Tuesday Trivia

1. Which author was married on April 1, 1993 — a deliberate play on her husband’s belief that only fools get married in the first place? 
2. What is the title of Shakespeare’s lost play? 
3. What English literary classic was inspired by the adventures of Scottish pirate Andrew Selkirk? 
4. Which word was accidentally omitted from a 1631 publication of the Bible, therefore encouraging readers to commit adultery? 

Last Week's Answers 

What was the occupation of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series of mysteries? 

The man responsible for writing the famous Sherlock Holmes mysteries was actually an eye doctor. Because this occupation didn’t pay enough for him to make a decent living, he wrote in his spare time to supplement his income. 

What do Laura Ingalls Wilder, Kenneth Grahame, Richard Adams, The Marquis de Sade, and Raymond Chandler have in common? 

Each was approaching or over fifty years old before his or her first major work was published. Laura Ingalls Wilder did not publish her first novel in the Little House series of children’s books until her sixties; Kenneth Grahame did not publish until his retirement in 1908 (age 49); Richard Adams’s first novel, the bestseller, Watership Down, was published when he was in his fifties; The Marquis de Sade published his first novel, Justine, after turning 51; Raymond Chandler published his first short story at 45 and his first novel, The Big Sleep at 51. 

When was the first novel written? 

The first novel ever written contains 54 chapters and is titled The Tale of Genji. It was written in the beginning of the 11th century by Murasaki Shibuku, a Japanese noblewoman. 

What does Jane Smiley say she would be doing if she were not a writer? 

She would choose to raise horses.