Hit or Miss Trivia

1. Halfway through might seem to be the worst of times to leave a novel unfinished. Which great author's great expectations were thwarted before he could complete "The Mystery Of Edwin Drood"?

From Quiz Ten Great Unfinished Novels

Answer: Charles Dickens

In 1870, at the age of 58, Dickens was half-way through writing "The Mystery Of Edwin Drood" when he died. Others did try to puzzle out what Dickens left behind, with several versions published, and in 2012 the BBC produced a TV adaptation. This was the 15th novel by Dickens and, like several others, was to be published in parts. Six of the 12 had been published at his death. The story was a murder mystery in which the titular character was murdered. Suspicion fell on his uncle. While writing the parts that were published, Dickens was tight-lipped about the intended outcome.

From Quiz Negative Reviews of Literary Classics

Answer: Lolita

"Lolita" is a novel about a middle-aged literature professor who is obsessed with a 12-year-old girl, with whom he becomes sexually involved after he becomes her stepfather. Although it is considered a classic today, it remains controversial because of its subject matter. A review by Orville Prescott of the "New York Times" (1958) included the remarks in the question, as well as the following: "Mr. Nabokov...does not write cheap pornography. He writes highbrow pornography..." "There are two equally serious reasons why it isn't worth any adult reader's attention. The first is that it is dull, dull, dull in a pretentious, florid and archly fatuous fashion. The second is that it is repulsive...".

From Quiz That's All She Wrote

Answer: Automobile accident

Margaret Mitchell spent ten years writing "Gone with the Wind" from 1926-1936. A very private person, Ms. Mitchell might never have let the book be published had her vanity not intervened. Mitchell submitted "Gone With The Wind" for publication only after a friend had called her "frivolous" and incapable of writing a novel. When the book was published the response was overwhelming, selling a phenomenal million copies within its first six months. The 1939 Academy Award winning movie made the book even more popular; propelling the book to sales of over thirty million copies worldwide. "Gone with the Wind" is a work of fiction that touched on Mitchell's love of erotica and reflected her Southern sentiments about such topics as race relations. So pervasive was the influence of the novel that people came to believe Mitchell's fantasy represented the reality of life in post Civil War American South. "Gone with the Wind" earned Ms. Mitchell the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. However, she never wrote another novel. During World War II, Mitchell was a volunteer with the American Red Cross and personally wrote hundreds of letters to serviceman and their families as a morale gesture. In 1949, while crossing Atlanta's Georgia Street, on her way to view a movie with her husband, Ms. Mitchell was struck by a drunk driver and died five days later from her injuries.

From Quiz Will You Read My Book?

Answer: Animal Farm

'Animal Farm' was written by George Orwell, and is a satire on revolution and the corruption of power. One of the best known lines from it is 'all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others'. The rejection notice implies that the publisher did not actually read the book or totally misunderstood it if he did. 'Watership Down' was written by Richard Adams and published in 1972. Anna Sewell wrote 'Black Beauty', which appeared in 1877 and Beatrix Potter was the author of 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit' from 1902.

From Quiz One Book Wonders & Second Time Hits

Answer: Sylvia Plath

Plath, better known as a poet, wrote "The Bell Jar" under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas in 1963. But while the heroine of the novel came though her psychological troubles and stepped back from suicide, Plath killed herself in the same year it was published.

From Quiz Literary "One Hit Wonders"

Answer: To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee won a Pulitzer Prize for "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 1961. Oprah Winfrey once asked Harper Lee why she only ever wrote one book. Harper Lee replied that she had said everything she had to say. In 2015, however, it appears she changed her mind, with the publication of her second book, "Go Set a Watchman".

From Quiz Negative Reviews of Literary Classics

Answer: "The Great Gatsby" (F Scott Fitzgerald)

"The Great Gatsby" is from the Jazz Age (1920s); the other three novels are from the 1930s and do not take place on Long Island. Some of the reviews it generated included the following: "For our part, 'The Great Gatsby' might just as well be called Ten Nights on Long Island..." (review by Ralph Coghlan, "St. Louis Dispatch", 1925). "What has never been alive cannot very well go on living. So this is a book of the season only...This story is obviously unimportant...what ails it, fundamentally, is the plain fact that it is simply a story that Fitzgerald seems to be far more interested in maintaining its suspense than in getting under the skins of its people. It is not that they are false: it is that they are taken too much for granted. Only Gatsby himself genuinely lives and breathes. The rest are mere marionettes - often astonishingly lifelike, but nevertheless not quite alive..." and "...no more than a glorified anecdote, and not too probable at that" (review by HL Mencken, "Chicago Tribune", 1925).

