Beginning in the early years of the novel – as we know and love it – each quiz covers a decade of literary events – 2 questions per year. Births, deaths, publications, events; fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and books for children.
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Question of
1800 – Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent was published in January of this year. It is regarded as the first novel in which genre?
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Historical
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Gothic
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Question of
1800 – The second largest library in the world, The Library of Congress, was founded in April of this year. Whose idea had it been some 17 years earlier?
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James Madison
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Alexander Hamilton
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Question of
1801 – In May, Jane Austen moved with her family to which British city?
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Bath
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Winchester
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Question of
1801 – What was the controversy at the heart of Maria Edgeworth’s novel, Belinda?
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Interracial marriage
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Homosexuality
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Question of
1802 – ‘Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.’ Which French novelist was born at Besançon in eastern France on February 26th?
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Victor Hugo
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Honoré de Balzac
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Question of
1802 – Finish the title of one of William Wordsworth’s most famous poems written in this year: Composed upon — Bridge.
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Westminster
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London
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Question of
1803 – ‘Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.’ Which great American writer was born in Boston on May 25th?
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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James Fenimore Cooper
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Question of
1803 – The author Pierre Choderlos de Laclos died in September of this year – what was his most famous work?
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Les Liaisons Dangereuses
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Manon Lescaut
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Question of
1804 – ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud/That floats on high o’er vales and hills…’ who wrote this famous opening line?
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William Wordsworth
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Question of
1804 – ‘Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.’ Which American writer was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4th?
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Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Stephen Crane
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Question of
1805 – Which Tolstoy novel of the 1860s had the working title The Year 1805 and opened in this year?
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War and Peace
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Anna Karenina
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Question of
1805 – ‘Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.’ Hans Christian Anderson was born on April 2nd of this year. In which country was he born?
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Denmark
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Holland
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Question of
1806 – ‘Light tomorrow with today.’ Which famous female British poet was born on March 6th?
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Christina Rossetti
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Question of
1806 – The first American dictionary – recording distinctive American spellings – was published by whom?
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Noah Webster
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George and Charles Merriam
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Question of
1807 – Which brother and sister published their famous Tales from Shakespeare in this year?
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Charles and Mary Lamb
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Thomas and Henrietta Bowdler
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Question of
1807 – ‘Into each life some rain must fall.’ Which American writer was born in Portland, Maine on February 27th?
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Henry David Thoreau
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Question of
1808 – Walter Scott’s Marmion, a historical romance in verse, is set in which century?
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16th
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13th
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Question of
1808 – Which famous German playwright published Faust in this year?
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Goethe
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Schiller
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Question of
1809 – Who published the brilliantly titled novel, ‘A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker’?
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Washington Irving
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Fanny Fern
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Question of
1809 – The 1993 play, Arcadia, is party set in this year? Who wrote it?
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Tom Stoppard
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Alan Bennett
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