Literature Quiz 1

Questions

1. In what decade was the Oxford English Dictionary first published?

2. In the early 1900s a thriller was instead more commonly referred to as what sort of book?

3. "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice which I've been turning over in my mind ever since," is the start of which novel?

4. Who wrote the 1939 book The Big Sleep?

5. Legal action by J K Rowling and Warner Brothers commenced in 2007 against which company for its plans to publish a Harry Potter Lexicon?

6. Which great thinker collaborated with Sigmund Freud to write the 1933 book Why War?

7. The book Eunoia, by Christian Bok, suggests in its title, and features exclusively what, in turn, in its first five chapters?

8. Which Russian writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970?

9. With which troubled son are parents Laius and Jocasta associated?

10. Laurens van der Post's prisoner of war experiences, described in his books The Seed and the Sower (1963) and The Night of the New Moon (1970) inspired what film?

11. Who wrote Brighton Rock (1938) and Our Man in Havana (1958)?

12. What simple term, alternatively called Anglo-Saxon, refers to the English language which was used from the 5th century Germanic invasions, until (loosely) its fusion with Norman-French around 12-13th centuries?

13. Who wrote the books Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame?

14. What technical word is given usually to the right-side odd-numbered page of a book?

15. What is the pen-name of novelist Mary Ann Evans (1819-80)?

16. Which two writers fought a huge unsuccessful legal action in 2006-7 claiming that Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code had plaguarised their work?

17. What technical word is given usually to the left-side even-numbered page of a book?

18. Who wrote the plays Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard?

19. The ancient Greek concept of the 'three unities' advocated that a literary work should use a single plotline, single location, and what other single aspect?

20. What influential American philosopher and author wrote the book 'Walden, or Life in the Woods'?

21. Philosopher and writer Jeremy Bentham, 1748-1832, is associated with what school of thought?

22. "Reader, I married him," appears in the conclusion of what novel?

23. What word, which in Greek means 'with' or 'after', prefixes many literary and language terms to denote something in a different position?

24. What is the parrot's name in Enid Blyton's 'Adventure' series of books?

25. Which American philosopher, and often-quoted advocate of individualism, published essays on Self-Reliance, Love, Heroism, Character and Manners in his Collections of 1841 and 1844?

26. What was the original title of the book on which the film Schindler's List was based?

27. What term for a short, usually witty, poem or saying derives from the Greek words 'write' and 'on'?

28. What prolific and highly regarded American author, who became a British subject a year before his death, wrote The Wings of the Dove; Washington Square, and the Golden Bowl?

29. What is the land of giants called in Gulliver's Travels?

30. "Make then laugh; make them cry; make them wait..." was a personal maxim of which novelist?

31. What is the technical name for a fourteen-lined poem in rhymed iambic pentameters?

32. Jonathan Harker's Journal and Dr Seward's Diary feature in what famous 1897 novel?

33. What controversial novel begins: "\[a person's name\], light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, My soul," ?

34. Which French writer declined the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964?

35. In what city does Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace begin?

36. Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, printed in Bruges around 1475 is regarded as the first book to have been what?

37. In bookmaking, a sheet folded three times is called by what name?

38. Japanese author and playwrite Yukio Mishima committed what extreme act in 1970 while campaigning for Japan to restore its nationalistic principles?

39. Which novel begins "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife..."?

40. What was Christopher Latham Scholes' significant invention of 1868?

41. In Shakespeare's King Lear, which two daughters benefit initially from their father's rejection of the third daughter Cordelia?

42. Who wrote Naked Lunch, (also titled The Naked Lunch)?

43. French writer Sully Prudhomme was the first winner of what prize in 1901?

44. What is the name of the first digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971?

45. The word 'book' is suggested by some etymologists to derive from the ancient practice of writing on tablets made of what wood?

