Though printed in black and white, great literature is bursting with vibrant colour.  In this rebus-style puzzle, color words and parts of words have been replaced with colored boxes.  Try to guess the exact hue of each.  Roll your mouse over the colored boxes to reveal the missing words.  Click the colored boxes to learn more about each hue.  Special thanks to Paul Dean for his colorful research.

Photo by zen♫♪

My street, under the greenish gas at this hour, is a morass of toffee- like, creamy mud — coffee- coloured, maroon and caramel yellow — a sort of crumbling, slushy trifle in which the floating bits of meringue are lumps of concrete.

—Collette, The Vagabond; translated by Enid McLeod, 1955.

Photo by Maproom Systems

Dawn, and the little flocks of silver- enameled tanks on every hill and the fifty- five thousand barrel tanks in the valley made you think of diamonds in a dime- store brooch — so much wealth in such an outlandish place.
 
The purple ribbons of oil splashed down every hill and turned brown and gold in the sun. Up the valley the lights on the drilling rig winked out.

—Jim Thompson, Character at Iraan, 1930; Fireworks: The Lost Writings of Jim Thompson, 1988.

Photo by creativity+

At thee the ruby lights its deepening flow, / And with a saving radiance inward flames. / From thee the sapphire, solid ether, takes / Its hue cerulean; and, of evening tinct, / The purple- streaming amethyst is thine. / With thy own smile the yellow topaz burns; / Nor deeper verdure dyes the robe of Spring, / When first she gives it to the southern gale, / Than the green emerald shows. But, all combined, / Thick through the whitening opal play thy beams; / Or, flying from its surface, form / A trembling variance of revolving hues / As the site varies in the gazer’s hand.

—James Thomson, "Summer," quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.

Photo by infidel_regime

He held that the mixture of brown earth and blue blood was a good one.

—Virginia Wolfe, Orlando, 1928.

Photo by MontanaRaven

She was dressed in rich materials — satins, and lace, and silks — all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. . . . [Then] I saw that everything . . . which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers.

—Charles Dickins, Great Expectations, 1861.

About the Guest Author, Craig Conley
Website: http://www.OneLetterWords.com
Craig is an independent scholar and author of dozens of strange and unusual books, including a unicorn field guide and a dictionary of magic words. He also loves color: Prof. Oddfellow