Quiz Monkey
What do you want to know?
|
|
Quiz Monkey |
You are here: | ||
| Arts & Entertainment | Literature | General |
See also Tolkien.
| Author | Title | Question | Answer | |
| (The Arabian Nights) | Number of nights |
 |
1001 | |
| Narrator (saved her life by telling stories for 1,001 nights) |
|
Scheherezade | ||
| Translated into English by |
|
Sir Richard Burton | ||
| Douglas Adams | Hitchhiker's Guide (series) | The starship that picks up Arthur and Ford, having been stolen by Zaphod at its official launch: the first spacecraft to make use of the Infinite Improbability Drive |
|
Heart of Gold |
| Name of the computer, built by a pan–dimensional, hyper–intelligent species of beings (whose three–dimensional protrusions into our universe are ordinary white mice) to come up with the Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything |
|
Deep Thought | ||
| Name of the greatest supercomputer of all time, designed by the above computer to calculate the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything |
|
Earth | ||
| Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything |
|
42 | ||
| Creature that could translate all languages |
|
Babel fish | ||
| The most intelligent species on Earth – described by Slartibartfast as "the protrusions into our dimension of vast, hyper–intelligent pan–dimensional beings" |
|
Mice | ||
| The second most intelligent species on Earth – tried to warn the humans about the planned destruction of the planet (but their messages were misinterpreted as "amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits") |
|
Dolphins | ||
| The name of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe |
|
Milliways | ||
| Richard Adams | Watership Down | Name of the warren that the rabbits leave to start a new life at Watership Down |
|
Sandleford |
| The Plague Dogs | Illustrated by |
|
A. Wainwright | |
| Isaac Asimov | Foundation Trilogy | Said to have been inspired by (Gilbert & Sullivan opera) |
|
Iolanthe |
| Jane Austen | Pride and Prejudice | Mr. Darcy's Derbyshire pile |
|
Pemberley |
| Emma | Home of George Knightley (whom Emma eventually marries) |
|
Donwell Abbey | |
| Sense and Sensibility | Surname of Elinor and Marianne |
|
Dashwood | |
| J. M. Barrie | The Admirable Crichton (play) | Profession of the eponymous character |
|
Butler |
| Ray Bradbury | Fahrenheit 451 | Firemen's job |
|
Burning books |
| Charlotte Bronte | Jane Eyre | Mr. Rochester's home |
|
Thornfield Hall |
| John Bunyan | Pilgrim's Progress | Main character (the pilgrim) |
|
Christian |
| Christian's ultimate destination |
|
The Celestial City | ||
| Christian's home, and the starting place of his pilgrimage |
|
The City of Destruction | ||
| Goods that exemplify temptation are sold at |
|
Vanity Fair | ||
| Place that gave its name to a novel first published in 1848 and a magazine revived in 1983 after a gap of 47 years | ||||
| Christian's friend and companion, martyred in Vanity (Fair) |
|
Faithful | ||
| Resident of Vanity (Fair) who joins Christian after Faithful's death |
|
Hopeful | ||
| Swamp into which Christian sinks under his burden |
|
Slough of Despond | ||
| Idyllic mountains from which the Celestial City can be seen |
|
Delectable Mountains | ||
| Lord of the City of Destruction, with whom Christian has a fight |
|
Apollyon | ||
| Giant who lives (with his wife) in Doubting Castle |
|
Despair | ||
| Anthony Burgess | A Clockwork Orange | Alex's gang (Dim, Georgie and Pete) |
|
The Droogs |
| Miguel Cervantes | Don Quixote | Don Quixote's horse |
|
Rosinante |
| Don Quixote's squire |
|
Sancho Panza | ||
| Sancho Panza's donkey (in English) |
|
Dapple | ||
| Leslie Charteris | The Saint (series) | The Saint's actual name |
|
Simon Templar |
| Geoffrey Chaucer | The Canterbury Tales | Inn at Southwark where the pilgrims met |
|
Tabard |
| Prize for the teller of the best tale |
|
Free dinner | ||
| The pilgrims met in (month) |
|
