1. Which 19th century book is said to have had a great influence upon the genre of British school novels, as well as giving George MacDonald Fraser the inspiration for his Flashman series?

   1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

   2. Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes

   3. Anthony Buckeridge’s Jennings series

   4. To Serve Them All My Days by RF Delderfield

2. What was Billy Bunter, from Frank Richards’ stories set at Greyfriars School, known as?

   1. Pie Face

   2. The Doughnut of the Fifth

   3. Harry Potter

   4. The Fat Owl of the Remove

3. Which of these is not a story about schools by PG Wodehouse?

   1. Blenkinsop's Benefit

   2. How Pillingshot Scored

   3. Bathurst-Norman Saves the Day

   4. The Strange Disappearance of Mr Buxton-Smythe

4. What trick does the second form play on poor Mam’zelle in Enid Blyton’s Last Term at Malory Towers?

   1. They use a powerful magnet to extract her hairpins

   2. They pretend to be profoundly deaf after swimming

   3. They hide the smallest child in the class behind the chalkboard

   4. They sing La Marseillaise backwards

5. Which of these is not a character from Ronald Searle and Geoffrey Willans’ Molesworth?

   1. Peason, Molesworth's "grate friend"

   2. Grabber Ma, Head of the School, "captane of everything”

   3. Basil Fotherington-Thomas, who skips around school saying “hello clouds, hello sky"

   4. Molesworth Female, Molesworth’s sister who “can’t pla foopball”

6. Who is the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, in which six girls are assigned the passionate yet somewhat deranged Miss Brodie as their teacher?

   1. Jeanette Winterson

   2. Margaret Atwood

   3. Muriel Spark

   4. A S Byatt

7. Which school is Holden Caulfield expelled from in JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye?

   1. Pencey Prep

   2. Eton

   3. North Trinity School for Boys

   4. Harlem Academy

8. Writing about his schooldays in Such, Such were the Joys, does George Orwell say:

   1. School was “a spiffing place where larks were had by all”

   2. School was “a world of force and fraud and secrecy “

   3. “All schools are equal but some are more equal than others”

   4. “My school mates appeared to me to be the inhabitants of a lunatic asylum, cruel and grasping and generally filthy”

9. Which author, whose novel sees young wizard Ged attend a wizarding school and learn the skills to defeat his nemesis, said that JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books were overpraised for their originality? “She has many virtues, but originality isn't one of them. That hurt.”

   1. Dianna Wynne Jones

   2. Stephenie Meyer

   3. Ursula Le Guin

   4. Salman Rushdie

10. How does Matilda eventually defeat evil headmistress The Trunchbull in Roald Dahl’s children’s novel?

    1. She uses her powers to pretend to be Miss Trunchbull’s brother-in-law’s ghost

    2. She uses her powers to pretend to be Banquo's ghost

    3. She leaves an anonymous tip-off with Ofsted

    4. She engages a large, amicable giant to remove Miss Trunchbull from the school

11. What is the name of the headmaster in Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby?

    1. Squalid O’Cane

    2. Wackford Squeers

    3. Beaky M'Choakumchild

    4. Uriah Gradgrind

12. Which of these is a real story from Elinor M. Brent-Dyer’s Chalet School series of books?

    1. Elisaveta, the daughter of the Crown Prince of Belsornia, is sent to the Chalet School after an illness, but she could be in danger from her mad cousin, Prince Cosimo

    2. Anne Hathaway, the socially awkward daughter of the deceased Crown Prince of Genovia, is being sent to the Chalet School because her wicked uncle, D'isney, wants to pursue the valuable teen and tween audience by maintaining a portfolio of movie franchises

    3. Feisty twins Pat and Isobel O’Sullivan are initially rebellious when they arrive at the Chalet School, but are soon won over by midnight feasts, high jinx on the lax pitch and the jolly good sorts who attend the school

    4. When Lorrie’s parents die in a terrible train crash, she is sent to the Chalet School where the gentle persuasion of teachers and friends eventually uncovers an unexpected genius for music in the young girl

13. From which novel is this extract, in which a schoolgirl is unjustly chastised by her teacher, taken? “This girl, this child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut - this girl is - a liar.”

    1. The Rotters’ Club by Jonathan Coe

    2. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

    3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

    4. The Schoolmistress: A Moral Tale for Young Ladies by Rachel Hunter

14. What makes Owen Meany the butt of school children’s jokes in John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany?

    1. He is very short with a strange voice

    2. He is a redhead

    3. He has one abnormally large ear

    4. He is the son of the school janitor

Solutions

1:B, 2:D, 3:C, 4:A, 5:D, 6:C, 7:A, 8:B, 9:C, 10:A, 11:B, 12:A, 13:C, 14:A

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   Did you do no revision at all? Detention. See me.

2. 6 and above.

   Could do better. Back to the books.

3. 11 and above.

   Top of the class; you've clearly been swotting up on your Blyton. A jolly good show.