The Writer Writes—Answers

Here are the answers to my earlier post.

One

Who wrote The Man in the Iron Mask?

Anawer: Alexandre Dumas

The person known as the Man in the Iron Mask was an unidentified prisoner of state during Louis XIV’s reign. His imprisonment was kept secret, leading to a long-lasting legend about his identity. Warranted for arrest on 19 July 1669 as ‘Eustache Dauger’, he was apprehended near Calais on 28 July, incarcerated on 24 August, and held for 34 years in four successive French prisons, including the Bastille. He died there on 19 November 1703, and his burial certificate bore the name of ‘Marchioly’, leading historians to conclude he was Italian diplomat Ercole Antonio Mattioli.

Two

Complete this Nevil Shute novel’s title: On the …?

Answer: Beach

Nevil Shute’s 1957 apocalyptic novel On the Beach follows a diverse group of people in Melbourne as they brace for the arrival of deadly radiation from the Northern Hemisphere. This radiation follows a nuclear war that occurred some years earlier.  As the radiation draws nearer each character grapples with their impending death in their own unique way.

Three

In what story did John Le Carre first introduce the character of George Smiley?

Answer: Call for the Dead

John le Carré’s first novel, Call for the Dead (1961), introduces George Smiley and the fictional ‘Circus‘ based on MI6.

Four

What author was accused of obscenity after the 1915 publication of The Rainbow?

Answer: D.H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence’s novel The Rainbow, first published by Methuen & Co. in 1915, explores three generations of the Brangwen family in Nottinghamshire.  It delves into their individual struggles for growth and fulfilment within the constraints of English social life. Lawrence’s Women in Love (1920) is the sequel and continues the story of the Brangwen family.

Five

TRUE! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?

Who wrote the short story which opens with the above sentence?

Answer: Edgar Allan Poe

TRUE! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily — how calmly I can tell you the whole story.
— First paragraph of The Tell-Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe, 1843. Poe Stories

The Tell-Tale Heart is a short story about a narrator who murders an old man with a “vulture-eye” and hides the body. The narrator’s sanity is questioned as they hear a thumping sound, believing it to be the dead man’s beating heart.