Test your knowledge with these top questions!
Which work was George Eliot's first published fiction under her pen name?
The three linked novellas appeared in 1857, before her first full-length novel, Adam Bede.
George Eliot was the pen name of which British writer?
The pseudonym first appeared with Scenes of Clerical Life in 1857 and remained on her later fiction.
Which Lewis Carroll poem features the invented word "slithy"?
The word "slithy" blends "slimy" and "lithe," showing Carroll's playful use of portmanteau words.
Lewis Carroll's pen name draws on Latin versions of which personal names?
The pseudonym reverses and anglicizes two translated given names, leaving Dodgson's surname out entirely.
Which female writer, like George Eliot, used a masculine pen name?
The French novelist Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin also adopted a masculine pseudonym for published fiction.
Which pen name did Mark Twain use for a series of humorous letters?
Clemens gave the comic letter writer rustic spelling and grammar, turning the correspondence into a recurring character.
Which river did Mark Twain pilot steamboats on?
Clemens's riverboat years gave him firsthand knowledge of the waterways and language behind his literary persona.
Which river-depth call inspired Mark Twain's pen name?
Riverboat leadsmen used "by the mark twain" when the sounding line showed a depth of roughly twelve feet.
From which feature did George Orwell take the surname "Orwell"?
The name refers to a Suffolk waterway that Orwell knew and loved, rather than to an inherited surname.
What was Mark Twain's birth name?
Mark Twain was a pen name, not a family name; the author used it for his public literary career.