Art and Literature

1. Which ‘Chick Lit’ author’s books include ‘Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married’, ‘Sushi For Beginners’ and ‘The Woman Who Stole My Life’?

Marian Keyes

2. Which French painter, born in 1864, painted a famous portrait of Vincent Van Gogh?

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

3. Which type of bird is shot by the ‘Ancient Mariner’ in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem of 1834?

Albatross (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

4. What was the name of Stephen King’s first published novel?

Carrie

5. What is the name of Anna Karenina’s lover?

Vronsky (Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky)

6. Which Paris art museum was designed by the architects Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini?

Centre Georges Pompidou

7. Which is the fourth book in the ‘Harry Potter’ series?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

8. Which character in Douglas Adams’s ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ has three arms, two heads and shares three of the same mothers as Ford Prefect?

Zaphod Beeblebrox

9. How is the character of Oliver Mellors better known?

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

10. “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day…” Whose words are these?

Dylan Thomas

Who wrote the following famous works of literature?

1. Lord of the Flies

William Golding

2. The Quiet American

Graham Greene

3. On The Road

Jack Kerouac

4. Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad

5. Men Without Women

Ernest Hemingway

6. The Divine Comedy

Dante Alighieri

7. Wuthering Heights

Emily Bronte

8. The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer

9. Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

10. One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel García Márquez  

Narrators Quiz. The following are all characters in famous books who also act as first-person narrator. Can you identify the book they narrate?

1. Jean Louise “Scout” Finch

To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee

2. Philip “Pip” Pirrip

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

3. Humbert Humbert

Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

4. Patrick Bateman

American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis

5. Holden Caulfield

The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger

6. “Chief” Bromden

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey

7. Paul Bäumer

All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque

8. Nick Carraway

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

9. Katniss Everdeen

The Hunger Games (and rest of book series) – Suzanne Collins

10. Esther Greenwood

The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

To download the narrators quiz as a PDF contestant question paper, with questions only plus spaces for contestant answers, please click on the grey box below:

Fictional creatures quiz. We will give you ten fictional creatures from works of literature. Can you tell us which author created the following?

1. Dementors

J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter)

2. Yahoos

Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels)

3. Balrogs

J.R.R. Tolkien

4. The Jabberwock

Lewis  Carroll (Through the Looking Glass)

5. Fire Lizards

Anne McCaffrey (Pern series of books)

6. The Vogons

Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

7. Quantum Weather Butterflies

Terry Pratchett

8. The Gruffalo

Julia Donaldson (In the children’s book of the same name)

9. Morlocks

H.G. Wells (The Time Machine)

10. Marsh-wiggles

C.S. Lewis

To download the fictional creatures quiz as a PDF contestant question paper, with questions only plus spaces for contestant answers, please click on the link below:

1. What does the ‘J.M.W’ stand for in the name of artist J.M.W. Turner?

Joseph Mallord William

2. Whose works include ‘The Persistence of Memory’ and ‘Swans Reflecting Elephants’?

Salvador Dali

3. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever…’ These are opening lines by which famous poet?

John Keats

4. ‘The Sellout’ was the Man Booker Prize-winning title of 2016. Who wrote it?

Paul Beatty

5. ‘The Accident’ (2014), ‘The Lie’ (2015) and ‘The Missing’ (2016) are all novels by which British author?

C.L.Taylor

6. What colour is the coat mentioned in the opening line of ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ by Oscar Wilde?

Scarlet (He did not wear his scarlet coat, for blood and wine are red…)

7. ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ were looking for a ring so that they could be married. Where did they find one?

In the end of a pig’s nose (And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
    With a ring at the end of his nose,)

8. ‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’ by Bertolt Brecht is a satirical allegory of the rise to power of which political figure?

Adolf Hitler

9. What is the name of the town in which ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is set?

Maycomb

10. Who has written children’s books entitled ‘Gangsta Granny’ and ‘Grandpa’s Great Escape’?

David Walliams

Book sequels quiz. Name the literary sequel or second book in the series from the first book given.

1. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire

2. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played with Fire

4. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne

The Mysterious Island

5. Divergent – Veronica Roth

Insurgent

6. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

7. Jurassic Park – Michael Crichton

The Lost World

8. Casino Royale – Ian Fleming

Live and Let Die

9. The Witches of Eastwick – John Updike

The Widows of Eastwick

10. Fifty Shades of Grey – E.L. James

Fifty Shades Darker

To download the book sequels quiz as a PDF contestant question paper, with questions only and spaces for contestant answers, please click on the link below:

1. Which Austrian symbolist painter’s works include ‘The Three Ages of Woman’, ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I’ and ‘The Kiss’?