From Quiz That's All She Wrote

Answer: Save Me The Waltz

Zelda Sayre was born in 1900 in Montgomery Alabama. A child of privilege, Zelda was a southern belle and debutante known for her grace and beauty. At a country club dance, she met an older writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (he was four years older). Fitzgerald was enticed by the beautiful Zelda, and the two were married shortly after Fitzgerald published his first novel "The Beautiful and the Damned" in 1920. The now famous couple became icons of the 1920s and celebrities. The couple's tempestuous and often fractious marriage served as the background for much of Scott's later work including "The Great Gatsby" and "Tender is the Night". As a woman of important social status, Zelda was asked to offer her opinions as well. She started writing magazine articles including the well received New York Times piece "Eulogy on the Flapper." Zelda battled depression and bipolar disorder as Scott battled alcoholism. In 1930, Zelda was hospitalized and for therapy turned to writing a novel. Her work was published as "Save Me The Waltz" as the story of a southern belle who tries not to lose her self identity when her husband becomes a famous artist. The story was blatantly patterned after Zelda and Scott's own life. Scott himself hated the book and was openly critical of his wife, claiming that much of the story was plagiarized from his effort that became "Tender is the Night". Whether caused by Scott's influence or not, the book was critically savaged; and Zelda never published another work. Zelda Fitzgerald spent much of the 1930s estranged from her husband and in and out of mental hospitals. Scott became more morose and turned to alcohol as his writing career plummeted. Scott died in 1940 while Zelda died in 1948. Oddly, only after her death did scholars and critics reevaluate "Save Me the Waltz", examining the influence Zelda had on Scott, concluding that on its own the novel was worthy literature.

From Quiz Will You Read My Book?

Answer: Seagull

The book was 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull', which was eventually published by Avon Books and sold over seven million copies. It was made into a film in 1973, with well-known film critic Roger Ebert describing how he walked out after 45 minutes of viewing. He went on to say that the book was 'banal' and that 'it made "The Little Engine That Could" look a work of depth and ambition'. It's just as well he wasn't a publisher.

From Quiz One Book Wonders & Second Time Hits

Answer: Boris Pasternak

Pasternak had to smuggle the manuscript of 'Dr Zhivago' out of Russia to Italy, where it was published in 1957. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 but was forced by his own government to refuse it. He died in 1960.

From Quiz Unfinished Works by Great Authors

Answer: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Edmund Wilson formed the tentative outline that comprises the end of Fitzgerald's final novel, first published nearly a year after the author died of a heart attack.

From Quiz Literary "One Hit Wonders"

Answer: Margaret Mitchell

Like Harper Lee, Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize (1937) for her epic novel. Margaret Mitchell originally named her heroine 'Pansy O'Hara'. The publisher didn't like the name and persuaded her to change it. Could we imagine Scarlett O'Hara by any other name?

From Quiz Ten Great Unfinished Novels

Answer: F. Scott Fitzgerald

By the late 1930s, Fitzgerald was working in Hollywood, although some said he found the work beneath him. He had completed 17 of 31 planned chapters of the novel, enough for some critics to hail it as as masterpiece in progress. The manuscript was titled "The Last Tycoon", but someone (Fitzgerald?) corrected that to "The Love of the Last Tycoon", and that was how it became known. It was a tale of Hollywood, tracing the story of a producer. Some said the character was based on certain of those Fitzgerald had encountered. Writing in the New York Times, J. Donald Adams described the novel thus: "it is the best piece of creative writing that we have about one phase of American life - Hollywood and the movies." The novel was edited and published in 1941. You may have noted the "great sled into the sky" remark as being a reference to Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby".

From Quiz Negative Reviews of Literary Classics

Answer: "To Kill a Mockingbird" (Harper Lee)

"To Kill a Mockingbird" was published in 1960. Upon its release, most reviews were favourable but not all were kind. The "Atlantic Monthly" termed it "sugar water served with humour". Flannery O'Connor, a rival author, belittled it as a children's book: "I think for a child's book it does all right...it's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they're reading a child's book." The comment quoted in the question was from a review by Granville Hicks in "The Saturday Review" (1960).