April | ||
| First tale |
|
Knight's | ||
| Last tale |
|
Parson's | ||
| 'Gladly would he learn, and gladly teach' |
|
Clerk of Oxenford | ||
| James Fenimore Cooper | Last of the Mohicans | Protagonist – a child of European parents, brought up by Native Americans |
|
Hawkeye, a.k.a. Natty Bumppo |
| Name of the title character |
|
Uncas | ||
| Father of the title character |
|
Chingachgook | ||
| Bernard Cornwell | Sharpe series | See separate page | ||
| Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Based on the story of real–life castaway |
|
Alexander Selkirk |
| Crusoe's home city |
|
York | ||
| Fyodor Dostoevsky | The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot | The author, the murderer Smerdyakov in the Brothers, the central character in The Idiot (Prince Myshkin), and several other characters in his novels: all suffered from |
|
Epilepsy |
| Roddy Doyle | The Barrytown trilogy (The Commitments, The Snapper, The Van) | Name of the working–class Dublin family that's central to the three novels |
|
Rabbitte |
| Alexander Dumas | The Three Musketeers | Their motto |
|
All for one and one for all |
| Daphne du Maurier | Rebecca | Name of the house |
|
Manderley |
| George Eliot | Silas Marner | Occupation of the title character |
|
Linen weaver |
| E. M. Forster | Howard's End | Howard's End is a |
|
House |
| Frederick Forsyth | The Day of the Jackal | ... is about an assassination attempt on |
|
Charles de Gaulle |
| John Fowles | The Collector | The Collector collected |
|
Butterflies |
| Mark Haddon | The Curious Incident ... | Name of the dog |
|
Wellington |
| Thomas Hardy | Wessex novels | Casterbridge is the name Hardy uses for |
|
Dorchester |
| Christminster is the name Hardy uses for |
|
Oxford | ||
| The Mayor of Casterbridge | Michael Henchard sells his wife for |
|
Five guineas | |
| Ernest Hemingway | Death in the Afternoon | ... is a non–fiction book about the history and traditions of (sport or activity) |
|
Bullfighting |
| Frank Herbert | Dune | Name of the precious spice |
|
Melange |
| Jack Higgins | The Eagle has Landed | ... is about an attempt to kidnap (real–life political figure) |
|
Winston Churchill |
| James Hilton | Goodbye Mr. Chips | Mr. Chips's school |
|
Brookfield |
| Mr. Chips's subject |
|
Latin | ||
| Lost Horizon | Name of the hidden paradise, found in the Valley of the Blue Moon |
|
Shangri–La | |
| Victor Hugo | Les Miserables | Jean Valjean's first crime |
|
Stealing a loaf of bread |
| Aldous Huxley | Brave New World | Title is taken from (Shakespeare's) |
|
The Tempest |
| Washington Irving | Rip van Winkle | Mountain range in which the title character fell asleep |
|
Catskills |
| He slept for (length of time) |
|
20 years | ||
| While he slept, he missed the |
|
American War of Independence | ||
| E. L. James | Fifty Shades of Grey (trilogy) | Mr. Grey's first name |
|
Christian |
| Marlon James | A Brief History of Seven Killings | (2015 Booker winner): tells the story of the attempted murder, in 1976, of (real–life popular music legend) | |
Bob Marley |
| Jerome K. Jerome | Three Men in a Boat | Start and end points of the journey |
|
Kingston |
|
|
Oxford | |||
| Stephen King | Christine | Christine was |
|
A car |
| Harper Lee | To Kill a Mockingbird | Name of the narrator (actual given names Jean Louise) |
|
Scout Finch |
| Name of her lawyer father |
|
Atticus Finch | ||
| Name of her brother |
|
Jeremy (Jem) | ||
| Jack London | Call of the wild | Name of the dog (the central character – a St. Bernard–Scotch (rough) collie cross) |
|
Buck |
| Compton Mackenzie | Whisky Galore | Name of the ship (SS Politician in real life) |
|
SS Cabinet Minister |
| Name of the islands (Eriskay in real life) |
|
Great and Little Todday | ||
| Hilary Mantel | Wolf Hall | Wolf Hall (Wulfhall) is the seat of (historical family) |
|
The Seymours |
| Christopher Marlowe | Doctor Faustus | "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" – refers to |
