Mr Nonsense Trivia Quiz

Answer: Edward Lear

"A Book of Nonsense" was published anonymously because that was the convention at the time for children's books. Edward Lear's name appeared on the third edition, published in 1861. Lear wrote many limericks (but without the risque element that has since become popular for those who use the form). He is also known for his neologisms - he loved to make up words whose sound pleased him, and use them without worrying exactly what they meant. One famous example is the runcible spoon which appears in "The Owl and the Pussycat". Much effort has been spent trying to work out what a runcible spoon might look like, and debating a possible etymology for the word. None of them, however, fits in with the ways in which Lear used the adjective runcible in other works, which included a runcible cat (in "The Pobble Who Has No Toes"), a runcible goose and a runcible wall (both in "Mr and Mrs Discobbolos Part Two").

None of the other writers was active during the 19th century - Chaucer and Shakespeare were long dead, and Thomas had yet to be born in 1846.

Answer: Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll's best known work is probably "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1865), but the sequel "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There" (1871) gave the world "Jabberwocky", and added such words as burbled, chortle, frabjous and galumphing, as well as a number of nonsense words of indeterminate meaning, to the English language.

The poem actually predates the book. Its first verse (to be edited slightly on expansion) was published in an 1855 installment of "Mischmasch", a Dodgson family magazine which produced issues between 1855 and 1862.

None of the other writers is famed for nonsense writing - primarily, Dickens wrote realistic novels, Poe wrote stories and poems of suspense, and Hugo wrote in French, which is outside the scope of this quiz.

Answer: Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash wrote many humorous poems, some of which would be classified as nonsense poems. "The Llama" qualifies both because of the mysterious reference to betting a silk pajama, and because of the final pun. It was one of a number of animal poems Nash wrote, including poems to accompany each movement of "The Carnival of the Animals" by Camille Saint-Saens. These poems were read by Noel Coward on the first recording, in 1949, and are often featured in performances of the piece. Unfortunately, Saint-Saens did not include a llama.

The others are all famous Americans known for their wit, but not especially for nonsense verse.

Answer: Christopher Isherwood

While the poem "The Common Cormorant" makes perfect semantic and grammatical sense, the actual matter-of-fact statements made in the poem are blatantly ludicrous falsehoods, which qualifies it as nonsense poetry. Isherwood is better known as a prose writer than as a poet, and his "The Berlin Stories" (a compendium of two separate short novels, "Mr Norris Changes Trains" and "Goodbye to Berlin"), which included the character Sally Bowles in one story, was the inspiration on which John van Druten based his play "I Am a Camera". Isherwood himself wrote several plays, in conjunction with his mentor W. H. Auden, and collaborated on the screenplay for the 1965 film version of Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved One".

Isherwood knew and worked with the other authors whose names were offered as incorrect options.

Answer: Dr Seuss

Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote most of the children's books for which he is renowned under pseudonym of Dr. Seuss, including "The Cat in the Hat", from which the passage in the question was excerpted. His books usually use a small vocabulary, and lots of repetition of words and parallel structures that make them a joy to read aloud to young children. And adults enjoy the crazy goings on of some characters as much as youngsters!

Seuss (originally a German name pronounced to rhyme with voice) was Geisel's mother's maiden name. He eventually acceded to the tendency of English-speaking readers to pronounce it as if it rhymed with Mother Goose, considering that it evoked a suitable image for a children's author.

The incorrect options were pen names of Eric Blair (George Orwell), Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and Stephen King (Richard Bachman).

Answer: Mervyn Peake

"Aunty Flo" first appeared in "A Book of Nonsense", which was posthumously published in 1972. It was chosen for this quiz because it was short, not because it is the best available sample of Mervyn Peake's poetry, of which six volumes were published during his lifetime, starting with "Shapes & Sounds" in 1941 and his first book of nonsense poetry, "Rhymes Without Reason", in 1944.

The incorrect options were all leading figures of the Aesthetic movement around the end of the 19th century.

Answer: Roald Dahl

In "Revolting Rhymes", Roald Dahl offered six classic stories with bizarre twists: "Cinderella", "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Goldilocks", "Little Red Riding Hood", "The Three Pigs" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", cited in the question. In this version, Snow White gets a job as cook and housekeeper for seven jockeys who are compulsive, but unsuccessful, gamblers. She sneaks back to the castle to steal the Magic Mirror, which will let them know in advance which horses are going to win, leading to the conclusion quoted. Not exactly the way I remembered it from the Brothers Grimm version, or Walt Disney's animation with all those cutesy animals!

Charlie ("Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"), James ("James and the Giant Peach") and Matilda ("Matilda") were all title characters of Roald Dahl books. Andersen, Lang and Grimm (along with his brother Jacob) were well known for collecting traditional fairy tales, not for adding their own spin to them.

Answer: Spike Milligan

Spike Milligan was one of the main writers and central cast members for "The Goon Show", in which he performed with the others named in the incorrect options. "On the Ning Nang Nong", first published in "Silly Verse for Kids" (1968), was chosen as the most popular British comic poem in a 1998 survey conducted by the BBC. That's quite a call! Its title may remind you of the nonsense song which Milligan wrote for the Goons, and which was often sung on their show, "Ying Tong Song", with its immortal chorus, "Ying tong iddle I po".

Answer: John Lennon

John Lennon's first book, "In His Own Write" (1964), was a collection of stories, poems and drawings which many eager young Beatles fans purchased only to find they had no idea what he was on about! It was well received by literary critics, and he followed it up with another collection, "A Spaniard in the Works", in 1965.

The titles reflect the wordplay to be found within, some of which is simple punning, some of which verges on gibberish, much of which is laden with social and political commentary.

A close reading of these books should have alerted readers to the creative direction Lennon later took in his songwriting.

Answer: Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams never intended us to like the Vogons - they were responsible for blowing up Earth to make way for an intergalactic bypass at the beginning of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", and are described as slug-like in appearance and nasty in temperament. These lines are a sample of what we are told is the third worst poetry in the Universe, exceeded in dreadfulness only by the Azgoths of Kria and Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex, whose work was lost when the Earth was destroyed. The poem quoted in the question was recited to Arthur Dent and Ford prefect as they were about to be ejected into space from the Vogon spaceship.

The incorrect options were authors who all wrote multi-book series, but none of them included Vogons.