"B"ards, One and All Quiz | Literature: Something in Common

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. This Chinese-born English writer began with a series of 1960s science-fiction novels such as "The Drowned World" and "The Burning World". He is probably best-known, though, for his semi-autobiographical WWII novel, "Empire of the Sun", published in 1984 and for a 1987 Steven Spielberg film of the same name. Who is this writer?

Answer: J.G. Ballard

James Graham Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, China. His experience as a young British boy living in Shanghai as the Imperial Japanese Army occupied the city during WWII formed the basis for "Empire of the Sun". A 12-year old Christian Bale played the boy, James "Jim" Graham, in the Spielberg film.

The style of Ballard's work is considered sufficiently distinctive for the 'Collins English Dictionary' to include the adjective "Ballardian", defined as meaning "...bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments".

J.G. Ballard died in London in 2009 aged 78.

2. Widely regarded as one of the greatest authors of the 20th century, this Canadian-born American writer was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1988. He was the first writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times, for "The Adventures of Augie March" in 1954, "Herzog" in 1965 and "Mr. Sammler's Planet" in 1971. Who is this writer?

Answer: Saul Bellow

Born Solomon Bellows in 1915 in the Montreal borough of Lachine, in 1976 Saul Bellow became the seventh American winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1976, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for "Humboldt's Gift". In 1980, he won the O.Henry Award for his short story "A Silver Dish", published in "The New Yorker" magazine in 1978.

The National Book Award for Fiction was first awarded in 1950. In the first 65 years after its inception, Bellow was the only three-time winner.

Bellow died in 2005 aged 89.

3. One of this writer's early literary efforts was "Jane Annie" (or "The Good Conduct Prize"), a comic-opera co-written with Arthur Conan Doyle for the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte. He went on to write a 4-act play, "Quality Street" and the novel "The Little White Bird" before penning his most famous work, written as a play in 1904 and published as a novel in 1911. Who is this writer?

Answer: J.M. Barrie

Born in 1860 in the burgh of Kirriemuir in Angus on the east coast of central Scotland, James Matthew Barrie was made a baronet by King George V in 1913 and received the Order of merit in 1922.

Barrie's most famous creation, Peter Pan, first appeared in his 1904 play, variously titled "Peter Pan", "The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up" and "Peter and Wendy". The original 1905 Broadway production starred American actress Maude Adams in the title role. The same story was then rewritten in novel form and published in 1911.

Barrie died in 1937 aged 77.

4. She was 46 years old when her first novel, "A Woman of Substance", the first in her "Emma Harte Saga", was published. She now has more than 30 novels in print, all of them bestsellers in both the US and UK. She is noted for writing about ordinary women who achieve the extraordinary. Who is this writer?

Answer: Barbara Taylor Bradford

Born Barbara Taylor in 1933 in Leeds, Yorkshire in northern England, Barbara Taylor Bradford's debut novel has become one of the ten best-selling novels of all time, with more than 30 million copies sold. Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and achieved sales approaching 100 million. Ten of her novels have been adapted either for TV movies or for mini-series.

Thirty years after it began with "A Woman of Substance", the seventh novel in the "Emma Harte Saga", "Breaking the Rules", was published in 2009.

5. Born in the 5th-century B.C., probably on the island of Kea in the Aegean Sea, he was heralded by the Ancient Greeks as one of the nine great lyric poets (or Melic Poets), a list that also included his uncle, Simonides. He was one of the last major poets to follow the ancient tradition of purely lyric poetry. Who is this writer?

Answer: Bacchylides

Along with Pindar of Thebes, who also lived in the 5th century B.C., Bacchylides of Ceos was the last of the great lyric poets of Ancient Greece. The nine are sub-divided into those who composed choral works, which includes Bacchylides, and those whose verse was monodic.

Of the alternatives, Babrius was a 2nd-century fabulist, many of whose works are often attributed to Aesop; Bion of Smyrna was a bucolic poet from around 100 B.C.; and Boios was a Greek grammarian and mythographer, and friend of Ovid, who lived in the 2nd century A.D.