|
Helen of Troy |
| George R. R. Martin | A Song of Ice and Fire (series, including A Game of Thrones) | Continent where the series is mainly set |
|
Westeros |
| Capital and largest city of Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms |
|
King's Landing | ||
| Continent to the east of Westeros |
|
Essos | ||
| Home of the Stark family |
|
Winterfell (Castle) | ||
| Ancestral seat of the House of Lannister – inspired by the Rock of Gibraltar |
|
Casterly Rock | ||
| The vast, flat grassland on the eastern continent: gives its name to the copper–skinned race of warlike nomads who live there, and their language – which you can now learn in real life |
|
Dothraki | ||
| W. Somerset Maugham | The Moon and Sixpence | Artist featured in |
|
Gauguin |
| Herman Melville | Moby Dick | Name of the ship |
|
Pequod |
| Lost by Captain Ahab while hunting Moby Dick |
|
His leg | ||
| Margaret Mitchell | Gone with the Wind | The O'Hara family's plantation |
|
Tara |
| City that burned |
|
Atlanta | ||
| Nicholas Montserrat | The Cruel Sea | Name of the ship |
|
Compass Rose |
| Neil Munro | Para Handy stories | Name of Para Handy's boat (and title of the TV series) |
|
The Vital Spark |
| George Orwell | Animal Farm | Name of the farm |
|
Manor Farm |
| Pig who ultimately takes charge of the farm – said to be based on Stalin; known in the French version as César |
|
Napoleon | ||
| Napoleon's main rival, and the original head of the farm after Jones's overthrow; said to be mainly based on Trotsky, but also has elements from Lenin |
|
Snowball | ||
| Animals that represent the oppressed masses |
|
Sheep | ||
| Anthem – a parody of The Internationale – banned by Napoleon |
|
Beasts of England | ||
| Nineteen Eighty–Four | First published |
|
1949 | |
| "Superstate" (one of three) in which set |
|
Oceania | ||
| Official (propaganda) language of Oceania |
|
Newspeak | ||
| Ministry responsible for supporting Oceania's perpetual war |
|
Ministry of Peace | ||
| Ministry responsible for rationing and controlling food, goods, and domestic production |
|
Ministry of Plenty | ||
| Ministry responsible for controlling information: news, entertainment, education, and the arts (i.e. censorship) |
|
Ministry of Truth | ||
| Ministry responsible for identifying, monitoring, arresting and converting dissidents (real and imagined) |
|
Ministry of Love | ||
| Referred to as "Airstrip One" |
|
Great Britain | ||
| The ideology of The Party |
|
Ingsoc  | ||
| Winston Smith's greatest fear (Room 101) |
|
Rats | ||
| Winston's drink of choice
|
|
Victory gin | ||
| The Party's security enforcement agency |
|
Thought Police | ||
| David Peace | The Damned United | Football club referred to in the title |
|
Leeds United |
| Terry Pratchett | Discworld series | In a reflection of Hindu mythology, the Discworld rests on the backs of four huge elephants which are in turn standing
on the back of Great A'Tuin, who is a (type of creature)
|
|
Turtle |
| Chief city of Discworld |
|
Ankh–Morpork | ||
| Patrician (ruler) of Ankh–Morpork: sometimes said to be based on the real–life Italian statesman and diplomat, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) |
|
Lord Havelock Vetinari | ||
| School of Wizardry in Ankh–Morpork (the name is said to be a pun on the 'Invisible College' – the name given to a group of English scientists led by Robert Boyle in the mid–17th century) |
|
Unseen University | ||
| Archchancellor of the Unseen University (appointed in Moving Pictures – the 10th novel in the series) |
|
Mustrum Ridcully | ||
| In The Light Fantastic (the 2nd novel in the series), the Librarian of the Unseen University Library is turned (by a beam of magic) into an |
|
Orang–utan | ||
| Rides a horse called Binky (because "it's a nice name"); has a manservant called Albert, an apprentice called Mortimer, and an adopted daughter called Ysabell; (Mort and Ysabell have a daughter named Susan) |
