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Authors at odds over their creations

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Authors at Odds Over Their Creations — Daily trivia Friday, September 11, 2026: questions and answers

All 10 questions with answers and explanations. Play this daily

  1. Q 01Which author came to resent his famous bear books?

    • ALewis Carroll
    • BA. A. Milne
    • CDr. Seuss
    • DBeatrix Potter
    Show answer

    A. A. Milne

    The brine

    A. A. Milne was a successful playwright before Pooh overshadowed everything else he wrote, and the books' fame annoyed him; his son spoke of a 'love-hate relationship' with his namesake.

  2. Q 02Which writer killed off his famous detective to save his mind for better things?

    • AP.D. James
    • BArthur Conan Doyle
    • CDorothy L. Sayers
    • DG.K. Chesterton
    Show answer

    Arthur Conan Doyle

    The brine

    Arthur Conan Doyle sent Holmes over the Reichenbach Falls in 1893, telling his mother he must save his mind for better things, but public outcry brought the detective back.

  3. Q 03Which author, 'fed up' with his spy, wrote his apparent death?

    • AIan Fleming
    • BGraham Greene
    • CLen Deighton
    • DJohn le Carré
    Show answer

    Ian Fleming

    The brine

    Ian Fleming wrote to Raymond Chandler that he was 'getting fed up with Bond'. From Russia, with Love (1957) ends with Rosa Klebb's poisoned blade felling Bond; Dr. No revived him the next year.

  4. Q 04Which mystery writer called her own detective a 'bombastic, tiresome... little creep'?

    • AMargery Allingham
    • BPatricia Highsmith
    • CNgaio Marsh
    • DAgatha Christie
    Show answer

    Agatha Christie

    The brine

    Agatha Christie found Hercule Poirot 'insufferable' by 1930 and a 'detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep' by 1960, yet felt it her duty to keep him going.

  5. Q 05Which horror writer blamed cocaine for his 'awful' novel?

    • AStephen King
    • BClive Barker
    • CH.P. Lovecraft
    • DDean Koontz
    Show answer

    Stephen King

    The brine

    Stephen King called The Tommyknockers 'an awful book', admitting 'there's really a good book in here, underneath all the sort of spurious energy that cocaine provides.' He wrote it at the height of his addiction.

  6. Q 06Which novelist dismissed his famous dystopia as 'a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks'?

    • AAnthony Burgess
    • BGeorge Orwell
    • CRay Bradbury
    • DAldous Huxley
    Show answer

    Anthony Burgess

    The brine

    Anthony Burgess wrote A Clockwork Orange in three weeks, and in 1985 said Kubrick's film let readers misunderstand it: 'the misunderstanding will pursue me till I die'.

  7. Q 07Which Nobel playwright wrote an essay insisting his heroine could never marry her teacher?

    • ASamuel Beckett
    • BEugene O'Neill
    • CLuigi Pirandello
    • DGeorge Bernard Shaw
    Show answer

    George Bernard Shaw

    The brine

    George Bernard Shaw fumed when actor Herbert Tree made Pygmalion's 1914 ending romantic: 'Your ending is damnable; you ought to be shot.' My Fair Lady romanticised it anyway.

  8. Q 08Which novelist dismissed his own greatest works as 'bad art'?

    • AFyodor Dostoevsky
    • BAnton Chekhov
    • CLeo Tolstoy
    • DIvan Turgenev
    Show answer

    Leo Tolstoy

    The brine

    In What Is Art? (1897) Leo Tolstoy labelled his own works 'bad art', excepting only the short stories 'God Sees the Truth, But Waits' and 'A Prisoner of the Caucasus' - a judgement that swept in War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

  9. Q 09Which children's author kept announcing his final book about a magical land?

    • ALewis Carroll
    • BJ. M. Barrie
    • CL. Frank Baum
    • DKenneth Grahame
    Show answer

    L. Frank Baum

    The brine

    L. Frank Baum tried to end the series with The Emerald City of Oz (1910), sealing Oz off from the world. Weak sales of his other fantasies and children's letters pulled him back in 1913.

  10. Q 10Who later found his famous novel 'infused with a kind of gluttony'?

    • AGraham Greene
    • BGeorge Orwell
    • CEvelyn Waugh
    • DKingsley Amis
    Show answer

    Evelyn Waugh

    The brine

    In his 1959 preface Evelyn Waugh called Brideshead Revisited 'infused with a kind of gluttony, for food and wine, for the splendours of the recent past', adding that with a full stomach he now found it distasteful.

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