1. “And so at last came the fateful Thursday, the climax of the panic. A pall seemed to have fallen upon Wall Street. Men ran here and there, bareheaded and pale with fright. Upon the floor of the Stock Exchange men held their breath. The market was falling to pieces ... The brokers stood about, gazing at each other in utter despair. Such an hour had never before been known.” Which novel about the Wall Street panic of 1907 is this taken from?

   1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

   2. The Moneychangers by Upton Sinclair

   3. Money by Martin Amis

   4. Big Money by PG Wodehouse

2. What is the subtitle of The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, in which a series of disasters happen to Michael Henchard, including the auctioning of his wife and daughter while drunk, and his eventual bankruptcy?

   1. The Man Who Died Alone

   2. The Perils of Drink

   3. A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented

   4. The Life and Death of a Man of Character

3. Which French author, who came close to bankruptcy himself, wrote The Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau which deals with the financial downfall of Raoul Nathan?

   1. Honoré de Balzac

   2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

   3. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

   4. Jean-Paul Sartre

4. What is the real name of the family struggling with destitution in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath?

   1. The Trasks

   2. The Miltons

   3. The Joads

   4. The Hiltons

5. Which novel, published a year earlier, was said to have foreshadowed the crash of Barings Bank?

   1. Nest of Vipers by Linda Davies

   2. Riders by Jilly Cooper

   3. The Negotiator by Frederick Forsyth

   4. Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis

6. What is Penny Vincenzi’s blockbuster about the Lloyds scandal of the 1980s called? “It started with just a few requests for money from various Names. And then the demands got bigger. And bigger. Until thousands of people, some rich, most of them just comfortably off, found their lives ruined, homes gone, relationships wrecked.”

   1. Wicked Pleasures

   2. Pointing the Finger

   3. Insured: For Love

   4. An Absolute Scandal

7. Which financial disaster affects the Calloways in Brightness Falls by Jay McInerney?

   1. The German hyperinflation of the 1920s

   2. The 1987 Wall Street crash

   3. The Great Train Robbery

   4. 2008’s credit crunch

8. What is of these is the storyline of Dorothy D Leone’s novel Where the Herring Run?

   1. A tale of hope in the American heartlands, in which an impoverished family of fish farmers claw their way back from the bread line

   2. Albert Crosby makes his millions through manufacturing medicinal alcohol but eventually plunges into bankruptcy after losing almost everything in the Chicago Fire of 1871

   3. The Herring family of Massachusetts lose everything in the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, when a wave of treacle rushing through the city destroys their livelihood

   4. Cruel but beautiful heiress Adora Von Hindmarsh is revered but detested by New York society, until she loses her fortune in an ill-advised gamble

9. “I read a newspaper article about the day Barings Bank went bust in 1892. It intrigued me that this smug group of wealthy Victorian grandees should suddenly realise that all their money had gone. All of it. They are bankrupt, they owe money to people and they don't have any themselves. They have to face the prospect of firing all their servants, moving to the suburbs and peeling their own potatoes and washing their own long johns. It struck me as terrifically dramatic and it became the central scene of the book.” Which author then went on to write A Dangerous Fortune?

   1. Jackie Collins

   2. Wilbur Smith

   3. Ken Follett

   4. Jeffrey Archer

10. Wilkins Micawber is eternally in debt in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. What is a Micawber today?

    1. A spendthrift

    2. Someone who is hopeless with money

    3. Someone who is in and out of prison

    4. Someone who is poor but optimistic

Solutions

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

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   You’ve no idea how finance works and are probably still operating on a barter system

2. 4 and above.

   You’re edging out of the red but you need a healthy cash injection

3. 8 and above.

   You must be a high-flying city exec – in which case how did you find the time to do this quiz? Get back to work