Authors - Bits and Pieces Trivia Quiz

Answer: Colleen McCullough

McCullough was born in outback Australia in 1937. On reaching adulthood, she spent almost twenty years researching and teaching in the medical field. It was then that she wrote her first two works. The twenty-three books she churned out over the following years saw her become wealthy, and she moved to live permanently on Norfolk Island in the late 1970s. Her novels include "Tim" (1974) which tells the story of an intellectually slow young man and an older professional woman who marries him. Made into a film in 1979, it starred Mel Gibson and Piper Laurie. "The Thorn Birds", written in 1977, was made into a television series in 1983, starring Richard Chamberlain and a host of other top name actors. It relates the love story between a priest and a young woman. Yawnnnn.

In 2004, a group of seven men on Pitcairn Island were charged with 55 sexual offences. These had taken place on various under-age girls of the island over a lengthy period of time. It was a long, ugly case, with the islanders defending their traditional sexual life style, and stating that this practice was common and acceptable. Colleen McCullough stated, in defence of the men, that it was "indigenous customs" and that it was "Polynesian to break your girls in at 12". This came from a highly educated woman, born into a civilised society in the 20th century.

Answer: Walt Disney

Pamela Lyndon Travers was an Australian author and actress. She was born in Maryborough, Queensland in 1899, and died in London in 1996 at the grand old age of 96. She wrote a series of eight books about Mary Poppins.

More films weren't made from Pamela's books on the brisk Nanny because Mary and Walt Disney had a real falling out about his interpretation of her work. She particularly disliked the watering down of the "harsher aspects of Mary Poppins's character", didn't particularly care for the music included in the film and didn't like the animated scenes. Her portrayal of the character was a nanny who was "stern, vain, and usually cross", not the somewhat sugary character seen in the film.

As a result of this disagreement, she wasn't even invited to the premiere of the film and had to apply for permission to attend. There she argued once again with Disney, stating that the animated sequences had to come out. Disney's reaction was to turn his back on her and walk away, saying as he went, "Pamela, that ship has already sailed". She never forgave him, refused to grant permission to have any more movies made on Mary Poppins and, for the rest of her life, refused to have any American at all have anything to do with her work.

Answer: An Anglican priest in training

White (1912-1990) was six months old when his parents moved out to Australia from England to live. He was a shy, sickly boy, which held him back from participation in other children's games, and, as a result, he developed a vivid imaginary world to compensate for this. When he was 12, he was sent to a public school in England, and referred to his time there as a "four year prison sentence". His parents brought him home to Australia for two years with the peculiar idea that he would make a good stockman. Then he was sent back to England again to study at Cambridge University where he promptly fell in love with a young Anglican priest to be. The two soon became lovers. It was during this period that he began to churn out his powerful writings, and, during the years that followed, he wrote "12 novels, two short-story collections and 8 plays". In 1973 he became the first Australian citizen to be awarded the Nobel Prize. He also won the Miles Franklin Literary Award twice for two of his other works, "Voss" and "Riders in the Chariot".

When the dark days of World War II loomed, White joined the Royal Air Force, where he worked as an intelligence officer in the Middle East and Greece. He promptly fell in love with a Greek army officer during this period of his life and the two became life-long partners. As his reputation as a writer grew, he also became more reclusive as a writer, but more public as a speaker against many of Australia's traditional ties with England. He refused to accept the Britannia Award and a third Miles Franklin Award for his work. He had someone else travel to Stockholm to accept the Nobel Prize for him. He vehemently spoke out against Australia's participation in the Vietnam War and thumbed his nose at the exceptionally rare invitation to attend the Australian House of Representatives to be honoured for his literary works. When he accepted Australia's top annual award of Australian of the Year, he used the opportunity to make a political statement about the condition of the country.

The older he grew, the more anti-royalist he grew, and the louder he spoke out against this traditional British-Australian link, even going to the extent of appearing on television to speak out against it. He refused to attend the 1987 premiere of the opera based on his great work "Voss" - because Queen Elizabeth II had made the extraordinary effort to attend its presentation. He passed away in 1990.