From Quiz That's All She Wrote

Answer: Wuthering Heights

Emily Bronte was the middle sister of the amazing trio of 19th Century authors that included older sister Charlotte and younger sister Anne. Emily Bronte was born in 1820 and died at the age of thirty having published only one novel, the smoldering tale of Victorian Age sexuality and violence "Wuthering Heights". Emily Bronte herself was a reclusive and private person, about whom little is known. She was weak in physical health but apparently had a prodigious intellect and mind. In 1842 Charlotte and Emily studied together in Belgium hoping to learn French well enough to open their own school. Emily self taught herself German and along with her two sisters published a collective work of poetry. Her death at age thirty was attributed to consumption. "Wuthering Heights" remains a work of stunning passion that shocked the early Victorian sensibilities with its honest sexuality and stark violence. Charlotte Bronte is famous for writing "Jane Eyre" and "Villette" amongst other works; while youngest sister Anne was the author of the less known but acclaimed novels "Agnes Grey" and "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall". Anne died shortly before Emily at the age of 29.

From Quiz Will You Read My Book?

Answer: Joseph Heller

The novel was eventually published in 1961, having been rejected numerous times. One editor stated 'I haven't really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say'. The first extract was published under the title 'Catch 18' but the novel was renamed to avoid confusion with 'Mila 18' by Leon Uris. 'Catch 22' has become integrated into the English language to describe any situation which is logically impossible, although it is also used to define any bureaucratic nightmare.

From Quiz One Book Wonders & Second Time Hits

Answer: J. D. Salinger

"Catcher in the Rye" became a sensation when it was published in 1951. The hero was a rebellious teenager, but the book faced many legal hurdles because of its perceived profanity. Salinger produced a string of novellas and short stories afterwards, but no original works after 1965. He refused to give interviews after 1980.

From Quiz Literary One Big Hits

Answer: Dr. Pangloss

Dr. Pangloss experiences countless hardships in Voltaire's clever satire.

From Quiz Literary "One Hit Wonders"

Answer: Wuthering Heights

"Jane Eyre" was by Charlotte Bronte. "Agnes Grey" and "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" were by Anne Bronte. After "Wuthering Heights" was published in 1847, some critics believed that the book had been written by Emily's brother, Bramwell, as they felt that "no woman from such a circumscribed life could have written such a passionate story" - it wasn't ladylike!

From Quiz Ten Great Unfinished Novels

Answer: Mark Twain

Six years after Twain's death a novel was published, which seemed to be pieced together from the three versions. The tone of "The Mysterious Stranger" was somewhat at odds with that of Twain's other works. It was much darker, and certainly less humorous. A lot of people had problems with the style of writing. "Tonally ambivalent, philosophically inconsistent, and thematically scattered", was just one reviewer's comment. Others, though, felt it was worthwhile reading for the caustic tone of its anti-religion theme. Do you really need an explanation of the "two fathoms deep" clue?...

From Quiz Negative Reviews of Literary Classics

Answer: Brave New World

Although "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley is now considered a classic, it was not well-received when first published. It was frequently banned due to sex and drug references. In this novel, set in a futuristic society, babies are mass-produced, conditioned to fulfill a particular role in society, and drugged to achieve a state of "happiness". Aldous Huxley explores the dangers of technology and what it can do to society. (I wonder what he would make of today's technology). Some of the reviews included the following comments: "Nothing can bring it alive" and "(he) rushes headlong into the great pamphleteering movement...(it) is a lugubrious and heavy-handed piece of propaganda" (review by Margaret Cheney Dawson, "New York Herald Tribune", 1932). H. G. Wells was personally offended by "Brave New World" because his own novel, "Men Like Gods" (1923), was allegedly the inspiration behind Huxley's novel. In 1931, while he was writing "Brave New World", Huxley told a friend that he was "writing a novel about the future - on the horror of the Wellsian Utopia and a revolt against it." Wells said "A writer of the standing of Aldous Huxley has no right to betray the future as he did in that book".

From Quiz Will You Read My Book?

Answer: John le Carré

This was a rejection notice for 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold', which found another publisher in 1963. Le Carré had worked for both MI5 and MI6, the British intelligence services, and left to become an author full time following the success of this novel. Among Len Deighton's novels are 'The Ipcress File' and Eric Ambler wrote 'The Mask of Dimitrios'. Fleming, of course, is the creator of probably the most famous spy of all in James Bond.

From Quiz Unfinished Works by Great Authors

Answer: Edith Wharton

The manuscript for "The Buccaneers" was completed by Marion Mainwaring and published in 1993, 56 years after Wharton's death.

From Quiz Literary One Big Hits

Answer: The Spanish Tragedy

The unlucky Kyd died young - largely as a result of torture. "Duchess" was written by John Webster (who never had another comparably popular work). "Volpone" is by Ben Jonson". "Faustus" is by Christopher Marlowe.

