Who am I? Authors and Works Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, pamphleteer, poet and cleric, and Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. He was particularly known for his satire of politics and society.

"Little Put" is a pun on the nation of little people-- Lilliput. "My Modest Proposal" was a satiric essay proposing that the poor sell their excess children to the rich as a source of food. "Horse sense" is a reference to Gulliver's trip to the Land of the Houyhnhnms where horses rule an unruly culture called Yahoos (humans). "Gullible" refers to Lemuel Gulliver, the protagonist in "Gulliver's Travels".

Answer: Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an English poet known for his satirical verse and for his mastery of the heroic couplet. Because of his spinal condition and his caustic nature, he was sometimes referred to as the Spider of Twickenham.

"Dunces" is a reference to his poem "Dunciad". "Angels have issues" refers to his quotation "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread". Pope is the second most quoted English author after Shakespeare. "Couplet" was his preferred poetic form. "Abused someone's coiffure is greatly exaggerated" refers to his poem "The Rape of the Lock".

Answer: Edgar Allan Poe

Poe was flawed as a person, but gave us dramatic poems and chilling short stories, and is often given credit for being the father of the detective genre. Poe had a varied military career, but it is alleged that he sought his own dismissal from West Point.

Poe did not participate in the California gold rush, but he did write a short story called "The Gold Bug", and also "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Black Cat". "Raving" is a reference for his most popular poem, "The Raven".

Answer: Jules Verne

Jules Verne was a popular French science fiction writer. He did not invent the genre, but his narratives had great influence on those who followed him. He has been translated into forty languages.

"Moon" refers to his novel "From the Earth to the Moon". He wrote "Around the World in Eighty Days" and took us on an adventure under the sea in "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". "Jewels" is a questionable pun on his name, Jules.

Answer: Leo Tolstoy

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy known in English as Leo Tolstoy is generally regarded as one of the premier writers in the Russian language. His range was from novels, to religious tracts, to short stories, plays, and poetry.

"Anna" refers to "Anna Karenina", his classic novel. "War and Peace" is often cited as his finest work. "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", a novella, is highly regarded in this 'in-between' genre. "Told a Story" is bad pun on Tolstoy.

Answer: Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright. His themes often were issues far in advance of political and social movements. For instance, his play "Ghosts" dealt with venereal disease, and "A Doll's House" explored women's role in society. "Hedda Gabler" tackles suicide. "The Wild Duck" concerns family secrets and its consequences. "The Master Builder", his most enigmatic drama, left audiences bewildered.

Answer: William Faulkner

William Faulkner is regarded as one of the most honored writers of American Fiction. He won Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in both 1955 and 1963, and the National Book Award in 1951 and 1955. He also did a tour as a screenwriter, mostly as a collaborator, includes "The Big Sleep" and "To Have and Have Not".

The references are to his novels: "As I Lay Dying", "The Sound and the Fury", "Absalom, Absalom", and "The Light in August". Yoknapatawpha is a fictional county in Mississippi where many of his novels and short stories take place.

Answer: William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray was a major English novelist of the Victorian era. Like Kipling, he was born to English parents in India. His novels have a satiric twist, occasionally based on persons he met. The "anti-heroine" of his most popular novel, "Vanity Fair", is Becky Sharpe and Thackeray's contribution to literature of a scheming and manipulative woman. An "anti-hero" is found in Thackeray's "The Luck of Barry Lyndon" who is equally adept in finding his way through social situations. Had Becky met Barry, they might have had "a shabby genteel story".

They did not, but it is the title of one of Thackeray's minor novels.

Answer: Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens rose from humble beginnings to become the most popular Victorian Era writer--a respect that remains today. Many of the characters he created became icons of English literature.

"Tim" is Tiny Tim who blesses us all in "A Christmas Carol". The other references are Dickens' perhaps less-read works "Bleak House", "Hard Times", and "Our Mutual Friend". "Great Expectations", however, is often an assigned high school text.

Answer: Bill Bryson

If you name a place, it is possible that Bill Bryson has already been there and written about it. Bryson has earned a spot in making travel books a compelling read. "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" is a nostalgia trip back to the 1950s in Des Moines, Iowa where Bill Bryon spent his middle class childhood.

Bryson displays his curiosity in "A Short History of Nearly Everything" where he researches and explains how things work. He explores Great Britain in "Notes from a Small Island", the Appalachian Trail in "A Walk in the Woods", and small town America in "The Lost Continent".