We're Not Meant for Happiness, You and I Quiz

Answer: C.S. Lewis

Born into an Orthodox Jewish family, Joy Davidman was still married to William L. Gresham when she started corresponding with C.S. Lewis (author of "The Chronicles of Narnia"), following her conversion to Christianity. The couple, however, separated due to Gresham's alcoholism, and Joy took her two sons to England with her when she returned there after the divorce. Her friendship with Lewis (who was a bachelor) had blossomed after their meeting, and in April 1956 they entered into a civil marriage to allow Joy and her sons to remain in the UK. When, a few months later, she was diagnosed with bone cancer, their friendship had already developed into love. They enjoyed a short time of happiness together when the cancer went into remission, but then the disease returned, and Joy died in July 1960. Lewis detailed his devastating bereavement, which had led him to question God, in "A Grief Observed" (initially published under a pseudonym). He died three years later.

The love story between C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham is superbly dramatized in the film "Shadowlands" (1993), directed by Richard Attenborough, and starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger.

Answer: she could not give him children

Born on the Caribbean island of Martinique, Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie was left a widow with two children when her first husband, Alexandre Beauharnais, was executed during the Reign of Terror. In 1795 she met Napoleon, a brilliant general who was six years her junior.

In spite of the vehement opposition of his mother and sisters, Napoleon and Josephine were married at the beginning of the following year. Their union was tempestuous because they were often separated by Napoleon's military campaigns, and both had affairs with other people.

In 1804 Josephine was crowned Empress of France, but her tenure lasted less than six years. When Napoleon realized that Josephine was unable to give him an heir, he decided to put her aside and remarry.

They were divorced in January 1810, and in March 1811 Napoleon married Marie-Louise of Austria, who gave him the longed-for heir - Napoleon II, the King of Rome. After the divorce, Josephine retired to the Château de Malmaison, near Paris, where she grew magnificent roses.

There she died in 1814, at the age of 50. Napoleon outlived her by seven years, and died with her name on his lips.

Answer: piano

German composer Robert Schumann married Clara Wieck in 1840 after an acrimonious legal battle against her father, Friedrich, who had been Robert's piano teacher. His love for Clara was a great source of inspiration for Schumann. The couple was very close, and had eight children together.

Unfortunately, Schumann suffered from a mental illness that led him to attempt suicide in 1854; then he was confined to an asylum, where he died two years later. After his death, Clara devoted herself to performing and editing her husband's work, and became one of the foremost concert pianists of her era, as well as leaving behind a respectable body of compositions of her own. Clara never remarried, and remained faithful to Robert during the two years he spent in the asylum.

She also enjoyed a close friendship with another great German composer, Johannes Brahms, who was in love with her, though it is unlikely that their relationship went any further.

Answer: Brazil

Anita was originally from the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. A brave, strong-willed young woman, she captured the heart of the dashing Italian freedom fighter upon their first meeting in 1839. Garibaldi had fled Europe, and was fighting on behalf of the separatist state of Rio Grande do Sul (the southernmost Brazilian state). Anita fought alongside Giuseppe in her native country, then the couple moved to Montevideo (Uruguay), where they got married in 1842.

They had four children together.

In 1848, Anita followed Garibaldi back to Italy, where the general joined in the defense of the newly proclaimed, though short-lived, Roman Republic. During their retreat from the forces supporting the Pope, Anita - pregnant and sick with malaria - died in a farmhouse near Ravenna, on the Adriatic coast, at the age of 28. Though Garibaldi remarried twice and had numerous relationships after Anita's death, he always kept her memory alive in his heart. Anita is now buried beneath the monument erected in her honour on the Janiculum Hill in Rome, not far from Garibaldi's grandiose equestrian statue.

Answer: he was suspected of having had his first wife killed

Born within a year of each other, Robert and Elizabeth had been friends since childhood, and their friendship grew stronger when they were both imprisoned in the Tower of London by Elizabeth's half-sister, Mary I. At that time, however, Robert was already married to Amy Robsart.

When his wife died by falling down a staircase, the scandal damaged Robert's reputation (though the inquest found Amy's death to have been an accident), and the fierce opposition of some of her trusted advisors put paid to any marriage plans the queen might have had.

After waiting for 18 years in vain, Dudley married Lettice Knollys, the Countess of Essex, mother of Robert Devereaux, who would become the Queen's favourite in her later years. Elizabeth was furious about Robert's marriage, and banished his wife permanently from court.

However, when Dudley died in 1588, she was devastated, and kept his last letter to her by her bedside until her death, 15 years later. Whether Elizabeth and Dudley ever became lovers has been the subject of much debate.

