Q 01/05

Which Dickens pet raven, stuffed and now displayed in a Philadelphia library, helped inspire Poe's poem?

A) Jip

B) Diogenes

C) Bull's-eye

D) Grip

Answer · why

D) Grip

Grip died in 1841, possibly from eating lead paint, and Dickens had her stuffed and mounted above his study desk. Poe met Dickens in Philadelphia in 1...

Q 02/05

Poe wrote The Raven while his young wife Virginia was slowly dying of which disease?

A) Cholera

B) Tuberculosis

C) Typhoid fever

D) Scarlet fever

Answer · why

B) Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis struck Virginia Poe in January 1842, three years before the poem appeared, and she lingered until 1847, so Poe was writing about a lost l...

Q 03/05

In which city, where Edgar Allan Poe died in 1849, is the poet buried?

A) Boston

B) Richmond

C) Philadelphia

D) Baltimore

Answer · why

D) Baltimore

Baltimore later called its NFL team the Ravens after his poem, the landslide choice of fans in a newspaper phone poll.

Q 04/05

Which actor narrated The Simpsons' 1990 Treehouse of Horror adaptation of The Raven?

A) Morgan Freeman

B) Patrick Stewart

C) James Earl Jones

D) Christopher Lee

Answer · why

C) James Earl Jones

James Earl Jones narrated the segment, whose writing credit pairs Sam Simon with Edgar Allan Poe himself, dead since 1849.

Q 05/05

In The Simpsons' first Treehouse of Horror, which family member plays the raven?

A) Homer

B) Lisa

C) Maggie

D) Bart

Answer · why

D) Bart

Bart is the raven while Homer plays the narrator and Marge appears in a portrait as Lenore; the children shrug the stories off afterwards, but Homer l...