The best and most fiendishly difficult literature quiz – can you answer all the questions?
We’ve put together an interesting literature quiz – and we think it’s the best literature quiz around (but then we would say that). It might be considered a long-awaited sequel (long-awaited by whom we’re not sure) to our ‘true or false’ quiz compiled for April Fools’ Day in 2014. Below are 20 questions, each of which is accompanied by three possible answers. There, it’s a multiple-choice quiz – surely it can’t be that difficult! But beware: there may be a few traps waiting for the unsuspecting book fan. Indeed, virtually every question is potentially a trick question, so tread carefully…
The answers to the quiz can be found here.
1. The word ‘trilby’, ultimately derived from the name of the title character of an 1894 novel, originally referred to which of these?
2. What was the name of the real-life inspiration for ‘Alice’ in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass?
3. According to the earliest medieval ballads about him, where did Robin Hood live?
a) Barnsdale Forest4. Which actor first played Hamlet on film?
5. What did Oscar Wilde die of?
6. Which writer first gave the King Lear story a happy ending?
7. Who coined the phrase ‘Wars of the Roses’?
8. Who came up with the name Gotham City?
9. What surname appears on George Eliot’s tombstone?
10. Who coined the word ‘robot’?
a) Karel Čapek11. Which of these names did J. M. Barrie invent?
12. Who was the first person to say ‘f*ck’ on British television?
13. Which modernist writer was the first to have her writing style described as ‘stream of consciousness’?
14. Who was the author of the novel The Siege of Malta, first published in 2008?
15. Who was the author of a 1984 novel about dinosaurs run amok which became a film in 1993?
16. What is the name of the world in which The Lord of the Rings is set?
a) Middle-Earth17. Which of these phrases was first used in English by George Orwell?
18. In which war did writers first associate poppies with the memory of dead soldiers?
19. Which Scottish author first killed off Sherlock Holmes?
20. Which writer first used the word ‘muggle’?
Image (top): Oscar Wilde (author: anonymous), Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Image (middle): Cover of Peter Pan and Wendy, 1915, Wikimedia Commons; public domain. Image (bottom): The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Teaser (author: BagoGames on Flickr), Creative Commons.
My that was hard:)).
Fiendish! But I probably got a couple right. Maybe.
So difficult! I’m surprised by how many answers I didn’t know. Those multiple choice answers mixed me up. Still, I probably managed to get at least three correct, I think.
I’m leaving my answers here so I can compare it with the answers that will come out on Wednesday.
1.b
2.a
3.c
4.Pass
5.c
6.Pass
7.Pass
8.Pass
9.c
10.b
11.b
12.Pass
13.c?
14.Pass
15.a
16.a
17.a
18.c
19.b
20.Pass