Answer: Amedeo Modigliani

Born in Livorno in 1884 of an Italian Jewish family, Modigliani died in 1920, at the age of 35. He embraced the bohemian lifestyle early on, even before moving to Paris in 1906. This led him to develop an addiction to alcohol and drugs, which destroyed his health (he had contracted tuberculosis as a teenager). Jeanne was an art student when they met in 1917, and they soon started living together in spite of her family's objections. They had a daughter together, and were planning to get married when Modigliani finally succumbed to the disease. The day after the artist's funeral, Jeanne - 8 months pregnant with her second child - threw herself from a fifth-floor window. She is now buried beside Modigliani in Paris' famed Père Lachaise Cemetery.

The tragic ending of Jeanne and Modigliani's love affair shocked the entire artistic community. Though Modigliani had died destitute, his death was a huge boost for his reputation. Their daughter, also named Jeanne, was adopted by Modigliani's sister, and in 1958 wrote a biography of her father, published in English as "Modigliani: Man and Myth". Patti Smith's 1979 song, "Dancing Barefoot", was dedicated to Jeanne and Modigliani's tragic love affair.

Answer: Sylvia Plath

Ted Hughes was undoubtedly one of the most powerful modern English-language poets; his career's crowning achievement was being appointed Poet Laureate in 1984. However, his life was plagued by personal tragedy. In 1956 he married American poet Sylvia Plath, but the marriage lasted a mere six years. Plath had been suffering from severe depression for most of her life, and the separation from her husband - who had left her for another woman, Assia Wevill - pushed her over the edge.

In February 1963 she committed suicide by putting her head into a gas oven, leaving two young children, Frieda and Nicholas. Hughes was devastated.

The tragedy affected his relationship with Wevill, who in 1969 killed herself and their 4-year-old daughter in the same way.

The poet found some peace in his marriage to Carol Orchard, which lasted until his death in 1998, at the age of 68. He was spared the grief of his son Nicholas's suicide in 2009; like his mother, Nicholas was also a lifelong sufferer from depression.

Answer: Austria-Hungary

Crown Prince Rudolf was the eldest son of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Elisabeth of Bavaria. Unhappily married to Stephanie of Belgium, he sought solace in drink and affairs with other women. In late 1888, at the age of 30, he met the 17-year-old Mary Vetsera, the daughter of an Austrian diplomat, and begun an affair with her. As the Emperor had been pressuring his son to put an end to the affair, their death was explained as a suicide pact. In order to allow Rudolf's burial in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna's Church of the Capuchins, a special dispensation was obtained from the Vatican, putting down the tragedy to the Archduke's mentally unbalanced state. Copies of Mary Vetsera's farewell letters to her family were found in 2015, confirming her intention to commit suicide.

The Mayerling tragedy had huge political ramifications, leaving Franz Joseph without a direct male heir. The Emperor's nephew, Franz Ferdinand, became the heir-presumptive, and his assassination in 1914 was the spark that led to the outbreak of World War I.

Answer: Portia

Portia (or Porcia) was the daughter of Cato Uticensis (Cato the Younger), a philosopher, orator and politician known for his probity. In 45 BC Brutus, who was already married, divorced his first wife to marry Portia, his first cousin, causing a scandal. Portia loved her husband deeply, and was probably privy to his secrets - including his plans for Caesar's assassination.

When Brutus and the other conspirators fled Rome, she stayed behind, and never saw her husband again. The true circumstances of her death, however, remain shrouded in mystery.

In his tragedy "Julius Caesar", Wllliam Shakespeare had her commit suicide before Brutus' death, in the aftermath of the battle of Philippi.

Answer: he died of tuberculosis

The engagement between Keats and Frances (Fanny) Brawne came to light in 1878, almost 60 years after the poet's death, when his letters to her were published. Fanny and John met in 1818 at Wentworth Place, the house in Hampstead (in northwestern London) where Keats was living at the time, and quickly fell in love with each other. Their engagement in 1819 was kept secret because they were worried about Fanny's mother's opposition to the marriage. Soon afterwards, Keats fell ill to the disease that had already claimed his younger brother's life. Though, on his doctors' advice, in the summer of 1820 he relocated to Italy, hoping the warmer climate would help him recover, Keats died in Rome in February 1821, at the age of 25. Fanny mourned him for six years, cutting her hair short and wearing black clothing. She eventually married Louis Lindon, but cherished the memory of her short-lived romance until the end of her days.

If you travel to Rome, you can visit the house on the Spanish Steps (now a museum) where Keats died, and his grave in the lovely Protestant Cemetery near Porta San Paolo. Another great Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, is also buried there.