It Was a Dark and Stormy Night... Quiz

Answer: Franny and Zooey

"Franny and Zooey" was the combination of two works: The short story "Franny" and the novella "Zooey". Franny and Zooey were siblings in the Glass family, who appeared in several other Salinger stories, including "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut".

The first line listed above came from "Franny", which took place during the weekend of a big college football game. Franny met her boyfriend Lane at his college to attend the festivities but instead began to have a breakdown. Zooey was Franny's brother, and his story picked up after Franny returned home following her breakdown. Most of "Zooey" had to do with a long, philosophical discussion Franny and Zooey had over their spiritual beliefs. "Franny" was first published in 1955 and "Zooey" in 1957 in "The New Yorker" magazine, but the two were then published together as a book in 1961.

Answer: It

The paper boat floating in a gutter was on the cover of the first edition of "It". Although usually associated with the clown Pennywise, "It" was actually a shapeshifter who could turn into whatever its victim feared most. It lived underground and would appear every twenty-seven years to claim its victims.

The novel took place in both the 1950s and 1980s. In the 1950s, a group of misfit kids called the Losers almost succeeded in killing It, but in the mid 1980s, It returned, and the group, now adults, once again banded together to destroy it.

Answer: The Big Sleep

Published in 1939, "The Big Sleep" was Raymond Chandler's first novel featuring detective Philip Marlowe. Chandler had created the novel by using parts of two earlier stories, "Killer in the Rain" and "The Curtain", that had been published in a magazine.

As a result of combining the two unrelated stories, "The Big Sleep" was rather a complex story with interwoven plots that at times could be hard to follow. In the story, Marlowe was asked to deal with a blackmailer who had naked photos of the mentally-unbalanced daughter of a wealthy man. Multiple murders occurred along the way, with one murder famously remaining unsolved at the end of the story - who killed the chauffeur?

Answer: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Published in 1852, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was reportedly one of the best-selling books of the 19th century. The anti-slavery novel was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe who was a Connecticut teacher and a fervent abolitionist; she wrote the novel in response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and was inspired by the 1849 work, "The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself" as well as from interviews with escaped slaves.

The story revolved around the character of Uncle Tom, a middle-aged slave owned by a family who had to sell him for financial reasons.

He was purchased by a man who later promised to free him, but the man died before doing so, and his widow sold Tom to the evil Simon Legree. An additional plot in the story followed another slave, Eliza, who was also to be sold with Tom but escaped. Stowe met President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, and according to legend, he stated, "So this is the little lady who started this great war," although there is no proof that Lincoln actually made the quote.

Answer: Crime and Punishment

Originally released as a serial in a literary magazine, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" was published in 1866. The story followed a poor man in Saint Petersburg, Rodion Raskolnikov, who decided to murder an elderly pawnbroker to steal her money, justifying the deed as a benefit to society.

However he bungled the crime and only grabbed a few items before escaping, and although there was no evidence to link him to the crime, his guilt wore him down. There were a few other plots in the story including that of an acquaintance of Raskolnikov, a drunkard named Semyon Marmeladov who had squandered his family's money.

It was the Marmeladov arch that contributed to the original title.

Answer: The Grapes of Wrath

Published by John Steinbeck in 1939, "The Grapes of Wrath" received the Pulitzer Prize and was mentioned as a contributing factor when Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. The story followed a poor Oklahoma farming family who lost their farm due to foreclosure after their crops were destroyed by the Dust Bowl.

They then headed to California, hoping to find work, but many other migrants had also made the trek, so with the abundance of labor, the wages were low and laborers were exploited.

The story painted a bleak picture of the life of migrant workers during the Depression, which was Steinbeck's goal, claiming he wanted to "put a tag of shame" on the greed that was responsible for the misery during the Depression.

Answer: Babbit

Published in 1922, "Babbit" followed two years in the life of a realtor named George Babbit who lived in the midwestern American city of Zenith. Babbit led a successful middle-class life, conforming to the expectations of society, but he gradually became disenchanted with his life and was drawn into a bohemian subculture.

His friends and colleagues tried to lure him back to conformity and deserted him when he refused to give up his new life. He eventually had to choose between his desires and society's expectations after his wife became ill. Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters," and although the award wasn't specifically given for "Babbit", the influence of the book was probably a factor.

The word "Babbit" is now used in English to describe a person who blindly conforms to prevailing standards.

Answer: The Red Badge of Courage

Based in the American Civil War, "The Red Badge of Courage" was Crane's second novel following "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets", and the title referred to the wounds received in battle. Crane hadn't served in the American Civil War; he was born after it, but he used veterans' accounts to realistically portray the battles in his book.

In the story, Private Henry Fleming struggled with cowardice. He initially deserted his unit during a battle and was affected by the shame of his actions, particularly when he was treated for an injury that the others thought was from battle.

He later overcame his fear and was able to fight with his unit. The last line of the novel also ended with the weather: "Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds."

Answer: The Fall of the House of Usher

The quote ends with: "At length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher". "The Fall of the House of Usher" was published by Poe in 1839 in "Burton's Gentleman's Magazine". In the story, Roderick Usher was suffering from an undiagnosed condition and asked a friend to visit him. Usher's twin sister Madeline was also suffering from the same malady and died soon after the arrival of the friend. Roderick and the friend buried her in the family tomb, and then odd things began to happen at the house, which eventually literally split in two. Several sources have been proposed as the inspiration for the story, including that of the Hezekiah Usher House in Boston.

Answer: I Am Legend

A combination vampire/zombie novel, "I Am Legend" told the tale of Robert Neville, the last apparent survivor of a 1970s pandemic that turned its victims into vampires. Neville spent his time researching the disease to find a way to kill the vampires other than the tedious task of driving stakes through their hearts.

But the vampires also found a way to survive the daylight, and instead of hunting them, Neville became the hunted. The book has been adapted to film a few times, with Matheson writing the screenplay to the first version, 1964's "The Last Man on Earth" (although he disagreed with the re-writes and had his name removed from the credits).