Gustav Klimt

2. In which Shakespearean play does the character of Shylock appear?

The Merchant of Venice

3. Which Mexican painter, who was married to fellow artist Frida Kahlo, helped to establish the Mexican mural movement and painted murals in numerous cities in Mexico and the USA?

Diego Rivera

4. What is the name of the first book written by J.K. Rowling that was specifically aimed at adults?

The Casual Vacancy

5. Which American children’s author has enjoyed great success with his ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ series?

Jeff Kinney

6. How many golden tickets were there in Roald Dahl’s 1964 children’s story ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’?

Five

7. In which city was the English Romanticist painter J.M.W. Turner born?

London

8. Cyan is a shade of which primary colour?

Blue

9. In which two cities is the Charles Dickens novel ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ set?

London and Paris

10. Which American science-fiction author also held the post Professor of Biochemistry at Boston University after he was honoured in 1979?

Isaac Asimov

The following are all Shakespeare quotes but can identify the plays from which they have been taken?

1. “Now is the winter of our discontent…”

Richard III

2. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”

Twelfth Night

3. “Get thee to a nunnery.”

Hamlet

4. “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.”

As You Like It

5. “Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?”

Macbeth

6. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…”

Julius Caesar

7. “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

Romeo and Juliet

8. “This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.”

King Lear

9. “The course of true love never did run smooth.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

10. “All that glisters is not gold…”

The Merchant of Venice

To download the Shakespeare Quotes quiz as a PDF contestant question paper, please click on the link below:

Poetry opening lines – Who wrote these?

1. “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward…”

Alfred Lord Tennyson (The Charge of the Light Brigade)

2. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Sonnet 43)

3. “Do not go gentle into that good night…”

Dylan Thomas (Do Not Go Gentle into the Good Night)

4. “You may write me down in history…”

Maya Angelou (Still I Rise)

5. “Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!”

Percy Bysse Shelley

6. “When I am dead, my dearest, sing no sad songs for me.”

Christina Rosetti (Song)

7. “O CAPTAIN! My captain! Our fearful trip is done…”

Walt Whitman (O Captain! My Captain!)

8. “Well, my Daddy left when I was three and he didn’t leave much to Ma and me…”

Shel Silverstein (A Boy Named Sue)

9. “He did not wear his scarlet coat, for blood and wine are red…”

Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol)

10. “‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe…”

Lewis Carroll (Jabberwocky)

Who created the following literary characters?

1. Julien Sorel

Stendhal (Le Rouge et le Noir)

2. Bathsheba Everdene

Thomas Hardy (Far from the Madding Crowd)

3. Billy Bunter

Charles Hamilton under the pen name Frank Richards

4. Moll Flanders

Daniel Defoe

5. Vianne Rocher

Joanne Harris (Chocolat)

6. Bruce Bogtrotter

Roald Dahl (Matilda)

7. Dean Moriarty

Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

8. Holly Golightly

Truman Capote (Breakfast at Tiffany’s)

9. Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes

10. Tristram Shandy

Laurence Sterne

The following are all fictional place names from literature – but who created them?

1. Avonlea

Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

2. Chipping Cleghorn

Agatha Christie (Miss Marple)

3. Cittàgazze

Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials trilogy)

4. Casterbridge

Thomas Hardy (The Mayor of Casterbridge)

5. Isla Nublar

Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park)

6. Coketown

Charles Dickens (Hard Times)

7. Sleepy Hollow

Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow)

8. Maycomb

Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)

9. Pandæmonium

John Milton (Paradise Lost)

10. Aramanth

William Nicholson (Wind on Fire trilogy)

1. Which British author’s books include ‘Atonement’, ‘Enduring Love’, ‘On Chesil Beach’ and ‘Solar’?

Ian McEwan

2. In which Charles Dickens novel do the characters of Josiah Bounderby, Louisa Gradgrind and Sissy Jupe appear?

Hard Times

3. The architect Walter Gropius founded which influential art school in Germany in 1919?

Bauhaus

4. Which famous work by George Eliot was first published in eight instalments with the subtitle ‘A Study of Provincial Life’?

Middlemarch

5. Which Italian artist painted ‘The Birth of Venus’ in the mid-1480s as far as can be ascertained?

Sandro Botticelli

6. Which fictional detective lived and worked in flat 203 at 56B Whitehaven Mansions?

Hercule Poirot

7. From which Shakespeare play does the quote “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” come?

Macbeth

8. What nationality was Rembrandt?

Dutch

9. Which British artist produced the 1991 work ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’?

Damien Hirst (A tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde)

10. How many lines are there in a Shakespearean sonnet?

14

The following are all famous books with numbers in the title but which have that number missing – can you fill in the missing numbers?

