1. 

   According to his diary entry for 4 September 1666, which luxury item did Samuel Pepys bury in his garden for safety as the great fire of London approached?

   1. A joint of aged smoked beef

   2. A parmesan cheese

   3. His best china plate

2. “There is no such passion in human nature as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen.” In which classic book does this confident assertion appear?

   1. Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

   2. The Physiology of Taste by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

   3. Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett

3. In which classic children’s novel does the heroine get her best friend roaring drunk?

   1. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery

   2. The Jolliest Term on Record by Angela Brazil

   3. Matilda by Roald Dahl

4. Who said “I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them”?

   1. GB Shaw

   2. Bridget Jones

   3. Nora Ephron

5. Which Thomas Hardy hero inadvertently serves the girl of his dreams a well-boiled slug?

   1. Giles Winterborne in The Woodlanders

   2. Angel Clare in Tess of the d’Urbervilles

   3. Gabriel Oak in Far from the Madding Crowd

6. 

   In Jane Eyre, what is the breed of Mr Rochester’s dog, Pilot?

   1. Irish wolfhound

   2. Newfoundland

   3. Yorkshire terrier

7. In which story by Flaubert does the famous parrot appear?

   1. “Hérodias”

   2. “Un Coeur Simple”

   3. “La Légende de Saint-Julien l’Hospitalier”

8. A boy prays to a polecat-ferret in the darkly funny Saki short story “Sredni Vashtar”. Which British writer-director turned the story into a film?

   1. Stephen Fry

   2. Patrick Marber

   3. Andrew Birkin

9. In Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, what other pets are kept by young Hedvig Ekdal in the loft?

   1. Birch mice

   2. Wolverines

   3. Rabbits

10. 

    Which philosopher asked why we should concern ourselves with cats, when they have no sign of the zodiac named after them?

    1. Voltaire

    2. Francis Bacon

    3. Jean-Paul Sartre

11. What’s the name of the wood at the heart of Robert Holdstock’s fantasy cycle about an English forest that contains time as well as space?

    1. Oak-Apple

    2. Instar

    3. Mythago

12. With what creatures does Gawain battle in his winter journey across England to meet the Green Knight?

    1. Dragons and ogres

    2. Lynxes and griffons

    3. Worms and wodwos

13. What is the title of Iris Murdoch’s 1978 Booker prize-winning novel about Charles Arrowby, a playwright and director?

    1. The Sea

    2. The Sea, the Sea

    3. Down to the Sea

14. Into which poet’s past does Andrew Greig go fishing in At the Loch of the Green Corrie?

    1. Norman MacCaig

    2. Hugh MacDiarmid

    3. Nan Shepherd

15. 

    Along which river does Alice Oswald poetically “sleepwalk” in a long poem of 2009?

    1. Dart

    2. Severn

    3. Stour

16. Which novelist stole one of their book titles from a composer?

    1. Joseph Roth

    2. Ian McEwan

    3. AS Byatt

    4. Penelope Lively

17. Which opera by Richard Strauss makes the hero of which Iris Murdoch novel puke?

    1. Feuersnot/The Nice and the Good

    2. Der Rosenkavalier/The Black Prince

    3. Ariadne auf Naxos/Nuns and Soldiers

18. Everyone knows that Helen Schlegel stole Leonard Bast’s umbrella after Beethoven’s fifth symphony. But what was next on the programme?

    1. Brahms, Vier Ernste Lieder

    2. Bizet, L’Arlésienne

    3. Berlioz, Les Nuits d’Été

19. Which recording finally calls Joachim Ziemssen back from the dead in The Magic Mountain?

    1. The Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde

    2. “Va, pensiero” from Nabucco

    3. Valentin’s prayer from Gounod’s Faust

20. 

    Which opera does Proust’s Mme de Cambremer think finer than Parsifal “because in Parsifal the most beautiful things are surrounded with a sort of halo of melodic phrases, outworn by the very fact of being melodic?”

    1. Schoenberg’s Erwartung

    2. Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha

    3. Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande

21. In which novel do Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons make a joint appearance?

    1. Ali Smith’s How to Be Both

    2. Michel Houellebecq’s The Map and the Territory

    3. Ian McEwan’s Solar

22. Which Italian artist’s style figures in Orhan Pamuk’s My Name Is Red?

    1. Gentile Bellini

    2. Umberto Boccioni

    3. Michelangelo Pistoletto

23. Which of these artists was/is also a novelist?

    1. Ford Madox Brown

    2. Jake Chapman

    3. Vanessa Bell

24. Which of these is called a “poisonous book” in The Picture of Dorian Gray?

    1. Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater

    2. Household Management by Mrs Beeton

    3. Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans

25. 

    The lost painting in Hannah Rothschild’s The Improbability of Love is by:

    1. Jean-Honoré Fragonard

    2. Jean-Antoine Watteau

    3. Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

26. Which celebrated dystopian novelist confessed to a “hopeless” teenage love affair with cricket?

    1. HG Wells

    2. Aldous Huxley

    3. George Orwell

27. Dink Heckler, in Martin Amis’s London Fields, is the South African number seven in which sport?

    1. Tennis

    2. Darts

    3. Cross country running

28. Which British writer drew on his experiences of playing rugby league for Leeds in his first novel?

    1. John Braine

    2. David Storey

    3. JB Priestley

29. The hero of Fred Exley’s A Fan’s Notes is a fan of which American football team?

    1. Green Bay Packers

    2. Chicago Bears

    3. New York Giants

30. 

