Notable But Neglected Trivia Quiz

Answer: Emperor Claudius of Rome, fourth in the line of Roman emperors

Although "I, Claudius" is fiction, Graves' work follows the Roman historians Suetonius and Tacitus in their accounts of Claudius and his times. Claudius himself wrote history, including an actual autobiography, now lost. Graves has Claudius tell us that the first autobiography was necessarily dull, for political reasons, but, he says, this one is different: "My hope is that you, my eventual readers of a hundred generations ahead or more, will feel yourselves directly spoken to, as if by a contemporary."

Answer: a suspenseful novel about a beautiful and enigmatic woman

We see Rachel only through the eyes of the young, sheltered, somewhat befuddled narrator, and therefore even at the end we're not quite sure what to make of her.

Du Maurier was also the author of "Rebecca", "Jamaica Inn", and the short story "The Birds", all of which became films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Answer: a fictionalized retelling of the author's loss of his father at an early age

Agee recounts his memories of the death of his father when he himself was a young boy, along with reflections on the effect the death had on other members of his family.

Agee also wrote an account of the struggles of Southern sharecroppers: "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men".

Answer: a boy's coming of age in a Welsh mining town

Richard Llewellyn claimed to be the son of a Welsh miner, like the protagonist Huw. However, in 1999, sixty years after the book was published, it was revealed that Llewellyn was born in England and had not set foot in Wales until after his novel had achieved its success. Nevertheless, it's a charming book.

Answer: the thoughts of a variety of London residents over the course of a single day

On the day in question, Mrs. Dalloway is preparing to host a dinner party. Other characters' thoughts and emotions are as prominent in the book as Mrs. Dalloway's, often appearing when the reader least expects them. Mrs. Dalloway is also a character in five of Woolf's short stories and in another novel, "The Voyage Out".

Answer: a light-hearted newspaper column in the 1930s

In 1937, Jan Struther began writing a column in the London Times consisting of the clever and thought-provoking observations of an upper-middle class English housewife. As World War II started to threaten the "ordinary" way of life Struther was documenting, the tone changed to a more serious look at the impact of the war on Londoners.

The book was published in 1938. In 1942, an American movie adaptation was made, vastly different from the book, encouraging support for the war effort.

Answer: a humorous story featuring a giant, a dragon, and a magic sword

Recalling his childhood, Tolkien once said, "I desired dragons with a profound desire." His first piece of fiction, in fact, written at age seven, was about "a great green dragon." Tolkien's fascination with dragons lasted throughout his life; they appear prominently not only in his fiction (Smaug is a prime example), but also in his scholarship and in his beautiful but lesser known visual art.

Answer: "Jane Eyre" from Rochester's wife's point-of-view

The protagonist is Antoinette, a Creole girl from Jamaica, who is treated quite badly by Mr. Rochester, eventually being locked in the attic to hide her "madness" from the world. Commentators have remarked on the book's powerful treatment of feminist issues, race issues, and colonialism. Rhys, who immigrated to England from Dominica, wrote five earlier novels.

Answer: Harry Houdini

"Ragtime" is historical fiction with a difference. Doctorow weaves into the tale of a fictional family depictions of a great many historical figures: not only Houdini, but also J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Stanford White, Evelyn Nesbit, Emma Goldman, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung, among others. The novel evokes early 20th century New York City with its budding industrialism, high society, crime, racism, poverty, and, of course, ragtime music.

The incorrect answers also appear in Doctorow's novels: the Rosenbergs in "The Book of Daniel", Dutch Schultz in "Billy Bathgate", and General Sherman in "The March".

Answer: the independence of India: 1947

The premise of "Midnight's Children" is that the babies who were born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947 -- the moment India gained its independence -- were gifted with surprising and often superhuman powers. The book combines magic realism with an exploration of the culture and politics of India.