Solution to All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy

by Noah Snyder & David Speyer

These are passages from famous literary works in which the letters have been replaced by the repeated words "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." In each work, the sentence "No TV and no beer make Homer something something," also appears once. Each "something" stands for a single letter, otherwise, single letters replaces single letters. Order the works so that the "All work and no play" phrases link up. (For example, the Macbeth excerpt ends "Ullb oya llwor ka ndno pla ymak." and the Raven text begins "Esja ckad u llboyall workan, dnopl A ymakesja, ckad ull boyal," so they should be placed consecutively.)

Extract the bigram labelled by "something something" to spell out ANSWER IS DEREK WALCOTT.

In the order they are given in the puzzle (which is alphabetical by title), the works are:

[U.S.] Constitution (Preamble)
Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (opening paragraphs)
The Hobbit (opening paragraphs)
I Have a Dream (entire speech)
Jabberwocky
Lolita (opening paragraphs)
Macbeth Act IV, Scene I (From "Round about the cauldron go" to"Then the charm is firm and good")
The Owl and the Pussycat
The Raven


2006 MIT Mystery Hunt