Stuck at Home? Revisit Books and Authors Quiz

Answer: Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) is considered the greatest English novelist of the Victorian era. His family was middle-class, but when his father was incarcerated because of debts, Charles needed to drop out of school and start working in a factory and later, as a clerk in a solicitor's office, then as a court stenographer, and newspaper reporter. Such experiences made a deep impression on the young man and gave him the knowledge that was explored in his works.

In the early 1830s, Dickens began publishing stories and essays for newspapers and magazines. "The Pickwick Papers" (1836) was initially published in monthly chapters, a very common form of publication in the 19th century. Dickens found serialization to be an enjoyable and profitable way of working; Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby are from this period. Then, he went on to write shorter weekly installments, which he used for "The Old Curiosity Shop" and "Barnaby Rudge".

Dickens always worked hard: he edited a weekly journal for 20 years and wrote 15 novels, 5 novellas, hundreds of short stories, and non-fiction articles. His works had great popularity among different social classes and his fame spread internationally. He fought hard for children's right to education and for social reforms.

Answer: Percy B. Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), although not recognized during his short life, was one of the greatest English Romantic poets, with an important influence on subsequent generations of poets. He wrote several pamphlets and poems including "The Necessity of Atheism" and "Ozymandias". In 1820, he composed his masterpiece, the lyrical drama "Prometheus Unbound", which was published together with the short poems "Ode to the West Wind" and "To a Skylark".

He had a short and tumultuous life. He was rebellious and expelled from Oxford, dabbled in numerous love relationships, and pursued social justice. While married, in 1814, he fled to France with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, later known as Mary Shelley, author of the Gothic novel "Frankenstein", whom he finally married in 1816 after his wife's suicide. In 1822, at just 29 years old, he drowned while sailing along the Italian coast.

Answer: William Faulkner

William Faulkner (1897-1962) was an American novelist, a reluctant student, who left school without graduating. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1918 but, when his training was over the armistice was signed, and he returned home. In his first novel "Soldiers' Pay" (1925), he analyzed the difficulty of ex-combatants in adapting to civilian life when they returned from the war.

Beginning with "Sartoris" (1927), all his novels (except three) and over 50 short stories were set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County. He wrote 13 novels, including "The Sound and the Fury" (1929), and numerous short stories. Faulkner received several awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes and the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature (awarded in 1950). He suffered a heart attack in July 1962 and died at age of 64.

Answer: Charlotte

The Brontės were an English family linked to literature, that lived in the villages of Thornton and later in Haworth, England in the 19th century. Patrick Brontė did his best to give his children a good education and all their activities were related to writing. Sisters Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848), and Anne (1820-1849) became poets and novelists.

Charlotte submitted several poems to the poet laureate Robert Southey, who discouraged her, as the prejudice of the time was that poetry and literature were a man's business and not a suitable occupation for women. She did not give up and managed to publish a collection of poetry, hers and her sisters', under male pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.

Their fame came in 1847 when they managed to publish Charlotte's "Jane Eyre, an Autobiography", Emily's "Wuthering Heights" and Anne's "Agnes Grey". "Jane Eyre" soon became a hit, although many readers felt that the book defied good morals. As there was a rumor that the three novels were by the same author, in 1848 the sisters went to London and presented themselves to publishers to prove that they were three independent authors.

In 1850, after the death of Emily and Anne, Charlotte wrote the afterword for the reprint of "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey", in which she revealed the real identities of the three sisters. Perhaps a good program is to reread one of the Brontė sisters' works or see a movie based on one of their books.

Answer: No Laughing Matter

Joseph Heller (1923-1999) always enjoyed writing and became the author of novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, and autobiographies. In 1942, at age 19, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, and was sent to the Italian Front, where he flew 60 combat missions as a B-25 Bombardier, missions that according to him were mostly "milk runs", that is, non-dangerous missions.

His most famous book is "Catch 22" (1961), a satirical book about the absurdities of war and military life and the experiences of a fictional Captain Yossarian and his companions, trying to keep their sanity until they can return home.

In 1981, Heller was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome. His debilitating illness and a long period of hospitalization and recovery were described in the memoir book "No Laughing Matter" (1986), written in collaboration with his friend Speed Vogel (1918-2008), an American sculptor and painter. Despite the matter and situation being extremely serious, it was handled with humor. While Heller struggled with the illness, Vogel helped him and served as his public face during that time.

Answer: Ken Kesey

The film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), directed by Milos Forman, winner of all five major Academy Awards, was an adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel of the same name, having as its central figure a not-really-insane mental patient who tries to release his fellow inmates from the control of a nurse. It's a story of someone fighting the system that was very well received by critics.

Ken Elton Kesey (1935-2001) was an American novelist, essayist, and part of the counterculture movement, who defined himself as a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.