From Quiz Literary "One Hit Wonders"

Answer: Oscar Wilde

In "The Picture of Dorian Gray", the artist who creates the picture is Basil Hallward. This character was based on a friend of Oscar Wilde's - the artist Basil Ward. At Oscar Wilde's trials, the prosecution highlighted the fact that Ward often had young, naked male models in his studio and that Wilde was a frequent visitor.

From Quiz Ten Great Unfinished Novels

Answer: Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler once said: "The whole point is that the detective exists complete and entire and unchanged by anything that happens, that he is, as detective, outside the story and above it, and always will be. That is why he never gets the girl, never marries, never really has any private life, except insofar as he must eat and sleep and have a place to leave his clothes." That is recognisably true of many detectives we can think of in literature, yet Chandler had his hard-bitten Philip Marlowe get married in "Poodle Springs". Robert B. Parker completed "Poodle Springs", the eighth Philip Marlowe tale, after Chandler's death in 1959. Chandler had left just four chapters behind. The story was based in a thinly-disguised Palm Springs, with Marlowe hired by a local gambler to trace a photographer who welshed on a $100,000 bet. From the slim-pickings left behind, Robert B. Parker picked up the tale and, some critics said, out-Chandlered Chandler in style of writing. Parker, of course, was no slouch when it came to writing private eye fiction. He was the author of around 40 novels centred on his hero, Spenser. Television also picked up on the character in "Spenser: For Hire'" in the 1980s.

From Quiz Negative Reviews of Literary Classics

Answer: "Gone With the Wind" (Margaret Mitchell)

Despite winning a Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1937, "Gone With the Wind" has drawn considerable criticism, not only for its length, but also for historical inaccuracies, and for painting an unrealistic and romanticized picture of life in the South, particularly with respect to the issue of slavery. The comment quoted in the question was from a review by Ralph Thompson for the "New York Times" (1936).

From Quiz That's All She Wrote

Answer: Sylvia Plath & Plath

Sylvia Plath was a prolific writer of poetry and short stories. Her first published works came at the age of eight in her hometown of Boston Massachusetts. As a college student at Smith College, Plath started to gain notoriety for her confessional style of poetry. In 1956, she married fellow poet Ted Hughes and together they had two children. Through all of this, Plath had a life-long history of depression and mental illness. Plath was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy and hospitalized on several occasions including a nearly successful suicide attempt in 1953. Plath's only novel was titled "The Bell Jar" and was published under the pseudonym Victoria Lewis in 1961. The book while fictionalized was based on Plath's college experiences and her battles with depression. The title refers to Plath's synthesis of her own experiences into a work that is as if seen through the slightly distorted prism of a bell jar. Sylvia Plath succumbed to her mental demons and committed suicide in her own home by placing her head into a gas oven on February 11, 1963. Plath was only 30 years old when she died and left behind a two year old daughter and a one year old son. The Plath legacy of mental depression was passed to her son Nicholas, who himself committed suicide at the age of 28. Today Sylvia Plath is considered one of the most influential mid-century American female authors and "The Bell Jar" one of the classics of the modern roman à clef novel style.

From Quiz Will You Read My Book?

Answer: Dr. Seuss

The book was 'And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street', and Vanguard Press was the publisher to recognise its potential. Among the rejections was one saying the book was 'too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling', which I would have thought would be a positive, not negative, point. All the other children's authors were British, which should have narrowed your options.

From Quiz One Book Wonders & Second Time Hits

Answer: James Joyce

I think I'll wait for the Quentin Tarantino movie version of 'Ulysses'. Joyce's first book, "Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man" (1916) was a barely disguised autobiography. "Ulysses", (1922) his second, still divides critics and devotees to this day.

This is category 24453
Last Updated Dec 21 2024 5:54 AM

= Top 5% Rated Quiz, Top 10% Rated Quiz, Top 20% Rated Quiz, A Well Rated Quiz
= added recently, = Editor's Pick = FunTrivia Editor = Gold Member
Teachers / educators: FunTrivia welcomes the use of our website and quizzes in the classroom as a teaching aid or for preparing and testing students. See our education section. Our quizzes are printable and may be used as question sheets by k-12 teachers, parents, and home schoolers.

 ·  All questions, answers, and quiz content on this website is copyright FunTrivia, Inc and may not be reproduced without permission. Any images from TV shows and movies are copyright their studios, and are being used under "fair use" for commentary and education.