I Have a Novel Idea! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams (born Thomas Lanier Williams) is far better known for his plays such as "The Glass Menagerie", "A Streetcar Named Desire", and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" than for his novels. Williams didn't even mention "Moise" in his memoirs; biographers refer to it as one of the failures in his canon. "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" is far more well-known because it was made into a film in 1961 by Jose Quintero, starring Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty.

Answer: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow's achievements in poetry overshadowed his one novel and his other exploits, such as translating Dante's "Divine Comedy." Immortalized by his "Paul Revere's Ride", Longfellow's more sophisticated poetry includes his epic, "The Song of Hiawatha," and "The Courtship of Miles Standish." In 1884, Longfellow was honored with a bust in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey, the first non-British writer so honored.

Answer: Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman's crowning achievement was his poetry collection "Leaves of Grass," which included his most famous poems, such as "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," and poems about Abraham Lincoln: the metaphorical "O Captain! My Captain!" and the elegy "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."

Answer: Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes' career was initiated by his famous poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," which was first published in 1921. He published several novels beginning in the 1930s, although his first attempt with "Not Without Laughter" was probably his most famous. By that point, the Harlem Renaissance (a reawakening of African-American culture centered in Harlem, New York) was raging, and Hughes became the figurehead for the movement.

While his novels, plays, and nonfiction have since declined in popularity, his poetry remained influential. "Dream Deferred" contains the line "a raisin in the sun," which was used to title Lorraine Hansberry's famous 1959 Broadway play.

Answer: Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" describes the Salem witch hunts and the futile efforts by John Proctor to stop paranoia from engulfing the town. It's often cited as an allegory to the McCarthy-ism of the American 1950s, where claims of Communism in government officials created a so-called "Red Scare." "Focus" details the difficulties faced by a New York Gentile who is mistaken to be Jewish and suffers anti-Semitism on all fronts. With "The Crucible," "Death of a Salesman" is Miller's most enduring work.

It describes the title character, Willy Loman, and his madness that results from a relentless pursual of wealth and social acceptance.

Answer: Carl Sandburg

"Remembrance Rock" was intended to be "The Great American Novel," but it was a critical flop. Sandburg's poetry is far better- in addition to "Fog" and "Grass," he wrote the famous poem "Chicago," where the title city is described as "Hog Butcher for the World." His multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln earned a Pulitzer Prize, as did another of his poetry collections.

Another famous work by Sandburg is a series of stories for children, entitled "Rootabaga Stories."

Answer: Edgar Allan Poe

Despite Poe's large output of short stories and poetry, he wrote only one novel, about the title character who sneaks onto a whaling vessel. The jittery plot was poorly-received by many critics and today, "Arthur Gordon Pym" can't come close to matching the success of Poe's other works. Short stories like "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" illustrate Poe's fondness for the mysterious and eerie, while his poetry like "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven" are among the most famous in American literature.

In addition, Poe wrote the first detective story ("Murders in the Rue Morgue") and influenced the genre of science fiction with works like "The Balloon Hoax."

Answer: E.E. Cummings

The poetry of E.E. Cummings (or as sometimes cited, e.e. cummings) is probably more famous for its lack of capital letters and punctuation marks than for its contents, but his works like "anyone lived in a pretty how town" catapulted him into the ranks of the Lost Generation poets.

These Americans living in Europe explored life after World War I and included Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and John dos Passos. Cummings' "The Enormous Room" is a semi-autobiographical tale of the author's war experiences.

Answer: Edward Albee

Edward Albee is probably the most famous American member of the Theatre of the Absurd (a primarily European genre of plays that utilize strange plots and illustrate existential themes). Albee's most famous plays include 2002's "The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?" and also "The Zoo Story," but he's probably best-known for the three-act play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" which is said to be based on his time at Trinity College.

He earned a Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2005.

Answer: Washington Irving

Two of Washington Irving's most famous works appear in "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon": "Rip van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The former tells the story of a man who accidentally sleeps for 20 years. "Sleepy Hollow" discusses the plight of Ichabod Crane, who is in competition with Brom Bones for the love of Katrina von Tassel.

The Headless Horseman (really Bones in disguise) successfully chases Ichabod out of Sleepy Hollow and gets the girl. Washington Irving was one of the first popular American authors- his first work was published in 1802- and was a strong influence on American literature even after his death.