The more I read, the more I discover what I haven’t read

Hydrangeas and tansy from Couchwood,

photo by C. Hoggard

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 As is my wont, when there’s no bee in my bonnet for a post, I pull down a book from the antique shelf (found in the attic, put back together, refurbished) behind the computer—my resource shelf, I guess one could call it.
 

So I did. I'd picked up “Annable’s Treasury of Literary Teasers” by H. D. Annable for a half-dollar in 1997 at a regional writers’ conference. It became my inspiration du jour.
 

 On the last page of the chapter called AUTHOR! AUTHOR! were eight questions about poets and famous authors. I guessed at this one: “Can you name the Italian author of “La Vita Nuova,” “De Vulgari Eloquentia” and “De Monarchia”? Then where was a hint: “He wrote a very long, very famous poem, too.” Aha! Could it be Dante?  YES! Thank goodness for hints.

 

 The next section, was STAGE AND SCREEN. I doubted I’d know even one of these, but, because I’d just re-read the first chapter, I knew the answer to this: “George Kaufman did two very successful musicals with a collaborator other than Moss Hart. Despite ‘The Royal Family’ and ‘Stage Door, she is known primarily as a novelist (one of her books was set on a showboat, another in the oil fields). Who was she?” Edna Ferber.

 

Now, I know friend Dot H., being an actress and a collector of plays, would know the answers. I knew only one: “Who created the character who sang: ‘I’m called Little Buttercup—dear little Buttercup /Though I could never tell why’ in ‘H.M.S. Pinafore’”? I wrote in pencil, Gilbert & Sullivan. Gilbert was correct.
 

I knew none of the next page of questions. So I called Dot. She knew this one: “What three Shakespearean characters open a play with these lines: ‘When shall we three meet again/ In thunder, lightning, or in rain?’ and what do actors call it instead of its title?” Answer: The 3 witches, The Scots Play (Macbeth).
 

The other teaser—there were eight in all—that Dot knew was this: “Name the sophisticated British actor and playwright of ‘Bitter Sweet,’  ‘Private Lives,’ ‘Cavalcade,’ and ‘Pomp and Circumstance.’” Noel Coward.
 

So much for stage and screen. Let’s see what’s next. FIRST AND LAST. First question: “Name the author who began a poem, ‘Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright.’ Oh, I know! I know! Robert Blake. Grandson Billy has a book of that poem, only Tiger is spelled Tyger.
 

One down, seven more to go: “The first line of the poem is ‘Oh my luve’s like a red, red rose.’ Who wrote it?” Robert Burns!
 

The only other one I knew on that page was: “The first line is ‘The sun shines bright in my old Kentucky home.’ Give the author and the title.” Stephen Foster, “My Old Kentucky Home.”
 

On the next page of 8 questions, I knew only two: “Who wrote, ‘When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself.’” Thoreau, Henry David, from Walden.
 

Finally, the other one you’ll know from the get-go: “Who’s the author of the long poem that begins with the words, ‘I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear’”? Walt Whitman. Ah, yes.
 

 

So much to read, so little time. Sigh.