Leonard Cline in Ask Me Another! The Question Book

The Viking Press was founded in 1925, and Leonard Cline's first novel God Head was on their first list of six publications. At that time, Simon & Schuster (founded in 1924) was having great success with crossword puzzle books.  Publishers were of course looking for other books offering similar types of entertainment. So in February 1927 Viking Press published a question book, compiled by Justin Spafford and Lucien Esty.  It consists of some thirty general quizzes and another ten special quizzes, on specific topics (e.g., The Arts, American History, The Bible, and Sports, etc.). The answers are printed at the back of the book.  One of the gimmicks involved was the fact that each quiz was taken by someone well-known in some way, and their overall scores were published along with the quiz they had taken. Participants include: Dorothy Parker, Heywood Broun, Robert Benchley (who also wrote a Preface to the book), along with a lot of names I don't recognize more than ninety years after the book debuted. And I see one name that is relevant here: Leonard Cline.

The book was a quick success.  In March 1927, one month after publication, the book achieved a ninth printing.  A follow-up volume came out later the same year, but it was much less successful.

Leonard Cline participated in General Quiz Number Nineteen.  He scored a 70 out of a possible 100 points (with fifty questions per quiz, two points were awarded for each correct answer).  I'll copy the quiz below. One wonders which are the fifteen questions that Cline missed?  The answers will appear in a follow-up blog post.

Leonard Cline's First Novel: God Head (1925)

Leonard Cline's first novel was on the first list of six books published by the newly-founded Viking Press of New York for the latter half of 1925. Cline's book was the fourth on the list, and it appeared on October 10th, 1925.  The spine and front cover of the dust-wrapper appears below. The art is signed K.S, but I do not know who that was.

For publication in England, the novel was retitled Ahead the Thunder, and Jarrolds published it in November 1927. The spine and front cover of the dust-wrapper appears below.  The art is signed K.R.T., referring to K[enneth] Romney Towndrow (1900-1953), an art historian, critic, painter and occasional writer (e,g., The Works of Alfred Stevens, 1951), who gorgeously illustrated with eight art-deco colored plates The Secret Mountain and Other Tales (Faber and Gwyer, 1926) by Kenneth Morris, another favorite book of mine.