Answer: Gave a talk on a non-existent author's non-existent literary movement

Beckett was born in Dublin into a comfortably well off family in 1906. His life revolved around the written word and in the course of that life, he wrote plays, novels, poetry, directed theatre, lectured and taught. His writing style, which saw him win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969, was somewhat pessimistic, but contained many elements of dark, rich comedy as well. Much like the man himself. In 1984, he was given the highest honour in Ireland in the arts when he was elected Saoi (wise leader) of Aosdana. This is a very exclusive organisation of the top leaders in the arts in Ireland, and to be elected Saoi by his peers was an honour indeed for Beckett.

His early skill at writing saw him gain the position as lecturer at Trinity College, from which he had graduated several years earlier. When invited to give a talk at the Modern Language Society of Dublin in 1930, Beckett sat down and deliberately wrote a "learned paper in French on a Toulouse author name Jean du Chas, founder of a movement called Concentrism" - all of which he made up. It would come as no surprise then for you to learn that Beckett's career as lecturer ended shortly afterwards.

Beckett's life is very interesting, and his literary output is extremely impressive. This includes of course his famous work "Waiting for Godot". This absurdist play, published in 1953, is a work in which nothing actually happens, as two characters wait interminably for the missing Godot to arrive. He never does of course, but in the meantime during the long endless wait, the two characters, Vladimir and Estragon "eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats and contemplate suicide - anything 'to hold the terrible silence at bay'". This play is that it operates on so many different levels. It can be what you see it to be, whenever and wherever you see it, and whatever is your main focus on life at that time.

This great author died in a nursing home in 1989, still writing, still creating, right to the very end, still struggling to find the words to express himself as he always had done right throughout his life - waiting endlessly for his own particular Godot to arrive.

Answer: An Abyssinian prince

The Bloomsbury Group was a loose organisation of some of British "writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists" of the first half of the 20th century. They met in London on a weekly basis to discuss issues such as "literature, aesthetics, criticism, economics ... feminism, pacifism and sexuality".

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was one of its members. She is widely regarded as one of the "foremost literary figures of the 20th century". Some of her most well known works include "Mrs Dalloway" (1925) and "Orlando" (1928). She was a creative writer, a deep thinker, highly qualified and educated, but throughout her troubled life, she suffered a series of nervous breakdowns, some of which involved institutionalisation. Her writing style was lyrical, experimental and often involved the use of streams of consciousness as one of its techniques. Her descriptive powers had the ability to make the characters almost come alive and appear before the very eyes of the reader. In March, 1941, however, no longer able to withstand the demons of her own thoughts, Virginia loaded the pockets of her heavy coat with stones, walked into the river near her home, and drowned herself. Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful.

The prank (known as the Dreadnought Hoax) that members of the Bloomsbury Group carried out in 1910, involved six members of the organisation. Five dressed up as Abyssian royals, complete with darkened skins, false beards, turbans, and elaborate costumes. The sixth member acted as their learned interpreter. Prior to this, and with the aid of an accomplice, they had set up the prank by sending a telegram, which apparently originated from the Foreign Office, to the captain of the HMS Dreadnought which was in England at the time. The message stated "that the ship must be prepared for a visit from a group of princes from Abyssinia". It was (apparently) authorised by the "Foreign Office Under-Secretary of the time, Sir Charles Hardinge".

When the time arrived for the visit, the group of "Abyssinian princes and their interpreter" were welcomed by the navy with all due pomp and ceremony. This included an honour guard. A dignified tour followed in which the group of Abyssinians, communicating in gibberish to each other and their interpreter, were gravely escorted around to inspect the fleet. Their gibberish included words from Latin, Greek, Freudian jargon, and anything else their devious minds could come up with. The straight faced interpreter accordingly translated all with due dignity. Oh this is so terrible (but funny): The group even asked for prayer mats, prayed accordingly, and then requested (apparently) for honours to be bestowed on the stately officers who escorted them around. And then they departed, gibbering all the way, with due ceremony and lots of bowing. When the prank was shortly after revealed, the Navy was furious and demanded blood. The group got away with it, however.

