Portal:Literature/Did you know/Week 29

... that Washington Irving wrote the travelogue Astoria about an expedition sponsored by John Jacob Astor which culminated in the founding of Astoria, Oregon, without having taken part in the journey himself?

... that quite a number of literary works revolve around class reunions?

... that Margaret Atwood's 1972 novel Surfacing is set in the Canadian wilderness, and that it was made into a movie in 1981 starring Kathleen Beller?

... that in Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" an unsuspecting man is walled in alive somewhere in the catacombs and never discovered, even after 50 years?

... that Roger McGough is a British performance poet who was a member of The Scaffold?

... that pastiche is a literary technique employing a generally light-hearted tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style?

... that Otakar II, king of Bohemia of the Přemyslid dynasty, and Rudolph of Habsburg are two characters in Franz Grillparzer's historical tragedy König Ottokars Glück und Ende (1823)?