Her Best Friend Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jane Austen

These are characters from Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice', which was published in 1813. Elizabeth has a close relationship and friendship with her older sister, Jane, but Charlotte is an unrelated friend. In the novel, Elizabeth receives a proposal of marriage from a Mr Collins, which she declines despite the financial advantages it would bring to her family.

He turns his attentions to Charlotte instead, who accepts him, explaining to Elizabeth that she is marrying him for security, not love.

Answer: Thomas Hardy

Liddy is Bathsheba's servant and confidante in the novel 'Far From the Madding Crowd', the fourth of Hardy's novels and published in 1874. Bathsheba has inherited a farm, making her a rarity in the farming community as a single (and young) woman. Although she has three different male suitors, no close female friend is mentioned other than Liddy, who Bathsheba chooses as her witness, or maid of honour, at her second wedding. Friendship, rather than servant/mistress, seems a good description of the relationship between the pair.

Answer: L M Montgomery

The friendship between these two characters from 'Anne of Green Gables' regularly comes up as being one of the best examples of female friendship in literature. Lucy Maud Montgomery created them in 1908 when she told the story of Anne being adopted, by mistake since they'd really wanted a boy, by a brother and sister in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Her next door neighbour, Diana Barry, soon becomes her closest friend. The story of Anne and her friends and family was continued in several sequels.

Answer: Charles Dickens

These two characters are the 'fallen women' in 'Oliver Twist', published in the late 1830s as a serial, in common with many of the works of Dickens. In the novel, the two of them are introduced as a pair - both young women who have grown up in Fagin's gang of pickpockets and both of them being kind to the young Oliver when he joins the gang.

Although Bet doesn't play a large part in the story, she seems to be the only friend that the ill-fated Nancy has.

Answer: Margaret Mitchell

Since Margaret Mitchell wrote only one novel before being killed in an accident, identifying 'Gone with the Wind' and the two main female characters from the novel shouldn't have been too difficult. Scarlett and Melanie begin as rivals, since Melanie marries Ashley Wilkes, the man Scarlett herself loves.

In an act of retaliation, Scarlett marries Melanie's brother, Charles Hamilton, making them sisters-in-law. During the course of the novel, the two become friends with their contrasting characters complementing each other.

Answer: Suzanne Collins

Katniss is a much more recent fictional creation than the other females in this quiz, making her first appearance in 2008 when 'The Hunger Games' was published. Her surname is, though, based on that of Bathsheba Everdene by the author's own admission. Katniss lives in a country called Panem where young people are chosen to fight to the death as representatives of the districts in which they live. Gale Hawthorne, who is male despite his name, is from a different district but the two become close friends and allies due to their shared hunting skills.

Answer: Charlotte Bronte

These two characters are the title character in the novel 'Jane Eyre', published in 1847, and the friend she makes at the boarding school named Lowood Institution. The name of the school reflects the fact that it is aimed at the poor and both Jane and Helen are orphans.

Helen is older than Jane and has learned to accept that life is unfair, a lesson which Jane struggles to accept. Helen believes that she deserves the ill treatment that the pupils suffer, as taught in the Bible, since she must be sinful.

She dies from tuberculosis, or consumption as it was called at the time. Jane is with her at the time, and some, though not all, of Helen's acceptance of fate is passed on to Jane.

Answer: Julie Campbell Tatham

Only the first six of the Trixie Belden books were written by Julie Campbell Tatham, between 1948 and 1958, before a team of writers took over, using the author name 'Kathryn Kenny'. Tatham was the originator of the character, though, creating a teenage detective who lives on a farm.

She befriends a newcomer, and neighbour, Madeleine Wheeler, who is always known as Honey. In the best traditions of children's literature, such as 'Nancy Drew' and 'The Famous Five', the youngsters' success rate at solving mysteries far exceeds that of the local police.

Answer: William Shakespeare

If I'd given you the names as Mistress Alice Ford and Mistress Margaret Page, you'd probably have spotted instantly that these are 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'. They are the objects of the lecherous intentions of Sir John Falstaff, who wants to seduce either (or both) of them to get his hands on their money.

The women share their knowledge of his plans with each other and come up with a series of plots which humiliate Falstaff every time - they never have the slightest intentions of betraying their respective husbands.

The play dates from around 1600 and is, as you'd expect from the brief plot summary, one of Shakespeare's comedies.

Answer: William Makepeace Thackeray

Originally published in serial form in 1847 and 1848, 'Vanity Fair' is the name of Thackeray's novel featuring these two characters. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars, which were recent history at the time. The girls meet at Miss Pinkerton's Academy and their lives remain intertwined. Becky relies on her wits and her only aim in life is financial security, so she sets out to find the richest man she can. Amelia, by contrast, is described as plain but kind and with a sweet nature, which attracts men in a different way. Amelia is the only person to whom Becky shows any loyalty at all, and is acknowledged as being her only friend.