6. Born in 1856 in upstate New York, this journalist and versatile writer published more than 200 poems, 80 short stories and 50 novels, and yet he is remembered today chiefly for a children's story that was published in 1900. He went on to write thirteen novel-length sequels to the original story. Who is this writer?

Answer: L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum was born in the Madison County village of Chittenango in central New York state in 1856. He tried his hand at opening and running a store, opening and running a newspaper, and he worked as a travelling salesman, and his novels accurately predicted numerous technological advances (laptop computers, wireless telephones and advertising on clothing, amongst others) long before science and industry had even thought of the possibilities.

Baum's 'magnum opus', published in 1900 and the best-selling children's novel for years thereafter, was "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Between the publication of the original in 1900 and his death at the age of just 62 in 1919, Baum wrote thirteen further novels based on the people and the land of Oz.

7. A playwright and author, Lady Jones CBE is the great-grandmother of Samantha Cameron, wife of British Prime Minister David. As an author writing under her maiden name, she is best known for the 1935 novel that became famous when adapted for a 1944 film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney. Who is this writer?

Answer: Enid Bagnold

Enid Algerine Bagnold was born in 1889 in the historic city of Rochester in northern Kent. Brought up in Jamaica, she worked as both a nurse and a driver during WWI and wrote about both experiences in her later novels. After the war, she married Sir Roderick Jones, the chairman of Reuters news agency.

The novel for which she is best-known is "National Velvet", published in 1935 and subsequently adapted for the 1944 Clarence Brown film that starred a 12-year old Elizabeth Taylor as Velvet Brown.

8. Born between 1816 and 1820 in the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the Bronte sisters gave us such classics as "Wuthering Heights", "Jane Eyre" and "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall". To hide their femininity, all three originally wrote under pen names. Which of these names was NOT used by one of the sisters?

Answer: Branwell Bell

The sisters Charlotte (born in 1816), Emily (born in 1818) and Anne (born in 1820) Bronte each contributed one or more classic novels to the Victorian literary era. The first published work by the sisters, a combined book of verse, "Poems" by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, was published under their male pseudonyms in 1846.

Branwell was the name used by the sisters' brother (born Patrick Branwell Bront� in 1817). Considered brilliant by his father and his sisters, he published numerous prose and poems under the pseudonym 'Northangerland' prior to his death from TB at the age of just 30.

9. It is three-and-a-half centuries since John Dryden was appointed as the first Poet Laureate in 1668, but Carol Anne Duffy (appointed in 2009) is only the twentieth writer to hold that post. Only two of those twenty have names starting with "B": John Betjeman is one, who is the other?

Answer: Robert Bridges

Robert Seymour Bridges OM was born in 1844 in the town of Walmer, now a district within Dover in the extreme southeastern corner of Kent. Educated at Eton College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Bridges was a doctor by profession and also the author of many well-known hymns.

Bridges' first collection of poetry was published in 1876. He was appointed as the fourteenth Poet Laureate by George V in 1913, following the death of Alfred Austin. Bridges remained as Britain's national poet for seventeen years, until his own death at the age of 85 in 1930. He was succeeded by John Masefield.

10. Novelist, playwright and poet, he lived in Paris for much of his adult life and is widely considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He created the characters Vladimir and Estragon, Winnie and Willie, and Flo, Vi and Ru. Who is this writer?

Answer: Samuel Beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett was born in 1906 in the Dublin suburb of Foxrock in Ireland. Considered an 'avant-garde' writer, Beckett often features black comedy and gallows humor in his work. The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, Beckett wrote both in English and French, and he was awarded both the 'Croix de Guerre' and the 'M�daille de la R�sistance' by his adopted country. In 1985 he was invested as 'Saoi of Aosdana' by the President of Ireland. Beckett died aged 83 in Paris in 1989.

The characters Vladimir and Estragon come from the best-known of all Beckett works, "Waiting for Godot"; Winnie and Willie appear in his 1961 play "Happy Days"; whilst Flo, Vi and Ru are characters from his short 1965 play "Come and Go".

Source: Author EnglishJedi

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor looney_tunes before going online.
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"B"ards, One and All Trivia Quiz

The second instalment in an ongoing series of literary quizzes: ten more authors, all of whom have names starting with the letter "B".

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