1. _______ Red Herrings (Jeffrey Archer)

Twelve

2. Fahrenheit ________ (Ray Bradbury)

451

3. _________ Reasons Why (Jay Asher)

Thirteen

4. _________ _________ Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne)

Twenty Thousand

5. _________ Years in Tibet (Heinrich Harrer)

Seven

6. __________ Minutes (Jodi Picoult)

Nineteen

7. Slaughterhouse-_________ (Kurt Vonnegut)

Five

8. ___________ Red Herrings (Dorothy L. Sayers)

Five

9. The ____________ Balloons (William Pène du Bois)

Twenty-One

10. The _________ Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Two

To download the quiz as a contestant question paper, please click on the grey box below:

1. Which English Romanticist landscape painter was born in Covent Garden in 1775?

JMW Turner

2. Which Italian writer published ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’ in 1883?

Carlo Collodi

3. Which Italian sculptor’s works include ‘Apollo and Daphne’, ‘Ecstasy of Saint Teresa’, ‘The Rape of Proserpina’ and ‘Neptune and Triton’?

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

4. Which Argentine-American architect designed the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the World Financial Centre in New York City, One Canada Square in Canary Wharf, London and Carnegie Hall Tower in New York City?

César Pelli

5. Which English crime writer created the detectives Dalziel and Pascoe, upon whom a BBC TV series of the same name was later based?

Reginald Hill

6. Which American statesman and retired four-star general of the United States army released a 1995 autobiography entitled ‘My American Journey’?

Colin Powell

7. Which partnership created the comic operas ‘HMS Pinafore’ and ‘The Pirates of Penzance’?

Gilbert and Sullivan

8. Which of the Brontë sisters wrote ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall?

Anne

9. What is the pen name by which the writer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is better known?

Lewis Carroll

10. A ‘Haiku’ is a traditional Japanese poem consisting of how many syllables?

Seventeen

To download the Art and Literature pub quiz as a PDF question paper, please click on the grey box below:

The following are some of the best-selling books of 2015 in the UK. Can you name the author?

1. The Girl on the Train

Paula Hawkins

2. Grandpa’s Great Escape

David Walliams

3.  Go Set a Watchman

Harper Lee

4. Everyday Super Food

Jamie Oliver

5. The Miniaturist

Jessie Burton

6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School

Jeff Kinney

7. Elizabeth is Missing

Emma Healey

8. Mog’s Christmas Calamity

Judith Kerr

9. Grey

E.L. James

10. The Martian

Andy Weir

This round is all about famous literary sequels. Can you name the sequel to each of these famous books?

1. Paradise Lost – John Milton

Paradise Regained

2. The Hundred and One Dalmatians – Dodie Smith

The Starlight Barking

3. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

Closing Time

4. Red Dragon – Thomas Harris

The Silence of the Lambs

5. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking Glass

6. The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling

The Second Jungle Book

7. Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel

Bring Up the Bodies

8. Anne of Green Gables – Lucy Maud Montgomery

Anne of Avonlea

9. The Shining – Stephen King

Doctor Sleep

10. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

Twenty Years After

To download the ‘Literary Sequels’ quiz as a contestant question paper, please click on the grey box below:

1. Who won the 2014 Turner Prize for his video work entitled ‘It for Others’?

Duncan Campbell

2. Who created the character of Inspector George Gently, upon whom a BBC TV series was later based?

Alan Hunter

3. What was the title of Jeffrey Archer’s first published novel?

Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less

4. In Douglas Adams’s ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, what was the birth name of Trillian Astra,a mathematician and astrophysicist who left the Earth with Zaphod Beeblebrox?

Tricia (Marie) McMillan

5. Which is the eldest of the Bennet sisters in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice?

Jane

6. What nationality was painter Frans Hals, famous for many paintings including his portrait of Tieleman Roosteman, also known as ‘The Laughing Cavalier’?

Dutch

7. Which former Prime Minister wrote an autobiography released in 2010 and entitled ‘A Journey’?

Tony Blair

8. Which famous crime writer also wrote novels under the pseudonym Barbara Vine?

Ruth Rendell

9. Who is quoted as saying “People love mystery, that is why they love my paintings”?

Salvador Dali

10. Which novel begins “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed”?

Ulysses – James Joyce

To download the Art and Literature pub quiz as a PDF question paper, please click on the grey box below.