Literary Trivia Through the Ages Quiz

Answer: The Black Arrow

The full title of Stevenson's fifth novel, published in 1888 in book form, is "The Black Arrow: A Tale of Two Roses". The story had first been serialized under the pen name Captain George North in 1883, the same year that Stevenson's first novel, "Treasure Island" was published.

A cross between a romance and a historical adventure novel, "The Black Arrow" is set during the War of the Roses. The story follows the young knight Dick Sheldon and his lady, Joanna Sedley, as he tries to track down his father's murderer. Suspecting his guardian, Sir Daniel Brackley and his henchmen, Dick joins the outlaws of the "Black Arrow"...

Answer: Saint Bernard

Published in 1981, "Cujo" is a psychological horror novel. The title character starts off as a large but good-natured Saint Bernard until one day he chases a wild rabbit and sticks his head into a small cave entrance. A rabid bat bites him on the nose and turns him into the neighborhood nightmare.

Answer: 3001: The Final Odyssey

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke was born in Minehead, Somerset in 1917. An inventor and an undersea explorer, his first novel, "Against the Fall of Night", was published in serial form in 1948 and as a book in 1953. It was his eighth novel, though, that brought him international recognition: developed simultaneously as a novel and a film script (with director Stanley Kubrick co-writing the film version), "2001: A Space Odyssey" took the science-fiction world by storm in 1968.

Clarke has now written four novels in the "Odyssey Series". "2010: Odyssey Two" was published in 1982 and spawned a film in 1984, although with the Cold War at its height the film explored tensions of looming nuclear conflict that were not part of the story in the book. "2061: Odyssey Three" was published in 1987 and "3001: The Final Odyssey" in 1997.

Clarke's next project was a trilogy co-written with Stephen Baxter called "A Time Odyssey". Although the third book was advertised as the conclusion, the story was left in such a way that it could continue further, although with Clarke's death in 2008 whether it will do so or not is still unclear.

Answer: Lord Byron

The legend that is Italian Don Giovanni ('Don Juan' in Spanish) was first fictionalized by the Spanish dramatist Tirso de Molina (real name Gabriel Tellez). His play, 'El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra' ("The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest"), was published in the early 1630s.

The first two parts of Lord Byron's epic satirical poem based on the same character were published anonymously to public outrage at their 'immoral content' in 1819, but proved to be very popular notwithstanding. By the time of his death in 1824, Byron had completed sixteen cantos and part of the seventeenth.

Answer: George Bernard Shaw

Born in Dublin in 1856, George Bernard Shaw was originally a journalist writing music and literary criticism. For good measure, he also co-founded the London School of Economics. It was not until 1892 that he turned his talented hand to drama: "Widowers' Houses" (published in 1898) was the first of more than 60 plays that he eventually penned.

"Saint Joan", published in 1924 and the only 'tragedy' that Shaw wrote, earned him the 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1938, he won a Best Screenplay Oscar for the adaptation of his 1913 play "Pygmalion". More than 70 years on, he remains the only person ever to win both an Oscar and a Nobel Literature prize.

Thereafter, Shaw refused numerous offers of awards including a knighthood. He died in 1950 from injuries sustained when he fell off a ladder at the age of 94. A truly remarkable man!

Answer: Julius Caesar

Written in 1599, "Julius Caesar" is one of Shakespeare's three Roman histories ("Coriolanus" and "Anthony and Cleopatra" being the other two). A story of honor, friendship and patriotism, and the conflicting demands of each, the play's dominant character is Marcus Brutus. Although the title character appears in just five scenes and dies at the beginning of the Third Act, he does speak the one line from the play that everyone remembers -- "Et tu, Bruté?"

Answer: Psammead

A shortened version of this story was originally published in serial form in 1900 under the title "The Psammead".

Written by E. Nesbit, like her most famous novel, "The Railway Children", this story also begins with a group of children being moved out of London into the country: in this case, to Kent. Soon after their arrival, the children (Robert, Anthea, Cyril, Jane and their baby brother, nicknamed Lamb) are playing in a gravel pit when they discover a "grumpy, ugly and occasionally malevolent Psammead or sand-fairy, who has the ability to grant wishes". Needless to say, the wishes the children make all tend to go comically wrong.

Answer: Odyssey

The two oldest extant works in Western literature are two ancient Greek epic poems both credited to Homer and dating back to the end of the 8th-Century B.C. The oldest is the "Iliad", the second-oldest its sequel, "Odyssey". This latter poem follows the 10-year journey of the Greek hero Odysseus (hence the name of the poem) home after the Trojan Wars.

There was originally a third part to what is known as the "Epic Cycle", although it has since been lost. Called "Telegony", it tells the story of Telegonus, the son of Odysseus. This lost epic has been variously attributed over the years, although it is known that it was not written by Homer.

Answer: Charlotte Bronte

Based upon her experiences in Brussels in 1842, where she studied languages and also worked as a teacher, "The Professor" was the first novel that Charlotte Bronte wrote. Every publisher she approached rejected the manuscript, and she then wrote "Jane Eyre", which was published in 1847. Published in 1849 under the pseudonym Currer Bell, "Shirley" was a social novel set in Yorkshire during the 1811-12 Depression following the Napoleonic Wars. "Villette", published in 1853, was set mostly in France. Bronte died in 1855 and "The Professor" was eventually published posthumously in 1857.

Answer: Martin Chuzzlewit

Published in 1844, "The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit" is considered the last of Dickens' 'picaresque' novels. Like most of his novels, this one was also first published in serial form. In the case of this work, though, the poor reception that the story received when printed monthly enabled him to make significant changes before releasing it in book form.

The most significant change was to send the main character to America. Portraying America as a barely semi-civilized wasteland allowed the author to create two of his greatest villains, the evil Seth Pecksniff and the mean-spirited Jonas Chuzzlewit.