During the fake visit, the group was prone to exclaiming loudly at times the words "Bunga! Bunga!" in delight and appreciation. How they came up with that is anyone's guess. It's actually the Indonesian word for flower. However, some time later, England was visited by the real Emperor of Ethiopia and when he, not knowing what had occurred, requested to visit the Naval ships, the Navy stiffly declined. Furthermore, the unfortunate, bewildered Emperor, wherever he went, was constantly chased by groups of children shouting "Bunga! Bunga!" at the top of their lungs. Finally, when this great ship destroyed a German U-boat during World War One, somebody sent the captain a telegram which read - you guessed it - "Bunga! Bunga!"

Answer: Had Gulliver urinating on the Empress to put out a fire

It's as well Queen Anne was deceased by the time "Gulliver's Travels" was published, otherwise I fear the Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin (Swift's day job) might have lost his holy head.

"Gulliver's Travels" is a fascinating satire on many aspects of the life of England's rulers and governments. Swift goes to town on them all, their hypocrisy, their stupidity, their continual blunders, everything - and all disguised under the cloak of a harmless tale of adventure by the book's main character. Not only that, but from the security of his post in Ireland, he wrote other works along similar lines, all seemingly innocent on the surface, but brilliant underneath. Another was his work "A Modest Proposal" (1729) which sprang from Swift's anger at how the Irish were being ignored by the ruling wealthy classes when many of the poorer Irish were literally starving to death. In all innocence as the speaker of the work, he comes up with the brutally logical solution - and that is for the Irish to eat their children. He includes several methods on how this should be accomplished, and the best recipes for doing so. It's brilliant satire, aimed at those most able to appreciate its real message.

Swift continued to write for the remainder of his life, producing essays, pamphlets, periodicals, poetry, longer works, sermons. He is a much under appreciated writer, but perhaps his time is yet to come. He died in 1745, having kept a secret hugged close to his breast for over forty years - his deep and abiding love for a young girl, Esther Johnson, whom he had met years ago in his first place of employment. When she was twenty, Esther joined Swift and their relationship continued until she died at the age of thirty-five in 1728. Swift was distraught at her loss, and, many years later on his own death, a lock of her hair was found hidden away in his desk, with a note that read, "Only a woman's hair". Secretive to the last.

Interestingly, Swift was connected through his family, in one way or another, to several famous figures from history. These included the poet John Dryden, Sir Walter Raleigh, Francis Godwin, and Shakespeare's godson, William Davenant.

Answer: A conspirator in the murder of President Lincoln

Mary Surratt was hanged for her part in the assassination of President Lincoln. She holds the dubious distinction of being the first woman executed by the US government.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was unsettled, moody, prone to arguing with all his friends, unfaithful to his wife, and an alcoholic. Yet, from his pen poured a series of astonishing works, all of which have the haunting theme of the loss of the great American dream running through them. This is symbolised, more than anywhere else in the exquisitely written "The Great Gatsby". Published in 1925, it tells the story of the disintegrating love and disillusionment of Jay Gatsby for the lovely and ethereal Daisy Buchanan. It is Daisy who becomes the great American dream, and its loss, in this brilliant book.

Fitzgerald died in 1940, at the young age of 44. His wife, Zelda, who was his own particular lost and destructive American dream, died in 1948, at the age of 48. She had spent almost the entire second half of her life in and out of institutions and hospitals for the mentally ill. In the last few days of her life, she was locked in a hospital room, waiting to be treated with shock therapy for another lapse in her mental health - when a fire broke out in the establishment. She died a terrible death as a result. The troubled couple now lie buried together in the one plot in a cemetery in Maryland. On their headstone is engraved the last sentence from Fitzgerald's great work:

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past".