46. Who established Britain's first printing press in 1476?

47. In 1969, P H Newby's book Something to Answer For was the first winner of what prize?

48. In what decade were ISBN numbers introduced to the UK?

49. What was the pen-name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson?

50. What significant law relating to literary and artistic works was first introduced in 1709?

51. Who detailed his experiences before and during World War I in Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man, and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer?

52. What is the main dog character called in Norton Juster's 1961 popular children's/adult-crossover book The Phantom Tollbooth?

53. The period between 1450 and 1600 in European development is known by what term, initially used by Italian scholars to express the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture?

54. Which American poet and humanist wrote and continually revised a collection of poems called Leaves of Grass?

55. Who wrote the 1845 poem The Pied Piper of Hamelin?

56. What 16th century establishment in London's Bread Street was a notable writers' haunt?

57. Who wrote the significant scientific book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687?

58. What term originally meaning 'storehouse' referred, and still refers, to a periodical of various content and imaginative writing?

59. What term and type of comedy is derived from the French word for stuffing?

60. Who wrote Dr Zhivago?

61. Who wrote the 1891 book Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra)?

62. What relatively modern school of philosophy, popular in literature since the mid 1900s, broadly embodies the notion of individual freedom of choice within a disorded and inexplicable universe?

63. What is the Old English heroic poem, surviving in a single copy dated around the year 1000, featuring its eponymous 6th century warrior from Geatland in Sweden?

64. Who was the youngest of the three Brontë writing sisters?

65. Who wrote the maxim 'Cogito, ergo sum' (I think, therefore I am)?

66. Which short-lived dramatist is regarded as the first great exponent of blank verse?

67. Which Polish-born naturalised British novelist's real surname was Korzeniowski?

68. Who in 1450 invented movable type, thus revolutionising printing?

69. Who wrote the seminal 1936 self-help book How to Win Friends and Influence People?

70. In bookmaking how many times would an quarto sheet be folded?

71. In 1960 the UK publishing ban was lifted on what 1928 book?

72. Who wrote the famous 1855 poem The Charge of the Light Brigade?

73. By what name is the writer François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778) better known?

74. William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey are commonly referred to as the 'what' Poets?

75. Who wrote the 1513 guide to leadership (titled in English) The Prince?

76. Who wrote the 1866 book Crime and Punishment?

77. What name for a lyrical work, typically 50-200 lines long, which from the Greek word for song?

78. Around 100AD what type of book construction began to replace scrolls?

79. Who wrote The Power of Positive Thinking in 1953?

80. What were the respective family names of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?

81. What Japanese term (meaning 'fold' and 'book') refers to a book construction made using concertina fold, with writing/printing on one side of the paper?

82. What was the 1920s arts group centred around Leonard and Virginia Woolf and the district of London which provided the group's name?

83. According to Matthew 27 in the Bible what prisoner was released by Pontius Pilate instead of Jesus?

84. Which pioneering American poet and story-teller wrote The Fall of the House of Usher?

85. What word, extended from a more popular term, refers to a fictional book of between 20,000 and 50,000 words?

86. Who wrote the 1947 book The Fountainhead?

87. What famous 1818 novel had the sub-title 'The Modern Prometheus'?

88. What is the female term equating to a phallic symbol?

89. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis asserts that people's perceptions and attitudes are affected particularly by what: book covers, book price, or words and language?

90. The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) code was increased to how many digits from 1 January 2007?

91. Stanley Kubrick successfully requested the UK ban of his own film based on what Anthony Burgess book?

92. Japanese three-line verses called Haiku contain how many syllables?

93. Derived from Greek meaning summit or finishing touch, what word refers to the publisher's logo and historically the publisher's details at the end of the book?

94. What was Samuel Langhorne Clemens' pen-name?

95. Cheap literature of the 16-18th centuries was known as 'what' books, based on the old word for the travelling traders who sold them?

96. What word, meaning 'measure' in Greek, refers to the rhythm of a line of verse?