New Year Quiz: Literary Classics
We look forward to 2025 by looking back at classic works and great authors celebrating anniversaries this upcoming year. Let’s see how your general literature knowledge has survived the onslaught of mince pies and Hallmark movies . . .
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1. Colin Dexter’s first detective novel, published in 1975, introduced Inspector Morse. But what was the novel called?
Correct!
Wrong!
2. The New Yorker was established on February 21 of which year:
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3. Jane Austen was born on December 16 1775. Her first novel was finished when she was a teenager but was not published until after her death. Which was it?
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4. In 1925 T. S. Eliot wrote his poem ‘The Hollow Men’ and joined publishers Faber and Gwyer (forerunners of Faber & Faber) as an editor. To do so he left a job at which bank?
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5. The fourth of Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series was published in 1975. What was its title?
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6. Two hundred and fifty years ago, Richard Brinsley Sheridan introduced the timeless comedy character Mrs Malaprop in his debut play. What was it called?
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7. Isaac Asimov’s linked story collection I, Robot was published in 1950. One of the stories, ‘Runaround’, contains his now famous Three Laws of Robotics. Which of these is not one of his laws?
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8. Which Japanese novelist, born one hundred years ago in January, once took the commandant of a Tokyo military base hostage?
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9. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala won the Booker Prize in 1975 for her novel Heat and Dust. For which filmmakers did she write multiple screenplays?
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10. Agatha Christie’s 1950 Miss Marple mystery novel A Murder Is Announced takes place in which fictional location:
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11. Wole Soyinka’s classic play, Death and the King’s Horseman, was written in 1975 but didn’t receive a British premiere until 1990 – at which theatre?
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12. Zadie Smith was born in 1975. Her 2000 debut, White Teeth, won all of these awards apart from one. Which is the one it didn’t win?
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13. Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway was published on May 14 1925. Whose stream of consciousness do we follow in the novel?
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14. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was published on October 16 1950. C. S. Lewis published one Narnia novel a year until 1956. Which was the last to be released?
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15. Which of J. G. Ballard’s celebrated dystopian novels, published in 1975, was turned into a film by Ben Wheatley in 2015?
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16. In 1925 P. G. Wodehouse wrote Carry On, Jeeves; fifty years later, in 1975, he received a knighthood a few weeks before his death. But what does P. G. stand for?
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17. 1975 saw the publication of influential science fantasy novel The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and which other writer?
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18. Elizabeth David published her first cookery book in 1950. What was it called?
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19. Seamus Heaney’s collection North was published by Faber in 1975. What topic did the collection deal with?
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20. Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen died in 1875. Which one of these fairy tales was not his?
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Wrong!
New Year Quiz: Literary Classics
Ring for Jeeves
Right ho, you’ve got a bit of work to do in 2025 in catching up on your classics, but no fear, you can start with this list here.
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
A jolly good start, and nothing a good bookshop can’t help you with over the coming year.
Carry On, Jeeves
I say, you seem to be going in the right direction. 2025 looks like a bumper year to brush up on your Brontës and stay in with your Steinbecks.
Very Good, Jeeves
Bally good show! A fine score, and there’s only one way to ensure you keep up the high standards in 2025: keep reading . . .