Answer: A barn

How uninspiring to be found in a barn! It should have been a blood bank at the very least. This draft was an amazing 541 pages long. Think how terrible it would have been if it had been Stoker's only copy! Then again, people who heartily dislike horror stories would be more than delighted. That includes me.

In spite of his rather twisted mind, Stoker led an ordinary everyday sort of life - or did he? There are rumours that have circulated ever since his death that he was involved in a secret organisation dedicated to strange and eerie activities and investigations, such as witchcraft, alchemy, dark tarot interpretations and divination.

Born in Dublin in 1847, Stoker was a strange and sickly child, too ill to be moved from his bed for the first seven years of his life. There he lay, in his darkened room, brewing his dark and brooding thoughts. Suddenly, miraculously, he recovered! With no medical intervention involved, he then went on to become an outstanding athlete. How did this come about? We will never know. Was it with the assistance of the dark arts?

During his working life, Stoker toiled for the most part as a theatre manager, and didn't develop a reputation as a writer until approaching his middle years. He died (or did he?) with the record of having written twelve novels, several volumes of short stories, and seven works of non-fiction. Interestingly, the woman he married had once been romantically pursued by Oscar Wilde (author of that work of horror, "The Picture of Dorian Gray") and for a while the two fell out when Stoker won the fair lady's heart instead. Another interesting fact about Stoker was that he was distantly related to the Scottish author, Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle, too, was interested in the darker arts of spiritualism and supernatural powers, and was a member of an unusual club known as "The Ghost Club". Those Victorians were a rather grim lot, all in all, with many obsessed with death - an obsession which is often expressed in the various novels of the time. Even good Queen Victoria had a morbid fascination in all the trappings of the great divide.

Before Stoker began to write "Dracula", which was published in 1897 and which was originally called "The Un-Dead", he researched vampires for several years, along with the strange European myths relating to same. What a gruesome and unhealthy obsession for an Irishman, to be sure, to be sure.

He died in 1912 from a series of strokes. Because of the many attempts to vandalise them, his remains are kept locked away in a special room in his final resting place. There is absolutely no truth to the rumour that at the witching hour every night, hollow thumps can be heard coming from his urn, with cries of "Let me out! I'm thirsty!" ringing through the darkness.

Answer: His beard

Fellow author Nathaniel Hawthorne was so unimpressed with Thoreau's looks that he described him as follows: Thoreau "is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior". Thoreau cultivated a clean-shave face for years, but for some peculiar reason, he adorned it with a neck beard. He thought this pile of fluff ringing the exterior of his face made him irresistible to women.

Not only was Thoreau an author and poet, he was also a philosopher, naturalist (that doesn't mean a nudist), historian and one of America's foremost transcendentalists. He believed that people were at their best when they were completely self-reliant, and, to prove this point, he carried out an experiment where he spent two years "living (on his own) in a log cabin he built near Walden Pond" in the wilds at Massachusetts (but still reasonably close to civilisation). During this time, he grew his own food and, theoretically at least, became totally self-reliant. I'm sorry to tell you, however, that he did have quite a bit of help on weekends from various family and friends in the way of extra supplies.

Writing a book on this entire experiment ("Walden" published in 1854), this work has become what practically amounts to the hippy bible. It was most definitely an excellent idea and a great social experiment, however, and it makes fascinating reading. And the thing is, at least he tried to strike a blow for complete self-reliance and a search for spiritual re-awakening. Never a particularly healthy man, Thoreau died at the age of 44 in 1862. He left over twenty volumes of his works for posterity. When his elderly aunt asked during the closing days of his life if he had made his peace with God, Thoreau answered "I did not know we had ever quarrelled".

Answer: Its genitalia

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1854, and died in Paris in 1900 during his self-imposed exile. This followed his release from prison where he had done two years with hard labour for the crime of gross indecency relating to his homosexual activities.

He was a broken man on his death, his glorious career over; impoverished, vilified, hated, and terribly ill. At the height of his career, he was one of the most sought after men in Britain, for his wit, his writing, his scintillating conversation, his flamboyant dress, and his sharp intelligence.