy (he wrote 'The Forsyte Saga') befriended a ship's officer who was later to become an equally famous novelist in his own right. Who was he?

Answer: Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was born J�zef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in the Ukraine but to patriotic Polish parents. He has written nearly twenty novels. All of them expressive and colourful. There has been a some discussion amongst literary critics (see Wikipedia for details) about inherent racism but many others think his novels were products of his time and evocative of commercial and imperial trade in the days of sail and early steam powered vessels.

10. The American author Hunter S. Thompson died in 2005. He achieved a certain reputation for 'Gonzo journalism' during his lifetime so it was not too much of a surprise to discover his last wishes concerning his funeral ashes. What did he want done with them?

Answer: Fired from a cannon shaped like a double thumb

Hunter S. Thompson (1937 - 2005) will probably be best known for his highly literary and descriptive novel 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream'. However, he also produced a wide range of novels, editorials, articles and other media output in his life.

He could make a strong case for being the principal exponent of 'gonzo' journalism.

He became such an icon in his own lifetime that cartoonist Garry Trudeau based the wild character of Duke in his "Doonesbury" comic strip on him.

Source: Author bracklaman

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor gtho4 before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Writers it seems have as many quirks and foibles as the rest of us. See if you can identify the writers from my clues.

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