“Forgive me for startling you with the impetuosity of my sentiments ... It cannot have escaped your notice that for some time past the friendship I have had in my heart for you has ripened into a deeper feeling, a feeling more beautiful, more pure, more sacred. Dare I name it you? Ah! It is love which makes me so bold! ... Say you’ll marry me when I come back or, before God, I won’t go.”
Oscar to Lucinda in Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda
Dex to Em in One Day by David Nicholls
Rhett Butler to Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind
Charles to Lucie in A Tale of Two Cities
“If that thy bent of love be honourable, / Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow”.
Juliet to Romeo
Romeo to Juliet
Lysander to Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Helena to Demetrius A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
Mr Knightley to Emma in Emma
Willoughby to Marianne in Sense and Sensibility
Darcy to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice
Edmund to Fanny in Mansfield Park
“He wrote the initial letters, w, y, t, m, i, c, n, b, d, t, m, n, o, t. These letters meant, ‘When you told me it could never be, did that mean never, or then?’”
Angel to Tess in Tess of the D’Urbevilles
Levin to Kitty in Anna Karenina
Henry to Clare in A Time Traveler’s Wife
Rochester to Jane in Jane Eyre
“Do not doubt the sincerity of the purest passion that ever inflamed a human breast. Think, most adorable creature, of my unhappy situation, of my despair. Could I have flattered myself with the most distant hopes of being ever permitted to throw myself at your feet in the manner I do now, it would not have been in the power of any other woman to have inspired a thought which the severest chastity could have condemned...”
Yuri to Lara in Doctor Zhivago
Heathcliff to Cathy in Wuthering Heights
Edward to Bella in Twilight
Tom Jones to Sophia in Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones
“When I came here today, I thought that nothing could have wrested this confession from me. I thought I could have kept it in my bosom all our lives, till we were old. But, if I have indeed any new-born hope that I may ever call you something more than Sister, widely different from Sister!...”
David Copperfield to Agnes
Pip to Estella in Great Expectations
Duke Leonardo to Mariella in His Compromised Countess (Mills & Boon)
The Earl of Rule to Horatia in The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer
“I do love thee. Therefore go with me. / I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee.”
Titania to Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Miranda to Ferdinand in The Tempest
Perdita to Florizel in A Winter’s Tale
Rosalind to Orlando in As You Like It
“That I don't know you better makes me unhappy enough already; it's all my loss. But that's what I want, and it seems to me I'm taking the best way. If you'll be my wife, then I shall know you, and when I tell you all the good I think of you you'll not be able to say it's from ignorance ... I really believe I've filled all the other relations of life very creditably, and I don't see why I shouldn't fill this one—in which I offer myself to you—seeing that I care so much more about it. Ask the people who know me well; I've friends who'll speak for me.”
George to Lucy in A Room with a View
Alfred to Fanny in The Pursuit of Love
Humbert Humbert to Lolita
Warburton to Isabel in The Portrait of a Lady
“‘You can go home to Yorkshire if you like. Or better still,’ he looked at her under drooping lashes, ‘you can shack up in my flat and look after Basil and make up my mind where you want to go for a honeymoon.’”
Othello to Desdemona
Matt to Imogen in Jilly Cooper’s Imogen
Jack to Benny in Maeve Binchy’s Circle of Friends
Nick to Polly in Catherine Alliott’s Going Too Far
Solutions
1:C, 2:A, 3:C, 4:B, 5:D, 6:A, 7:A, 8:D, 9:B
Scores
2 and above.
You must be joking
5 and above.
OK. Keeping you in reserve in case no one better comes along
8 and above.
Not bad. We'll think about it
10 and above.
Congratulations! We hope you'll be very happy
