1. Which father in children's literature is rarely home because he spends all day at work in his role as a city banker?

   1. Peter Pan's father Mr Darling in Peter Pan by JM Barrie

   2. Jane and Michael's father Mr Banks, in Mary Poppins by PL Travers

   3. Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis' father Mr Waterbury in The Railway Children by E Nesbit

   4. George's father, known as “Uncle Quentin”, in Enid Blyton's The Famous Five series

2. Which leading modernist poet once worked for Lloyds bank?

   1. Ezra Pound

   2. Wallace Stevens

   3. TS Eliot

   4. William Carlos Williams

3. Which creator of bucolic children's fiction actually rose to become secretary of the Bank of England?

   1. AA Milne, author of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories

   2. Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows

   3. Charles Dodgson, author of Alice in Wonderland (as Lewis Carroll)

   4. Richard Adams, author of Watership Down

4. Since the banking crash we've had a rash of new novels set in the financial world. Which of the following 2010 UK debuts does NOT feature a banker as one of the leading characters?

   1. Union Atlantic by Adam Haslett

   2. The Privileges by Jonathan Dee

   3. This Bleeding City by Alex Preston

   4. Serious Men by Manu Joseph

5. Which novelist resorted to non-fiction last year to investigate “why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay”?

   1. John Lanchester

   2. Don DeLillo

   3. Martin Amis

   4. Michel Houellebecq

6. Bankers in fiction are, oddly enough, often baddies. Which Anthony Trollope novel features the villainous financier Augustus Melmotte who sets out to woo London's most wealthy investors?

   1. The Way We Live Now

   2. The Warden

   3. Barchester Towers

   4. Can You Forgive Her?

7. Another baddie: which notorious antihero works as an investment banker at Wall Street company Pierce and Pierce, in a novel published in 1991? (Note – that date is important, as more than one novel listed below features the same company)

   1. Sherman McCoy in Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities

   2. Mitchell McDeere in John Grisham's The Firm

   3. Patrick Bateman in American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

   4. Adrian Healey in The Liar by Stephen Fry

8. But not all portrayals of banking in literature lack sympathy. Which heartbroken banker concludes a celebrated play with the tragic lines: “Nora! Nora! Empty. She is gone.”

   1. Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion

   2. Yevgeny Sergeyevich Dorn in Anton Chekhov's The Seagull

   3. Torvald Helmer in Henrik Ibsen's The Doll's House

   4. Olaus Petri in August Strindberg's Master Olof

9. In which Victorian novel is Mr Jarvis Lorry a clerk at Tellson's bank in London?

   1. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

   2. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

   3. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

   4. The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

10. Which novel follows the fortunes of Luke McGavock, a banker who turns his back on his job in search of something more fulfilling?

    1. The Promise of Happiness by Justin Cartwright

    2. The Good Life by Jay McInerney

    3. The Secret Pilgrim by John le Carré

    4. Money by Martin Amis

Solutions

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

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   Bankrupt.

2. 4 and above.

   A reasonable result. You are balancing the books, but without much interest.

3. 7 and above.

   A big bonus for you! All that reading has paid dividends