From Which Literary Work Am I? Quiz

Answer: Peter Pan

Smee comes from the work "Peter Pan" written by Scottish novelist J.M. Barrie. The character Peter Pan first appeared in 1902 in another novel by Barrie - called "The Little White Bird", and then in his own right in the 1904 play "Peter Pan". It is a tale about a boy who refuses to grow up and who lives on a magical island called Neverland. Smee is the unfortunate and comical offsider to the villain in this story, one Captain Hook, a dashing scoundrel if ever there was one.

Answer: Black Beauty

This book was written in 1877 by English author Anna Sewell not long before her death following a debilitating illness. As a child, she had permanently injured both her ankles in an accident. She could only walk with on crutches with great difficulty thereafter and often used a horse drawn carriage in order to get about - hence her love of, and sympathy for, horses. Anna Sewell wrote this novel, she said, in order "to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses." The horses are personified in this work, and narrated by the main character, the beautiful horse, Black Beauty.

The death of the horse Ginger at the end of the book is particularly harrowing and had me in tears, as a child, for hours.

Answer: Jane Eyre

Written by English novelist Charlotte Bronte and published in 1847, this story is told in the first person narrative from the perspective of the main character, Jane Eyre. It takes us through her harsh childhood, firstly at her aunt's home, then at the appalling institution, Lowood school. We move from there to Jane's work as a governess at Thornfield where she meets and falls in love with Mr Rochester, but from whom she flees in finding out he already has a wife (a fascinating literary creation).

The next period in her life, which mirrors the first part of the novel to an extent, is her time away from her love - before finally, in the excellent resolution to the novel, Jane, now on equal footing, is reunited with, and weds her most loved Edward Rochester at last.

Answer: Anne of Green Gables

Written by Canadian author, L.M. Montgomery, and published in 1908, this is the first in a series of books dealing with the life of an orphan girl, Anne Shirley, who is adopted by a middle-aged brother and sister who live on beautiful Prince Edward Island. Diana Barry is the chubby, dark-haired beauty whom Anne meets in this first book.

The two become fast friends, and remain that way, even though their lives take different paths, right through the entire series of these lovely books, to where they are both mature married women with grown children of their own.

Answer: Pride and Prejudice

Written by English novelist, Jane Austen, and published in 1813, this book tells of the lives of the Bennet family, centred around the main character Elizabeth (and to a lesser degree, her sister Jane), as they move through an unsettling and extremely entertaining period in their lives relating to the courtship and ultimate weddings of three of the five sisters in the work. Kitty is the somewhat brainless younger sister of Elizabeth and Jane.

Her role in the book along with the other younger sisters, Lydia and Mary, is to hold up to the reader the example of just what young women of the time should most definitely not be.

Answer: Wuthering Heights

Published in 1847, "Wuthering Heights" is the most tragic and passionate love story ever penned, and the one and only novel written by English writer Emily Bronte before her tragic death at an early age. Nelly works as a servant for both the main families involved in this work, so has first hand knowledge of all the tragic events that unfold before the reader, and which she relates to an outsider.

This amazing book is breathtaking in its raw passion and power, its themes, and its stark descriptive elements. To think it was written by a young and isolated woman with hardly any real experience of life at all is completely astonishing.

Her real life, it seemed, blossomed and soared within her brilliant, but lonely, mind.

Answer: Othello

The play "Othello, the Moor of Venice", which is usually referred to simply as "Othello", was written around the year 1603 by William Shakespeare. Iago is the perfect portrayal in this play of all that is dark and evil. With unadulterated malevolence, he manipulates all around him to their resultant deaths and destruction.

The play has powerful biblical overtones with its representations of the noble Othello, a great leader of another race, who represents all that is good and noble in man - his love Desdemona, who represents the innocence, love and purity of man - and Iago, who represents the darkness and evil that lurks at the heart of every man, and how easy it is to surrender to that evil. Desdemona becomes the sacrificial lamb, killed by Othello who loves her beyond all reason, but who is driven to his terrible act by the whispering evil suggestions and lies of Iago.

In this intense, inexorable work, one almost expects an apple to pop up on the scene at any minute.

Answer: The Great Gatsby

Told by Nick, the narrator in the story, this book, written by American F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first published in 1925. It is set in the hectic, pleasure seeking era of the roaring twenties. At its quiet centre is the desperate love that Jay Gatsby, representative of the self made man, has felt for five years for the elusive and ephemeral Daisy Buchanan, who represents the great American Dream.

This brilliant work is a tragedy about some dreams that can never come true, but far worse, the disillusionment of those dreams - if they do.

Answer: The Adventures of Oliver Twist

Written by Charles Dickens, and published in 1838, this book follows the fortunes of the small orphan boy Oliver and his convoluted adventures through life from a baby farm, to the workhouse, to unhappy employment, to a brief life of crime in the underworld of Victorian London before its ultimate happy ever after ending. Dickens' works, though they translate well to film and television, are dreary and depressing to read.

However, looked at from another perspective, the message behind the majority of his writing is always that of the unfairness of the inequality of life in England at that time - so in essence they then become great works of social protest. Noah Claypole is a bully of a boy who is an apprentice, along with Oliver, in Oliver's first work as an undertaker's apprentice.

Answer: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

This play by American writer Edward Albee opened on Broadway in 1962. It centres round an after party get together of four middle class people from academic backgrounds and the destructive daily behaviour patterns the two main characters constantly engage in, in their attempt to comes to terms with the dead-end destinations of their lives.

At the same time, it's one of the most immensely moving dramas to ever hit the stage and can move an audience to tears when it is revealed how the childless couple, George and Martha, have embellished their lives. Made into a brilliant movie starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as George and Martha, it deservedly won five Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Elizabeth Taylor and Best Supporting Actress for Sandy Dennis in her role as Honey, the younger woman at the get together.