# Neat Literature Trivia **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 20, 2001, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463 "2001-11-20T20:37:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2001, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/1 "2001-11-20T20:37:54Z")
I’ve seen threads for movie and TV trivia, but none for literature (unless some nice Doper can show me otherwise 😉 ). So bring on all the trivia you know about literature. It can be about books or authors. I’ll start: \*George Orwell based the infamous Room 101 in **1984** from a room at the BBC, where Orwell worked during WWII. In this Rm. 101 they would hold meetings, which Orwell found horrendously boring. Also in real life, Orwell was afraid of rats, just like Winston Smith. \*Orson Scott Card came up with the name “Ender” because he wanted to incorporate the phrase “end game” (as in chess) somewhere, hence **Ender’s Game**. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/2 "2001-11-21T00:23:00Z")
The original title of Agatha Christie’s _And Then There Were None_ is listed on the cover of most editions as _Ten Little Indians_. The title change was due to the potential for this title to be offensive to Indians, and because it makes no sense for a book set on an island off the coast of South Africa. However, _Ten Little Indians_ was the second title. The original title was _Ten Little Niggers_. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/3 "2001-11-21T00:35:37Z")
E. E. “Doc” Smith – the writer of space operas – was indeed a Ph.D. His area of expertise, however, was food science and one of his discoveries was supposedly a method to make sugar stick to donuts. Lionel Fanthorpe wrote the novel “Radar Alert” in 11 hours. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/4 "2001-11-21T03:27:58Z")
**Youngest Nobel Literature Laureate** Rudyard Kipling, 1907, at age forty-two **Oldest Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature** Czech Poet Jaroslav Seifert, 1984, at age eighty-three ---
**Author:** ![Jeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/5 "2001-11-21T03:54:10Z")
Virginia Woolf and James Joyce share the same years of birth and death (1882 - 1941). ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/6 "2001-11-21T18:53:19Z")
[James Hall](http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jhall.htm) and [Charles Nordhoff](http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/nordhof.htm) were already celebrities by the time they wrote the _Mutiny on the Bounty_ trilogy. They were among the first members of the _Escadrille Americaine_, later the [_Escadrille Lafayette_](http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/ww1/el.htm), a group of American pilots who fought for France both before and after the Americans joined World War I. The squadron received international press and adulation entirely out of proportion to their already brave exploits. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/7 "2001-11-21T19:06:10Z")
Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis both died on the same day as John F. Kennedy. For obvious reasons their passing did not receive a great deal of publicity at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/8 "2001-11-21T19:06:18Z")
Jack Kerouac used to sit down in front of the typewriter with a whole lot of alcohol and a whole lot of bennies. He would keep drinking and popping bennies for days at a time, not moving until he crashed. Then when he’d wake up he’d start it over again until the novel was finished. He so liked being in “the zone” that instead of sheets of paper he’d type on rolls, so that he wouldn’t have to break his pure flow every thirty or forty lines. Kerouac would have loved the word processor. The manuscript for Victor Hugo’s _Les Misérables_ was almost lost. While boarding a ship, the dock hands loading Hugo’s dunnage almost dropped the trunk containing the entire manuscript overboard. There’s one hell of a rewrite! ---
**Author:** ![Tretiak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e57/32.png) [@Tretiak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tretiak)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/9 "2001-11-21T19:14:58Z")
Joseph Heller’s classic _Catch-22_ was originally titled _Catch-18_, but Leon Uris had just released _Mila 18_, also about WWII, so Heller’s publisher asked him to change it. Heller pondered a bit and thought he liked the alliterative nature of 22, hence the title which now is also a standard catchphrase. ---
**Author:** ![Fibonacci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@Fibonacci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibonacci)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/10 "2001-11-21T20:16:42Z")
Oh, Pooh… Brian Jones, of the Rolling Stones, was found dead in the swimming pool of his cottage, which was formerly owned by A.A.Milne. ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/11 "2001-11-21T20:29:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Number Six \* > \*\*The original title of Agatha Christie’s _And Then There Were None_ is listed on the cover of most editions as _Ten Little Indians_. The title change was due to the potential for this title to be offensive to Indians, and because it makes no sense for a book set on an island off the coast of South Africa. However, _Ten Little Indians_ was the second title. The original title was _Ten Little Niggers_. \*\* I’m confused… [“And Then There Were None”](http://christie.mysterynet.com/essentials/mustread/0087.shtml) was set on Indian Island, off the coast of Devon, in the U.K., not in Africa. It **was** originally titled “Ten Little Niggers”, though. Did the location change? ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2001, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/12 "2001-11-21T23:00:57Z")
