Q 01/05

Which Emma Stone teen comedy from 2010 takes its premise from Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter?

A) Superbad

B) Easy A

C) Zombieland

D) The Rocker

Answer · why

B) Easy A

Easy A has its heroine stitch a red letter onto her clothes after reading the novel in English class. The writer set out to give the 1850 book a high-...

Q 02/05

Nathaniel Hawthorne, born in Salem in 1804, shared his birthday with which American national holiday?

A) Independence Day

B) Thanksgiving Day

C) Christmas Day

D) New Year's Day

Answer · why

A) Independence Day

Independence Day 1804 was the date. The house where he was born was moved across Salem in 1958 to stand beside the mansion that inspired one of his no...

Q 03/05

Which letter did Hawthorne add to his surname, probably to distance himself from a notorious ancestor?

A) E

B) N

C) W

D) R

Answer · why

C) W

W was the addition, made in his early twenties soon after college. He was born with the shorter spelling used by his Puritan forebears.

Q 04/05

What role did Nathaniel Hawthorne's great-great-grandfather play in the Salem witch trials of 1692?

A) An accuser

B) A juror

C) The hangman

D) A judge

Answer · why

D) A judge

A judge who questioned the accused, he is not known to have repented, unlike his colleague Samuel Sewall. That inherited guilt runs through the author...

Q 05/05

Which novel did Herman Melville dedicate to Nathaniel Hawthorne a year after the two met at a picnic?

A) Moby-Dick

B) Typee

C) Billy Budd

D) Redburn

Answer · why

A) Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick was taking shape when the two writers became friends in 1850. Days after they met, Melville's long unsigned review praising the older man's ...