1. Salvatore Quasimodo, Già la pioggia è con noi.

    This poet, famous for a single very short poem (Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra trafitto da un raggio di sole: ed è subito sera) deserves to be better known (in Italy, he is). He was not a hunchback.

  2. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.

    Smith, a notorious Scot, is frequently repetitive and sometimes tendentious, but this time he is spot on.

  3. Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon (Mosiah 8:12).

    He claimed it was a translation but the general view is that he wrote it himself.

  4. Solomon, The Wisdom of Solomon, 17:4-5, from the Old Testament Apocrypha in the King James Version.

    The putative author being, of course, well-known for his proverbs.

  5. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.

    Since what he is doing is walking across a piece of Antarctica in June, that is, in winter, it is hard to argue with the assessment. This was on Scott's final expedition, but before the disastrous attempt on the Pole. The preposterous walk described was undertaken by three men, and nobody was killed this time: but the other two, Bowers and Oates, died with Scott.

  6. Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book.

    No trick here: just a straightforward chunk of a very famous poet.

  7. Ovid, Ex Ponto.

    Mr Al-Khapoun's translation was perhaps so free as to be misleading. Ovid's approach to life is contrasted with that of Captain Shaw, of the London Fire Brigade, by the Fairy Queen in Iolanthe.

  8. Edmond Goncourt, Journal: 30 janvier 1871.

    Not Jules, who had died the previous April. The Prix Goncourt supplied the clue. Bismarck insisted on being allowed to continue to pursue Bourbaki in the Jura (partly in the hope of capturing Garibaldi): Bourbaki, in the end, led his army into Switzerland, like a wing three-quarter hustled into touch, and surrendered to the Swiss authorities.

  9. Richard Burton's translation of 1001 Nights.

    Not the other Richard Burton.

  10. Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy.

    Another Burton.