True or False: Literature

Explanation: TRUE! Hugo wrote Les Misérables between 1845 and 1862, mainly during his exile in Guernsey, fleeing Napoleon III.

Explanation: FALSE! Don Quixote was written by the Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes and published in 1605-1615. It is considered the first modern novel.

Explanation: TRUE! Saint-Exupéry's work (1943) is translated into over 500 languages and dialects, making it the most translated French book.

Explanation: FALSE! Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street, not Fleet Street. This address is now a museum dedicated to the detective.

Explanation: TRUE! With over 2 billion copies sold, Agatha Christie is the best-selling fiction author, surpassed only by Shakespeare and the Bible.

Explanation: FALSE! Frankenstein is the name of the scientist (Victor Frankenstein). The creature has no name in the original 1818 novel.

Explanation: TRUE! Proust, asthmatic and frail, wrote "In Search of Lost Time" mainly bedridden in his cork-lined room.

Explanation: FALSE! The manuscript was rejected by 12 publishers before being accepted by Bloomsbury in 1997. One editor even called it "too long".

Explanation: TRUE! Born in 1622, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin took the stage name Molière around 1644 to protect his family from the shame of being an actor.

Explanation: FALSE! The dystopian novel was published in 1949. Orwell reportedly reversed the last two digits of the year of writing (1948) to create the title.

Explanation: TRUE! His father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, was born in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) to a French nobleman and a freed slave. Dumas was of mixed race.

Explanation: FALSE! It is a tragedy. Both lovers die at the end. Shakespeare wrote comedies (A Midsummer Night's Dream) and tragedies (Hamlet, Macbeth).

Explanation: TRUE! Submarines, trips to the Moon, video conferencing, helicopters... Verne imagined technologies decades before their invention.

Explanation: FALSE! Tolkien wrote a single long novel. The publisher divided it into three volumes for economic reasons (post-war paper costs).

Explanation: TRUE! After his release from prison, Wilde exiled himself to Paris where he died in 1900 at 46, penniless, in a modest Latin Quarter hotel.

Explanation: FALSE! The first sentence is "Today, Mother died". This famous opening illustrates Meursault's apparent indifference.

Explanation: TRUE! On June 19, 1999, King was seriously injured by a van in Maine. He nearly died and used this experience in his writings.

Explanation: FALSE! The Bible remains the best-selling book in history (5 billion+). Harry Potter has sold around 600 million copies.

Explanation: TRUE! Voltaire was a great coffee lover. He reportedly drank up to 50 cups a day, often at the Café Procope in Paris.

Explanation: FALSE! Dickens published his novels as weekly or monthly serials. He wrote as he went, sometimes adapting the plot to reader reactions.