The book "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was published in 1962, a time of great civil rights movements and changes in psychological and psychiatric treatments. It was based on Kesey's experiences as an aide at the Veteran's Administration hospital in Menlo Park, California, and as a paid volunteer to ingest mind-altering drugs and report their effects, as part of the CIA's Project MKUltra. Recreationally he also took LSD.

Answer: Bill Bryson

William McGuire Bryson (1951) is an American-born British author of non-fiction books on several topics such as the English language, science, and travel. Bryson was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, and attended Drake University. In 1977, he settled in Great Britain where he lived for a long time. Currently, he resides in the United States and England.

His first book was "The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words" (1984). Since then he has published books on varied themes. He gained fame in the UK with the publication and television serialization of "Notes from a Small Island" (1995).

In the book "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" (1999, USA) also named "Notes from a Big Country" (UK), the author discusses his experiences when he returned to live in the United States, after spending two decades in Britain. This is a collection of Bryson's articles published during the 1990s in the "Mail on Sundays' Night and Day" supplement.

Answer: Lewis Wallace

Lewis "Lew" Wallace (1827-1905) was born in Indiana, the son of a military man, who established himself in law practice and as a politician. In 1840, Lewis began writing his first novel "The Fair God" (1873) while studying law at his father's law office. In 1861, Lewis started his full-time military carrier, in which he rose to the rank of Brigadier General of the U.S. Army volunteers. From 1878 to 1881 he served as governor of the New Mexico Territory and from 1881 to 1885, as an overseas diplomat in Constantinople. After this period, he withdrew from public life and devoted himself to literature. Throughout his life, he published several novels, a biography, and an autobiography. The work that consecrated him as an author was "Ben-Hur".

In 1880, while living in Santa Fe, Wallace completed "Ben-Hur: a Tale of the Christ", considered by many to be one of the most influential Christian books of the nineteenth century. The book's main character, Ben-Hur, is a Jewish prince enslaved by the Romans in the early first century. In parallel, the story of Jesus, who lived in the same period and region, unfolds. The book was for many years a best seller, making the author rich and famous. "Ben-Hur" was filmed in 1925 and re-filmed in 1959 with great success. With Charlton Heston in the lead role, the 1959 movie won 11 Oscars, a feat that was equaled only by "Titanic" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King".

Answer: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was an American essayist, poet, novelist, and short story writer. As the only child in a family of an aristocratic father and an unaristocratic mother, he always felt ambivalently perched between a highly promising life and a vulgar life. He studied at Princeton University, where he wrote poems and short stories. At this time he fell in love with Ginevra King, who was the inspiration for some of his works. Their relationship did not prosper, as Ginevra's father is reported to have said that "poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls". Disgusted, he left Princeton, enlisted in the United States Army, and while waiting to be sent to Europe, he met Zelda Sayre (1900-1948), later to become Zelda Fitzgerald, an American novelist, known for her beauty, a free spirit with whom he had a tumultuous marriage.

In 1920, Fitzgerald published "This Side of Paradise", which made him famous and opened doors for the young couple. Then, he published his second novel "Beautiful and Damned (1922), which helped him to become better known. In 1924, the couple moved to the French Riviera where they joined a group of expatriate Americans. "The Great Gatsby" (1925) is considered the most profoundly American novel of its time and received favorable reviews. At this time he published some of his best short stories.

In 1925, Fitzgerald started a new novel but Zelda's mental health deterioration, his financial problems and his love for drinking caused the book to take more than a decade to be finished. Finally, in 1934 he published his final novel "Tender is the Night", which although fictional, shows facts from the life of the author and his wife. When he split from Zelda he moved to Hollywood. In 1939, he started the novel "The Last Tycoon" which was not ready when he died of a heart attack at age of 44. He published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he found some success in the 1920s, he received critical acclaim only after his death and is now recognized as one of the most outstanding American writers of the 20th century. Many of his novels and stories have been adapted to the cinema, theater, television, and other media.

Answer: True

Ken Martin Follett (1949) is a British author of historical and thriller novels, which quickly became international bestsellers. As a child, his parents didn't allow him to watch movies or television, so he devoted himself to reading. He studied philosophy, trained as a journalist, and began his professional life as a reporter. To complement his income, he started writing. Before the age of 30, he published his first book "Eye of the Needle" (1978), which was an international success and made him rich and famous. By January 2022 he had published around 45 books, several of which have been adapted for cinema, television, and other media. He has received numerous awards and is a member of several institutions that promote literacy and writing.

One of Ken Follett's most successful works is "The Pillars of the Earth" (1989), which was about the construction of a fictional cathedral, that at one point caught fire. To write this book he made detailed visits to cathedrals, seeing spaces that are not of interest to the faithful or tourists, such as their cathedral roofs. For this reason, when he learned of the Notre Dame's fire on April 15, 2019, he traveled to Paris. There, in a meeting with his French publisher, he agreed that he would publish something about the cathedral and its importance and that the profits from the book and its copyright would go to the fund for the reconstruction of the cathedral. The book was published as "Notre Dame: A Short History of the Meaning of Cathedrals" (2019).