Literature Quiz #1 - Sunday Quiz

Round 1: Banned Books

10 questions about banned books.

With over thirty years of legal action, the frank sexuality of Henry Miller’s musing on the human condition made which book famous?

Which novel by DH Lawrence was first published privately in Italy in 1928, Penguin’s decision to publish the original explicit text in 1960 lead to perhaps the most famous trial in literary history?

Banned in the United Kingdom and the usually liberal France in the fifties, which Vladimir Nabokov novel upset people with its subject matter?

Salman Rushdie had to go into hiding for an entire decade after Iran’s Ayatollah issued a fatwa because of which book?

India went as far as calling Huxley a ‘pornographer’, whereas Ireland banned it for what they saw as its comments against religion and the traditional family. Which book?

Which novel by JD Salinger is both the most banned and one of the most most taught books in American schools?

Although it was written at the end of the 14th century, several modern editions are still heavily edited for profanity. Which work by Geoffrey Chaucer?

Which novel was banned in the Stalanist USSR, and is still banned in Cuba and North Korea? Also, bizarrely by UAE schools for its depiction of a talking pig.

Such an impenetrably written novel that it's hard to find the "filth", which James Joyce novel was banned in the US and in Britain for most of the 1930s?

Widely banned, with many other countries selling the book shrink-wrapped with an age-restricted label, which novel by Brett Easton Ellis does actually slowly move towards being a satire?

Round 2: Poets

10 questions about poetry and poets.

Who was the first person to be buried at Poets Corner in Westminster Cathedral?

What woman poet who wrote around 1800 poems, yet only had 10 published in her life, only left her home state of Massachusetts once?

When the students in the film 'Dead Poets' Society' stood on their desks and said 'O captain! my captain!', who were they quoting?

In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, what race writes the third worst poetry in the Universe?

What is the surname of the U.S. born poet, known for 'The Waste Land', who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1984?

Once married to Ted Hughes, which American poet committed suicide in 1963?

Which writer of the 17th and 18th Centuries first penned the line 'For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.'?

Rodin's The Thinker is really a portrait of what ostracised Italian poet?

Which German city, capital of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, was the birthplace of the poet Heinrich Heine?

Which Welsh poet, whose works include "Do not go gentle into that good night", died of alcohol poisoning the year he published his collected poems?

Round 3: Great American Authors

10 questions about people who are considered to be among the "Great American Authors".

Thomas Lanier Williams III is considered one of the foremost American playwrights, with success such as "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". By what pen name is he better known?

Which author, widely known for his 1996 novel "Infinite Jest", sadly died by suicide at age 46 after struggling with depression for many years?

In 1921, who became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, for her novel The Age of Innocence?

Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, author of the critically acclaimed "Song of Solomon" and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for "Beloved" is better known by what name?

Most famous for his darkly satirical, bestselling novel "Slaughterhouse-Five", which author was interned in Dresden and survived the Allied bombing of the city in WW2?

Raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn", which author was lauded as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced"?

F. Scott Fitzgerald is known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the "Jazz Age", what is his most famous work?

Who was the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner and author of classics such as "The Grapes of Wrath" and "East of Eden"?

Known for his adventurous lifestyle, which author wrote "A Farewell to Arms" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls" among others?

A pioneer of the "Beat Generation", which author achieved widespread fame and notoriety with the publication of his second novel, "On the Road"?

Round 4: Book to film adaptations

10 questions about books which have been adapted into films.

Who won an Oscar for Best Director for the adaptation of "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel?

Which Jane Austen novel earned Emma Thompson the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1995?

The film "Schindler's List" is based on a Booker prize-winning novel by Thomas Keneally, what is it called?

"Trainspotting" is a cult classic of the 90s with Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle and Kelly Macdonald. Who was it written by?

What Pulitzer Prize-winning book adaptation won three Oscars, including Best Screenplay and Best Actor for Gregory Peck’s portrayal of Atticus Finch?

There have been various TV and movie adaptations over the years of which 1868 novel by Louisa May Alcott?

Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is said to have its roots in which Joseph Conrad novella?

Dick King-Smith’s story about a pig that wants to be a sheepdog was turned into a film in 1995. What was the title of the book?

In 2000 Darren Aronfsky directed an adaptation of which Hubert Selby, Jr novel about heroin addiction and the unending fallacy of the American Dream?

What semi-autobiographical novel by JG Ballard was turned into a film by Steven Spielberg in 1987?

Round 5: Antagonists

In Treasure Island, which one legged character is the first to instil fear in Captain Flint, and falsely gains the trust of protagonist Jim Hawkins?

Nils Bjurman is a sexual sadist who does horrific things to Lisbeth Sander in which novel by Stieg Larsson?

Based on Joseph Stalin, which character ousts fellow leader Snowball and initiates a wave of terror in Animal Farm?

Who brutally murders Nancy when he thinks she has betrayed him in Dickens "Oliver Twist"?

Which demonic figure from German folklore collects the souls of the damned in "Doctor Faustus" by Christopher Marlowe?

In Matilda by Roald Dahl, who is the headmistress of Crunchem Hall Elementary School?

Who is the wealthy and successful investment banker, whose hobbies include drug addiction, murder, rape, cannibalism, mutilation and necrophilism?

Who is the mythical villain of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, considered a descendent of the first Biblical murderer, Cain?

Which character will stop at nothing to achieve monetary gain in "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller?

Probably one of the most sinister characters written by Shakespeare, purely because of his deceptive nature, Iago is the antagonist in which play?

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