Memorize these and you could recognize 20.8% of all Authors clues.
| # | Answer | Appearances | Sample Clue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mark Twain | 30 | To "amuse" his mother, he hid in his pockets bats which he'd found in a Hannibal cave |
| 2 | Ernest Hemingway | 30 | This author's home where he wrote "To Have And Have Not" is now a nat'l landmark in Key West, Fla. |
| 3 | Agatha Christie | 28 | In her very 1st book, she introduced Hercule Poirot |
| 4 | William Faulkner | 26 | He was the most famous resident of Oxford, Mississippi |
| 5 | Stephen King | 23 | "The Dark Half","The Tommyknockers","The Dark Tower" |
| 6 | Anne Rice | 22 | The Detroit Free Press said "The Mummy" was "vintage" this novelist; "elegantly erotic & full of enchanting terror" |
| 7 | Charles Dickens | 22 | Early in his career, he wrote sketches of London life for newspapers & signed them "Boz" |
| 8 | Rudyard Kipling | 22 | Of this India-born writer, Mark Twain said, "He knows all that can be known, & I know the rest" |
| 9 | John Steinbeck | 19 | After scripting "The Pearl" & "The Red Pony", he wrote "Viva Zapata" for Brando |
| 10 | Jane Austen | 18 | She had several suitors but never married, perhaps because she was filled with "Pride & Prejudice" |
| 11 | Toni Morrison | 17 | This Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Beloved" was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in 1931 |
| 12 | Virginia Woolf | 17 | This author of "Orlando" based her 1922 novel "Jacob's Room" on the life & death of her brother Thoby |
| 13 | Pearl Buck | 16 | Though she wrote much about China, she called her native W.V. "World's most beautiful place" |
| 14 | Leo Tolstoy | 16 | His epic novel "War And Peace" features over 500 characters |
| 15 | Margaret Mitchell | 15 | She died tragically in 1949 after being struck by an automobile in her hometown, Atlanta |
| 16 | John Grisham | 15 | His 1st novel, "A Time to Kill", didn't sell very well originally; his 2nd, "The Firm", did better |
| 17 | Louisa May Alcott | 15 | This author of "Little Men" became an acquaintance of Nathaniel Hawthorne in Concord, Mass. |
| 18 | James Joyce | 15 | In 1922 Virginia Woolf wrote of his "Ulysses", "Never have I read such tosh" |
| 19 | Dorothy Parker | 14 | Thismagazine contributor, short-story author & poet once said, "I can't write five words but that I change seven" |
| 20 | Dashiell Hammett | 14 | This author's real 1st name was the one he gave to his detective Sam Spade |
| 21 | Ayn Rand | 14 | She took a typing job in an architect's office to help research "The Fountainhead" |
| 22 | Sinclair Lewis | 14 | This author's ashes were scattered over Greenwood Cemetery in Sauk Centre, Minnesota |
| 23 | Herman Melville | 14 | Author who wrote, "A whale ship was my Yale College & my Harvard" |
| 24 | J.D. Salinger | 14 | "Franny & Zooey" author who got an injunction in 1986 against the unauthorized use of his letters in a biography |
| 25 | Willa Cather | 13 | As a teenager, she cut her hair, dressed in boyish clothes & called herself William Cather |
| 26 | Harriet Beecher Stowe | 13 | In 1856, she published her 2nd anti-slavery novel, "Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp" |
| 27 | Edith Wharton | 13 | This author of "The Age of Innocence" was born Edith Newbold Jones in 1862 |
| 28 | D.H. Lawrence | 13 | Controversial English author whose 1st & middle names were David Herbert |
| 29 | Ian Fleming | 13 | His "You Only Live Twice" was the last James Bond novel published in his lifetime |
| 30 | Alice Walker | 13 | "Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful" is a volume of poetry by this author of "The Color Purple" |
| 31 | Aldous Huxley | 13 | Once nearly blind from an infection as a teenager, this Englishman wrote "Eyeless in Gaza" in 1936 |
| 32 | Laura Ingalls Wilder | 12 | "Laura's Memories", an annual pageant in Mansfield, Missouri, celebrates this woman who wrote her books there |
| 33 | Jack London | 12 | Famous for Klondike stories, this early 20th c. writer didn't start high school until age 19 |
| 34 | Isak Dinesen | 12 | Baroness Blixen never ran "out of" pen names using "Osceola" before & "Pierre Andrezel" after this one |
| 35 | H.G. Wells | 12 | Henry James said, "Whatever" this author of "The Time Machine" "writes is not only alive, but kicking" |
| 36 | George Sand | 12 | She was an illegitimate great-great-granddaughter of the king of Poland, & Chopin's lover |
| 37 | Robert Louis Stevenson | 12 | The Samoans built a road to this novelist's house called “The Road of the Loving Heart” |
| 38 | George Eliot | 12 | Mary Anne Evans was the real name of this "Middlemarch" author |
| 39 | Edgar Rice Burroughs | 12 | He published his first sci-fi story under the pseudonym Normal Bean, as Tarzan might know |
| 40 | J.R.R. Tolkien | 12 | This author of "The Lord of the Rings" was born in South Africa & brought to England at age 4 |
| 41 | Thomas Hardy | 11 | This author who set many of his novels in Wessex also had a terrier named Wessex |
| 42 | Lewis Carroll | 11 | He Latinized his first 2 names to Carolus Ludovicus, anglicized & reversed them |
| 43 | Jules Verne | 11 | His 1st novelette, published in 1863, was "5 Weeks in a Balloon" |
| 44 | Hans Christian Andersen | 11 | A Danish historian reports that this "Ugly Duckling" author may have been a king's son |
| 45 | George Orwell | 11 | Born Eric Arthur Blair, his pen name was on everyone's lips a few years ago |
| 46 | Henry David Thoreau | 11 | From 1845 to 1847 he lived in a cabin he built on the shore of Walden Pond |
| 47 | Vladimir Nabokov | 11 | A professor at Cornell, he translated "Alice in Wonderland" into Russian & wrote "Lolita" |
| 48 | Michael Crichton | 10 | In 1969 & 1970 this "Andromeda Strain" author was a fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies |
| 49 | J.K. Rowling | 10 | While out of work, she wrote much of her first Harry Potter book at a cafe while her daughter napped |
| 50 | Harper Lee | 10 | This author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" is distantly related to Robert E. Lee |