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Books And Book-Publishing. Trivia Quiz

Without publishers there would be no books. This quiz looks at the world of books from the publisher's point of view.

A multiple-choice quiz by flem-ish. Estimated time: 7 mins.

Author
flem-ish

Time
7 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
68,951

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Difficult

Avg Score
5 / 10

Plays
350

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. What is meant by subscription publishing? Hint

Books that are published as a set, of which you cannot select single items separately.

Partial pre-publishing of books in reviews, the subscribers of which are the basic readership you ai

Publication based on pre-payment for the book by its readership before the book has actually been written.

Books that can only be bought by subscribers to a particular bookclub.

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Question 2 of 10

2. What does a publisher understand by a 'double-decker' ? Hint

Book in one volume but having double the thickness of an average book.

Book that sells twice as much as expected.

Book published in two volumes, often for commercial reasons.

Book of which no more than one reprint is made.

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Question 3 of 10

3. How does a chrestomathy differ from a normal anthology? Hint

The term is limited to anthologies of prose-fragments only.

It focuses on one theme, e.g. war poems, religious poems or love poems.

It 's an anthology that is at the same time a history of literature, as well as having lots of biogr

It is written not with literary ambition, but as a tool for learning a language.

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Question 4 of 10

4. False or True: In contrast to a preface, a foreword is usually an introductory piece by somebody other than the author of the book itself ?

Answer: (You can write True, False, T or F)

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Question 5 of 10

5. What (most accurately) does the Roman-Catholic Church mean by its 'imprimatur'? Hint

The church agrees with the contents of the book.

The church recognizes the book as being free of moral or doctrinal error.

The church recommends the book to its clergy.

The church deems the book fit for use in Catholic schools.

6. What was the term used in the former Soviet Union for articles and books that could not gain approval from the authorities because of questionable content, and therefore circulated in typescript only? Hint

Tamizdat

Samizdat

Magnitizdat

Sovietizdat

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Question 7 of 10

7. Publishers and censors have always been at odds with each other. Even in the 20th century various books , which later were accepted by the critics as masterpieces, were at first forbidden by 'the authorities'. Which of these was the most recent case? Hint

D.H. Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'

Lawrence Durrell's 'Black Book'

Nabokov's 'Lolita'

James Joyce's 'Ulysses'

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Question 8 of 10

8. Efforts to 'clean up' existing texts have been frequent as well. There were the school versions of classic masterpieces 'ad usum delphini' (meaning expurgated). But the best-known case is certainly Thomas Bowdler's 'purged' Shakespeare edition. Under what title was it published? Hint

'The Revised Shakespeare'

'The Family Shakespeare'

'Shakespeare for Dummies'

'The Young Person's Guide to William Shakespeare'

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Question 9 of 10

9. In general, one can say that censorship is no longer a problem of the Western World, or at least not in the way it was a few centuries ago. In general, one can say that authors of subversive books fared worse than those of erotica. Which of these authors was sent to prison for two years and fined 1,000 pounds for writing a pamphlet against 'flogging in the army'? Hint

William Cobbett

Thomas Paine

Daniel Defoe

John Wilkes

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Question 10 of 10

10. Let's end on a lighter note: What's the correct term for a small ornamental design on a blank page in a book, occurring especially at the beginning or end of chapters ? Hint

A villanelle

A floret

A vignette

A triolet

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. What is meant by subscription publishing?

Answer: Publication based on pre-payment for the book by its readership before the book has actually been written.

This technique is usually limited to specialist books or books for which there is only a limited market.

2. What does a publisher understand by a 'double-decker' ?

Answer: Book published in two volumes, often for commercial reasons.

Publishing books within a series employing the same theme, with the same external appearance, is usually a good technique to get better sales. For similar reasons, it may be more profitable to split up a thick volume into two smaller ones.

3. How does a chrestomathy differ from a normal anthology?

Answer: It is written not with literary ambition, but as a tool for learning a language.

In a chrestomathy excerpts and texts with no literary value may be found next to bits of good writing. Its primary purpose is utilitarian.

4. False or True: In contrast to a preface, a foreword is usually an introductory piece by somebody other than the author of the book itself ?

Answer: True

Prefaces can be essential parts of a book, e.g. the prefaces Shaw wrote for some of his plays, or Dr. Johnson's preface to his dictionary. Harley Granville Barker's 'Preface to Shakespeare' (4 volumes, 1927-1948) is a work in its own right.

5. What (most accurately) does the Roman-Catholic Church mean by its 'imprimatur'?

Answer: The church recognizes the book as being free of moral or doctrinal error.

A near-synonym is 'Nihil Obstat' (Nothing stands in the way). Imprimi protest has a different application. It's the term used by religious orders to allow publication of books by any of their members. The reason NOT to grant an imprimi potest need not be that there are moral or doctrinal errors, but that the authorities of a particular religious order or congregation consider the book does not fit in with the particular mission, policy, etc. of their order.

The book may be considered 100 percent 'kosher', but its publication not 'opportune'.

Answer: Samizdat

If the term existed, sovietizdat might mean the opposite of samizdat. Tamizdat was a term applied to those works that were published in Russian but by Western publishers. It was in this way that 'Dr. Zhivago' was first smuggled to the West and then published for both the Western and Russian(underground)markets. Magnitizdat was material recorded or taped for illegal circulation.

Answer: Nabokov's 'Lolita'

The chronological order is : Joyce {1922;} Lawrence {1928;} Durrell {1936;} Nabokov 1955. In all of the above cases 'pornography' was the censors' argument to forbid the free sale of the book.

Answer: 'The Family Shakespeare'

Thomas Bowdler lived from 1754 till 1825.

Answer: William Cobbett

In 1703 Defoe was arrested, imprisoned and pilloried for his pamphlets on ecclesiastical subjects. John Wilkes was involved in a number of celebrated controversies, but fortunately for him he did not fare as badly as John Matthews, who in 1719 was hanged for high treason because of a pamphlet called 'Vox Populi Vox Dei'. Paine was considered as being at least as subversive as his book 'The Rights of Man', 1791-2.

In those days, the best solution for 'subversive elements' was to run off to the New World to help create the innovation known as the United States of America.

10. Let's end on a lighter note: What's the correct term for a small ornamental design on a blank page in a book, occurring especially at the beginning or end of chapters ?

Answer: A vignette

A triolet is a fixed verse form of eight lines and two rhymes. A villanelle consists of tercets but ends in a final quatrain. The rhyme structure is aba and abaa for the final quatrain. Example, W.H. Auden: 'If I Could tell You'. A floret...nothing bookish about a floret. It's just a small flower.

Source: Author flem-ish

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