Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. In 1884 and 1885, while living in Boston, Massachusetts, what were the two places Alice Brown worked at?
2. Alice Brown published many novels during her lifetime. It is said she published at least once a year in her entire 35 year career as a writer. When I saw the name of her first novel it reminded me of William Shakespeare yet I didn't recall as to why since I didn't remember anything by him that was similar. What was Brown's first novel?
3. In the short story "Golden Baby" a man, only known as 'The William Morris man' is telling a story about a ship called the Siren. He's telling this story to a group of people. The man describes the passengers as rich people (so is he) who are contemptuous, in his view, and a crew who seem lacking in any sensibility. Yet when he sees a woman, whom he refers to as "coolie" based on her demeanor and physicality, holding a baby he can't help but refer to as 'Golden Baby' based on the color of his hair, the William Morris man is captivated by the sight. They are all on a voyage to the West Indies where at the most impromptu time the ship mysteriously stops in its place. Everyone is afraid. Yet at the rare moments in which he sees coolie, he seems to become dumbfounded and motionless. When the ship is miraculously fixed coolie and the golden baby leave on a separate boat for Haiti, and everyone seems to be more joyful, and happy (mainly because the ship is fixed).
When the William Morris man finished telling the story, one of the group listening named the 'Little Poet' states he's heard a similar story before, a long long time ago by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. What story do you think he's referring to?
4. Brown wrote a play for which she was awarded $10,000 by the Little Theatre in 1915. What is the name of the play?
5. "I am allowing myself the free-handed luxury of writing what seems to me the truth. So far as facts go, the narrative is to be as literal as I can make it, and that, dealing with so shifting a phenomenon as a life is about as difficult a piece of work as you could well undertake. For the minute we look attentively at our own actions, the great temptations begin to sway us. Our sympathies with our own doings are magnets, and draw the mobile human shape to the side and that, to make it fit some model of the meritorious man. We are seized with that childish and pathetic desire to account for ourselves to our own credit. If there are smudges on the page, it would be almost beyond human fortitude not to rub them out."
Alice Brown wrote this under a nom de plume for the book "My Love and I" (1912). What was the name she used?
6. Another novel Brown wrote is called "Robin Hood's Barn (1913)". There's also an expression called "around Robin Hood's barn". What does that mean?
7. Alice Brown wrote two books of poetry. I have in my collection, "The Road to Castaly (1893)". What's the other book called?
8. Concerning Alice Brown's book/poem "The Road to Castaly", I had no idea what or where Castaly was or is. So, like most people I looked it up, and found next to nothing. Couldn't find it in an English dictionary nor really any other dictionary - but then I found another work that also had the name "Castaly", attributed to Euripides. What's the name of this work?
9. "Rose McLeod (1908)" seems to be a novel resting on the subject of morality. Those who live by it, and those who choose not to by their own self-gratifications. We have Mrs. Fulton who, in the beginning, is found by the character Billy to have done something naughty concerning her memoirs. What is it Mrs. Fulton did?
10. Brown wrote many short stories in her career. In my research I have found nine separate collections. There's one particular story I caught a fancy to over some of Brown's others, "Natalie Blayne". It was the first paragraph that caught my eye:
"It was a gentle autumn day, full of beguiling promise. The earth smelled good from ripened chalices. The mist hung in the distance like an enchanted censor-cloud, and no air stilled. This was the top note of fruition, so subtly mingled with hope that the human heart had to be heavy indeed not to rejoice in it."
Although I found that first paragraph to be quite well written the rest is simplistic in comparison but quite witty. The story revolves around four main characters: Aunt Delia, Uncle Ralph, and their niece Diana -- and of course, Natalie Blayne. Who does Delia believe Natalie Blayne is, to her husband Ralph?
11. Alice Brown has something in common with Henry James, author of the novel "The Turn of the Screw" (1898). They, and ten other authors, collaborated on a novel, each writing a chapter of the novel called "The Whole Family" (1902).
While each author was designated a certain character, they had to work off the chapters before theirs to make everything work. James had the pleasure of writing about "Peggy", and Brown wrote about the "Married Son". In the ensue of so many authors collaborating on one novel the plot of the novel seemed to transfer to the writers themselves.
As James' wrote of Peggy:
"And I began to feel again just as I had been feeling, as if I were in a show for everyone to look at, and I found I was shaking all over, and was angry with myself because of it."
And Brown wrote of the Married Son:
"My point is, at any rate, that I designate THEM as Poor only in the abysmal confidence of these occult pages: into which I really believe even my poor wife--for it's universal!--has never succeeded in peeping."
Is there anything wrong with the information above?
12. In Brown's 1919 novel "The Black Drop", what is the name of the family the story is centered around?
13. The "New York Times" had this to say about one of Alice Brown's novels:
"American: that is what Miss Brown's novel is, finely and clearly and steadily American. Not the slangy, blatant, spread-eagle Americanism of those books which seem to take it as their foremost canon that to be an American and a patriot it is necessary to be impertinent and ungrammatical, but the kind which is well educated and well said, which is none the less able to vigorously and effectively because it is able to read and to think."
What novel is this about?
14. In Brown's "One Act Plays" (1921), this play was produced by Maurice Browne at the Little Theater, in Chicago, Illinois on February 11, 1913. The characters in this play are Mrs. Blair, Miss Dyer, Mrs. Fuller, and Mrs. Mitchell. What's the name of the play?
15. "Tiverton Tales" (1899) is a short story collection centered around a place called Tiverton. The very first short story it centers around the description of Tiverton, not just the place itself but also the people within it. The story paints quite elegant scenery throughout. What's the name of the first short story of this collection?
Source: Author
Nammage
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor
agony before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.
