Literature

Question 1

One of Melvyn Bragg’s ‘Twelve Books That Changed the World’, who wrote the
1792 work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman?

Answer 1

Mary Wollstonecraft

Question 2

One of Melvyn Bragg’s ‘Twelve Books That Changed the World’, who wrote the
1776 work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations?

Answer 2

Adam Smith

Question 3

Which poet, whose works include Anne Hathaway, Elvis’s Twin Sister and
Salome, was the UK’s Poet Laureate from 2009-19?

Answer 3

Carol Ann Duffy

Question 4

Which poet, whose works include Homecoming, November and Kid, succeeded
Carol Ann Duffy as Poet Laureate in 2019?

Answer 4

Simon Armitage

Question 5

In a line of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet says that which type of flower
“by any other name would smell as sweet”?

Answer 5

Rose

Question 6

Which type of flower, that is also an alternative title for the poem, completes the
William Wordsworth lines: “I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o’er
vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden…”?

Answer 6

Daffodils

Question 7

Which author is best known for the children’s novels Little Lord Fauntleroy, A
Little Princess and The Secret Garden?

Answer 7

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Question 8

Which author is best known for the children’s novels Stuart Little, The Trumpet
of the Swan and Charlotte’s Web?

Answer 8

E. B. (Elwyn Brooks) White

Question 9

The title character in Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s 2000s comic book
series Y: The Last Man is the only man in a world of women, after a disaster
wipes out all males. Y is short for what name, that he shares with a character in
Hamlet who appears only as a skull?

Answer 9

Yorick

Question 10

In the comic book series Y: The Last Man, Yorick’s surname is which colour? He
shares this name with Paddington Bear’s adoptive family.

Answer 10

Brown

Question 11

Winning in 1955, who is the only Icelandic writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Answer 11

Halldór Laxness

Question 12

Winning in 1998, who is the only Portuguese writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Answer 12

José Saramago

Question 13

Which 2014 Liane Moriarty novel, about five women caught up in a murder investigation, was turned into an HBO TV series starring Nicole Kidman alongside Reese Witherspoon and Shailene Woodley?

Answer 13

Big Little Lies

Question 14

Which 2018 Liane Moriarty novel, about a group of people who meet on a 10-day health and wellness retreat, was turned into a Hulu mini-series starring Nicole Kidman alongside Melissa McCarthy and Luke Evans?

Answer 14

Nine Perfect Strangers

Question 15

Which Eisner Award winning comic book series, created by Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance with the Brazilian artist Gabriel Bá, was made into a successful Netflix series which began in 2019?

Answer 15

The Umbrella Academy

Question 16

In 1996, Anthony Julius published a book examining the antisemitism of which
Nobel Prize-winning poet, who wrote in a 1920 poem “The rats are underneath
the piles / The Jew is underneath the lot.”?

Answer 16

T. S. Eliot

Question 17

Which novelist in 1983 became the first African American woman to win a
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but in more recent years has come under fire for her
promotion of David Icke and antisemitism such as in her 2017 poem It Is Our
(Frightful) Duty to Study the Talmud?

Answer 17

Alice Walker

Question 18

Predating Charles Dickens by over two centuries, the first known use of the
phrase “what the dickens” is in which Shakespeare play, where it is spoken by
Mistress Page?

Answer 18

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Question 19

Which Polish writer and activist was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature,
and the same year won the Man Booker International Prize for her novel Flights?

Answer 19

Olga Tokarczuk

Question 20

Generally considered an unreliable narrator, Holden Caulfield narrates which
most famous novel by J. D. Salinger?

Answer 20

The Catcher in the Rye

Question 21

Which Belarussian writer and activist was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for
Literature and is known for her books including War Does Not Have a Woman’s
Face and Zinky Boys?

Answer 21

Svetlana Alexievich

Question 22

Generally considered an unreliable narrator, Nick Carraway narrates which most
famous novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald?

Answer 22

The Great Gatsby