Victor Hugo has a Guinness record for the shortest correspondence character-wise with another person. He wanted to know how his new book _Les Misérables_ was selling, so he wrote his publisher. Here is the complete text of that letter: > [@](#): > > ? And his publisher’s repsonse > [@](#): > > ! ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2001, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/13 "2001-11-22T02:54:38Z")
Laurange: My bad. I was confusing it with a play version set where I described it. You are, of course, correct. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2001, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/14 "2001-11-22T03:38:28Z")
> [@](#): > > The manuscript for Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables was almost lost. While boarding a ship, the dock hands loading Hugo’s dunnage almost dropped the trunk containing the entire manuscript overboard. There’s one hell of a rewrite! That’s nothing. When Thomas Carlyle completed his original manuscript to “The French Revolution”, he gave it to a friend to read. The friend’s maid, thinking it scrap paper, used it to start a fire (shades of Blackadder!). Carlyle had already destroyed his notes. He went ahead and rewrote the book. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2001, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/15 "2001-11-22T04:14:21Z")
In Walt Whitman’s poems, there were references which puzzled critics for some time. One of these was “adhesiveness” in “Songs of the Open Road”. This term and others were finally recognized as references to phrenology! Robert Browning’s poem, “Pippa Passes”, contains the famous line “God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world!” It also contains this less famous passage: > [@](#): > > Then owls and bats, > Cowls and twats, > Monks and nuns in a cloister’s moods, > Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry. The underlined word has always meant what it means now, but for some reason Browning didn’t know that and thought it referred to something nuns wore on their heads (no maidenhead puns, please). ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2001, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/16 "2001-11-22T12:47:10Z")
Rudyard Kipling gave his maid (or maybe the nurse to one of his children…) a manuscript and told her to sell it if she was ever in need of money. One time she was and she sold it. The manuscript? **The Jungle Book**. ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2001, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/17 "2001-11-22T14:11:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chance the Gardener \* > \*\*The manuscript for Victor Hugo’s _Les Misérables_ was almost lost. While boarding a ship, the dock hands loading Hugo’s dunnage almost dropped the trunk containing the entire manuscript overboard. There’s one hell of a rewrite! \*\* And TE Lawrence _did_ lose the first version of “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”. Checking this fact, I found this website, which describes how he actually destroyed the second version himself! [http://vicu.utoronto.ca/library/exhibitions/lawrence/lawrence.htm](http://vicu.utoronto.ca/library/exhibitions/lawrence/lawrence.htm) ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2001, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/18 "2001-11-22T19:22:38Z")
The scene in “Wind in the Willows” where Mole and Water Rat stumble across Bager’s home in the woods maybe the first published literary parody of Sherlock Holmes. “The Scarlet Pimpernel” was the first masked hero with a secret identity. H. P. Lovecraft and Robert Bloch both wrote stories where they kill off thinly disguised parodies of each other. ---
**Author:** ![Daniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Daniel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daniel)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2001, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/19 "2001-11-23T00:20:52Z")
_Venus on the Half Shell_, one of the Kilgore Trout books mentioned in Kurt Vonnegut’s works was actually published, with Trout’s name on the cover as the author. While many people thought it was written by Vonnegut, it was actually written by Philip Jose Farmer, and later reprinted under Farmer’s name with an explanation as to why and how he published the Kilgore Trout novel. ---
**Author:** ![Mofo\_Rising](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Mofo\_Rising](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mofo_Rising)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2001, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463/20 "2001-11-23T03:27:55Z")
This is on the borderline here, but did you know that as a child Andre the Giant was given a ride to school every morning by Samuel Beckett? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neat-literature-trivia/94463.md?page=2)