A new series beginning in 1800.
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
1890 – ‘The best time to plan a book is while you’re doing the dishes.’ Which prolific writer was born in Devon on September 15th?
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Agatha Christie
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Jean Rhys
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Question of
1890 – Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler is recognised as a classic of what type of drama?
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Realism
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Melodrama
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Question of
1891 – ‘Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.’ Which novelist was born in Alabama on January 7th?
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Zora Neale Hurston
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Willa Cather
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Question of
1891 – In Hardy’s classic, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which A does poor Tess fall in love with?
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Angel
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Alec
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Question of
1892 – Finish the title of Oscar Wilde’s popular play: Lady Windermere’s —
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Fan
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Mother
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Question of
1892 – ‘Little by little, one travels far.’ Which British novelist was born in South Africa on January 3rd?
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JRR Tolkien
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George Orwell
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Question of
1893 – Which short story by Arthur Conan Doyle shocked its many readers by killing off Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls?
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The Final Problem
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The Hound of the Baskervilles
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Question of
1893 – ‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,/Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge…’ which war poet was born in Shropshire on March 18th?
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Wilfred Owen
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Rupert Brooke
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Question of
1894 – GB Shaw’s Arms and the Man is a play in which genre?
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Comedy
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Tragedy
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Question of
1894 – In Kipling’s Jungle Book what type of animal is Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?
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A mongoose
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A porcupine
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Question of
1895 – In Wells’ Time Machine, how far into the future does the Traveller go at the first attempt?
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5 hours
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82 years
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Question of
1895 – In Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest which of the young ‘gentlemen’ call themselves Ernest?
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Jack
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Algernon
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Question of
1896 – Which American newspaper publishes its first book review section?
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The New York Times
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The Washington Post
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Question of
1896 – ‘I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.’ Which major American writer was born in Minnesota on September 24th?
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F Scott Fitzgerald
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Ernest Hemingway
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Question of
1897 – Who is the fictional writer of the journal which introduced the world to Dracula and all things vampire?
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Jonathan Harker
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Abraham Van Helsing
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Question of
1897 – ‘No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely…’ so begins which classic novel?1897 – ‘No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely…’ so begins which classic novel?
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War of the Worlds
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The Shape of Things to Come
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Question of
1898 – What night of the year does Collins’ horror novella The Turn of the Screw begin?
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Christmas Eve
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Halloween
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Question of
1898 – ‘He did not wear his scarlet coat/For blood and wine are red/And blood and wine were on his hands/When they found him with the dead…’ begins which famous end of century poem?
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The Ballad of Reading Gaol
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The Darkling Thrush
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Question of
1899 – Which of Shakespeare’s plays was the first to be published in the first scholarly editions of the Bard’s plays – The Arden Shakespeare?
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Hamlet
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Romeo and Juliet
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Question of
1899 – ‘It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.’ The birth of which writer in Middlesex on December 16th wraps up this century?
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Noel Coward
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CS Forester
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