    In Julian Barnes’s A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters, which football team wins the FA Cup 5-4 having been a goal down on four occasions?

    1. Macclesfield Town

    2. Leicester City

    3. West Bromwich Albion

31. What does Edith in Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac wear on her aborted wedding day?

    1. A little black dress worn with a double strand of her grandmother’s pearls

    2. A Chanel suit copied by a Polish dressmaker

    3. A white linen dress purchased and altered to fit her at Selfridges

32. Who designed the dresses of Proust’s Duchesse de Guermantes?

    1. Fortuny

    2. Worth

    3. Patou

33. In the 17th-century ballad “Tam Lin”, where did Janet tie her kirtle green?

    1. Round her waist

    2. Above her knee

    3. Round her shoulders

34. In Middlemarch, what throws Dorothea Brooke’s beauty into relief?

    1. Poor dress

    2. A glimpse of her wrists

    3. A low neckline

35. 

    When Rose marries Pinkie in Brighton Rock, what new garment does she buy?

    1. New shoes

    2. A new corset

    3. A new mackintosh

36. What is What-a-Mess the puppy’s real name?

    1. Ian

    2. Scamper

    3. Prince Amir of Kinjan

37. Which children’s writer did GK Chesterton liken to Jane Austen and say that he “felt like a male intruder” on her books’ grounds?

    1. Frances Hodgson Burnett

    2. Louisa May Alcott

    3. Charlotte Yonge

38. Who named the hero of her most famous book after her (probable) younger lover at the time (and dedicated the book to him)?

    1. E Nesbit

    2. Richmal Crompton

    3. Joan G Robinson

39. Who lived on Klickitat Street?

    1. Clever Polly

    2. The little wooden horse

    3. Ramona Quimby

40. 

    How many words did Enid Blyton write per day, at her peak?

    1. 3,000

    2. 10,000

    3. 15,000

41. Which bird’s nesting season is characterised by halycon days, according to the poet Simonides?

    1. Hoopoe

    2. Kingfisher

    3. Nightjar

42. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the designer Daedalus is so jealous of his nephew that he flings him from the heights of Minerva’s citadel. Minerva transforms him into which ground-loving bird? (Clue: as a bird, the boy keeps his mother’s name, Perdix.)

    1. Quail

    2. Partridge

    3. Pheasant

43. In I, Claudius, the narrator’s future ascent to the imperial throne is foretold in an omen: an eagle drops something into his lap. What is that something?

    1. A wolf cub

    2. A snake

    3. A hare

44. Rosemary Sutcliff’s story The Eagle of the Ninth took its inspiration from a real Roman bronze eagle – probably not actually a legionary standard, but never mind. In which museum can it be seen?

    1. Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter

    2. Reading Museum

    3. National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh

45. 

    Which Roman writer addressed a poem to his lover’s sparrow?

    1. Catullus

    2. Propertius

    3. Ovid

Solutions

1:B, 2:A, 3:A, 4:C, 5:A, 6:B, 7:B - The parrot impersonates the holy ghost., 8:C, 9:C, 10:A, 11:C, 12:C, 13:B, 14:A, 15:B, 16:A - Joseph Roth used Johann Strauss the Elder's title for The Radetzky March., 17:B, 18:A, 19:C, 20:C, 21:B, 22:A, 23:B, 24:C, 25:B, 26:C, 27:A, 28:B, 29:C, 30:B, 31:B, 32:A, 33:B, 34:A, 35:C, 36:C, 37:B, 38:A - Oswald Bastable in The Story of the Treasure Seekers., 39:C, 40:B, 41:B, 42:B, 43:A, 44:B, 45:A

Scores

1. 45 and above.

   Bah humbug! You got 45/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

2. 44 and above.

   Bah humbug! You got 44/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

3. 43 and above.

   Bah humbug! You got 43/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

4. 42 and above.

   Bah humbug! You got 42/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

5. 41 and above.

   Bah humbug! You got 41/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

6. 40 and above.

   Bah humbug! You got 40/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

7. 39 and above.

   Bah humbug! You got 39/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

8. 38 and above.

   Bah humbug! You got 38/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

9. 37 and above.

   Bah humbug! You got 37/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

10. 36 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 36/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

11. 35 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got got 35/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

12. 34 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 34/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

13. 33 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 33/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

14. 32 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 32/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

15. 31 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 31/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

16. 30 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 30/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

17. 29 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 29/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

18. 28 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 28/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

19. 27 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 27/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

20. 26 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 26/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

21. 25 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 25/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

22. 24 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 24/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

23. 23 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 23/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

24. 22 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 22/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

25. 21 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 21/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

26. 20 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 20/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

27. 19 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 19/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

28. 18 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 18/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

29. 17 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 17/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

30. 16 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 16/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

31. 15 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 15/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

32. 8 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 8/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

33. 9 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 9/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

34. 10 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 10/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

35. 14 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 14/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

36. 12 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 12/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

37. 13 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 13/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

38. 11 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 11/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

39. 7 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 7/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

40. 6 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 6/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

41. 5 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 5/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

42. 4 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 4/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

43. 3 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 3/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

44. 2 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 2/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

45. 0 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got got 0/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.

46. 1 and above.

    Bah humbug! You got 1/45 in the Guardian's Christmas books quiz for 2017.