Henry Fielding summoned poet laureate Colley Cibber to court in 1740 for the murder of the English language.
Fielding issued the summons under the pseudonym “Captain Hercules Vinegar.”
The tragedy Samson Agonistes by John Milton, about Samson’s battle of faith and destruction of the Philistine temple, spans one day.
The octopus in Frank Norris’s novel is the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad. The railroad dominates the California state government, manipulates other industries, and oppresses struggling wheat farmers.
Dr. Faustus in Christopher Marlowe’s play Dr. Faustus (c. 1588-92), on conjuring up Helen of Troy.
Edward Bellamy looking backward from the year 2000 in Looking Backward.
The series of seven children’s books by C. S. Lewis started in 1950 with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and continued with Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Magician’s Nephew, The Horse and His Boy, and The Last Battle.
The source of the popular Disney film One Hundred and One Dalmatians was Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel.