That One Big Book Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ross Lockridge Jr

A very long novel, with many editions being over 1,000 pages long, "Raintree County" (1948) has been praised as a "Great American Novel" by some. It is set in the US and follows the life of a young teacher, before and after his service in the Civil War.

Despite the success of his novel, Lockridge began showing signs of mental illness and took his life shortly after its publishing.

Answer: Boris Pasternak

Pasternak mostly achieved literary success with his poetry work, but his sole novel, "Doctor Zhivago" (1957) has also earned him worldwide acclaim, and also the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958.

The novel is set in the time between the 1905 Russian Revolution, and the Second World War. Pasternak's stance on the October Revolution was not well received by the Communist Party, and as a result, Russian authorities prevented the book from being published. It only saw the light after it was smuggled to, and published in, Italy, instigated by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. The Nobel Prize won by Pasternak was also a matter of conflict with the Regime, which forced him to decline the prize. It was later accepted by his son Yevgeny in 1989, on his behalf.

As with many literary masterpieces, there are several on-screen adaptations, with the first one being David Lean's 1965 movie.

Answer: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Obscure to many, "The Leopard" (1958; "Il Gatto Pardo", in Italian) is the only novel by Tomasi, the last Prince of Lampedusa.

It was published posthumously and ranks among the most important novels in modern Italian literature. It is a historical novel set in Sicily during the 'Risorgimento', dealing with the major social changes taking place during that era.

Answer: Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath is notable for her poetry, but she also wrote a single novel, "The Bell Jar" (1963), which was initially published under the pen name "Victoria Lucas".

It is a semi-autobiographical novel which deals with depression and the search for one's place in the world, mirroring Plath's own struggle that ended with her suicide shortly after the book was published.

"The Bell Jar" was later published under Plath's name in 1967, and subsequently in the United States in 1971.

Answer: Juan Rulfo

Juan Rulfo (1917-1986) was a Mexican photographer and writer. His literary catalogue is actually quite small, including "Pedro Paramo" (1955, roughly translated as "Peter Wasteland").

This novel tells the story of a man that goes in search of his father, who he never met before, and he comes across a ghost town where many revelations take place.

While not initially successful, the novel was later acclaimed as a notable work of Latin American literature, receiving praise from important writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (who said that "Pedro Paramo" inspired him greatly).

Answer: Mary Ann Shaffer

This book, published in 2008, is a historical epistolary novel (comprised of letters sent between two characters) set in Guernsey in 1946. The main character is a writer that comes into contact with the group while on a promotional tour of her latest book, and becomes interested in joining them.

It was published after Shaffer's death, with her niece Annie Barrows credited as co-author, since she helped with the final edit of the manuscript when Shaffer was gravely ill.

Answer: Ralph Ellison

"Invisible Man" (1952), broadly speaking, deals with the social difficulties experienced by African-American people in the first half of the 20th century. It was a massive success and earned Ellison the National Book Award in 1953. He was the first African-American recipient of the award.

Ellison wrote some other essays that were condensed on "Shadow and Act" (1964), and reportedly spent several years writing a second novel, but he died in 1994 without completing it. Over 2,000 pages of manuscripts were found after his death and they were condensed into "Juneteenth" (1999), and later into a more complete version, "Three Days Before The Shooting..." (2010) but, being an incomplete work on its own, it leaves "Invisible Man" as Ellison's only novel.

Answer: Oscar Wilde

Wilde has been a very prolific writer, focusing more on plays and poetry. In July 1890, he published a shorter version of what was to become "The Picture of Dorian Grey" in the Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. A few months later, in April 1891, it was published in its full-length novel format, the only one he penned.

While it is now a well-known work, the book was harshly criticized at the time due to its controversial themes and allusions to homosexuality, which clashed with Victorian era morality. During Wilde's trials for indecent conduct, in 1895, the novel was labeled as "perverted".

Answer: Nora Ephron

No mistake here. Nora Ephron achieved most of her fame as a filmmaker, but she has also published a few books. Among them, her only novel (which was later adapted into a movie in 1986, with the screenplay also written by her) is an autobiographical work inspired on Ephron's second marriage coming apart.

Answer: Edgar Allan Poe

Mr Poe barely needs any introduction for avid readers. Famous for many short stories, poems, and even the first detective story ("The Murders in the Rue Morgue", 1841), he wrote his only novel back in 1838, trying to broaden his scope of work after not meeting too much success with his early short stories.

Arthur Pym's story starts out as the typical adventure novel of the times, most of it based on seafaring. As the story progresses, several strange and mysterious events start showing up, much in the style of Poe's other tales. I don't want to spoil it if you haven't read it, but I'll only say that the ending is absolutely unexpected.

Poe himself didn't like the book that much and it was even subject to mixed reviews. However, it later influenced some of the works by Herman Melville and Jules Verne.