|
Death | ||
| Discworld's equivalent to Father Christmas: rides a sleigh pulled by Gouger, Rooter, Tusker and Snouter |
|
The Hogfather | ||
| Salman Rushdie | Midnight's Children | ... is an allegory on (the children were born at the exact moment of ...) |
|
The partition of India |
| Sir Walter Scott | Ivanhoe | Set in the reign of |
|
Richard I (the Lionheart) |
| Name invented by Scott for the father of the title character |
|
Cedric (of Rotherwood) | ||
| Nevile Shute | A Town like Alice | 'Alice' refers to |
|
Alice Springs |
| Adam Smith | The Wealth of Nations | Demonstrated the improvements in productivity that could be achieved by the specialised division of labour, using the example of an imagined factory that made |
|
Pins |
| Alexander Solzhenitsyn | One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich | Surname of the title character |
|
Shukhov |
| Muriel Spark | The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie | The school at which Miss Brodie teaches |
|
Marcia Blaine School for Girls |
| John Steinbeck | The Grapes of Wrath | Name of the family that seeks a better life in California |
|
Joad |
| State that they leave to go to California |
|
Oklahoma | ||
| Bram Stoker | Dracula | Yorkshire fishing port at which Dracula comes ashore, when the ship on which he is a passenger runs aground |
|
Whitby |
| Name of the ship on which Dracula comes ashore |
|
Demeter | ||
| Irving Stone | The Agony and the Ecstasy | Artist featured in |
|
Michelangelo |
| Lust for Life | Painter featured in |
|
Vincent van Gogh | |
| Jonathan Swift | Gulliver's Travels | Gulliver's occupation |
|
Ship's surgeon |
| Gulliver's ship |
|
The Antelope | ||
| Island that Lilliput is at war with |
|
Blefescu | ||
| Land of giants |
|
Brobdingnag | ||
| Flying island: a kingdom devoted to the arts of music, mathematics and astronomy, but unable to use them for practical ends |
|
Laputa | ||
| Primitive humanoid creatures who serve equine masters |
|
Yahoos | ||
| Big–endians and little–endians argued over how to |
|
Eat a boiled egg | ||
| The only real country that Gulliver visits – where he asks the Emperor "to excuse my performing the ceremony imposed upon my countrymen of trampling upon the crucifix" |
|
Japan | ||
| W. M. Thackeray | Vanity Fair | Title comes from |
|
Pilgrim's Progress |
| Tolstoy | War and Peace | Battle (of 1805) that plays a major part in the novel: Prince Andrei Bolkonsky is wounded, then rescued by his hero Napoleon Bonaparte |
|
Austerlitz |
| Jules Verne | 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea | Name of the submarine |
|
Nautilus |
| Captain of the above |
|
Captain Nemo | ||
| Around the World in 80 Days | London club that Phileas Fogg's journey begins at |
|
Reform Club | |
| Amount of Fogg's bet (worth around £1.8 million in 2019, according to Wikipedia) |
|
£20,000 | ||
| Journey to the Centre of the Earth | Professor Lidenbrock, his nephew Axel (the narrator) and their guide Hans, descend into a volcano in |
|
Iceland | |
| Kurt Vonnegut | Slaughterhouse 5 | Background (a WWII campaign in which the author took part) |
|
The bombing of Dresden |
| Lew Wallace | Ben–Hur | First name of the title character |
|
Judah |
| Keith Waterhouse | Billy Liar | Type of business that Billy works in |
|
Undertaker's |
| Evelyn Waugh | Brideshead Revisited | Name of Sebastian Flyte's teddy bear
|
|
Aloysius |
| H. G. Wells | The First Men in the Moon | Anti–gravity matter used to propel the spaceship |
|
Cavorite |
| The Time Machine | Subterranean mutants who bred humans for food |
|
Morlocks | |
| P. G. Wodehouse | (The Jeeves and Wooster stories) | Jeeves's given name |
|
Reginald |
| Bertie Wooster's club |
|
The Drones | ||
| Blandings Castle | The Empress of Blandings is a |
|
(Berkshire) pig | |
| John Wyndham | Day of the Triffids | Triffids could be killed by |
|
Salt water |
© Haydn Thompson 2017–25