Thursday, January 17, 2008

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 12): Tale of Two Authors

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jan 12): Tale of Two Authors:
Q: Name a famous American novelist whose last name contains nine letters. Drop the first and last letters, and rearrange the remaining seven letters to name another famous American novelist. Who are these authors? Hint: The first novelist is male, and the second one is female.
If you look for a clue in my title, you'd be missing something obvious -- Charles Dickens is an English novelist, not American. Honestly you'd figure out more from the puzzle than from examining my title for a hidden clue. The one thing I will say is that both novelists were alive at the same time, though barely. Does that help?

Edit: The title was an obvious reference to "A Tale of Two Cities". The item that was missing was the letter 'A'. That was a rather obtuse clue to "The Scarlet Letter", a novel by the first author.
The other clue was hidden in "puzzle than from examining..."
"Ethan Frome" was a novel by the second author.
The 3rd clue just gave you more information to confirm your answer and might have given away that both authors were deceased.
Putting it all together:
A:
(Nathaniel) HAWTHORNE (1804-1864)
(Edith) WHARTON (1862-1937)

3 comments:

  1. The owner of the site hath brought no wrath but confusion to mine eyes!

    ReplyDelete
  2. No wrath was an anagram for Wharton.
    Owner and hath were an anagram for Hawthorne

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like your hints better than mine!

    ReplyDelete

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