Jane Austen's Ladies Trivia Quiz

Answer: Miss Maria Ward

Miss Maria Ward was one of three sisters who (before the events of 'Mansfield Park') had vastly different levels of 'success' on the 'marriage market'. While Maria married the rich baronet Sir Thomas Bertram and became mistress of the eponymous estate, her elder sister ended up married to a clergyman of modest income and her younger sister, Frances, became Mrs Price - the wife of a penniless naval officer (a "lieutenant of marines" to be precise). This history provided the background to the main plot of the novel, which follows the fate of Frances' eldest daughter, Miss Fanny Price, after she was invited to live with her rich aunt at Mansfield Park in order to save her parents the expense of her upbringing.

Austen's portrayal of Lady Bertram and Mrs Price highlighted the contrasting effect of wealth and poverty. At the beginning of the novel the sisters were both described as being "handsome" and they also both had a similar character that tended towards idleness and a lack of desire or drive to achieve anything. However, after having ten children in relative poverty, Mrs Price's appearance was "much more worn and faded" than Lady Bertram's and her lack of attention to her household resulted in disorder and inefficiency, while wealth and a small army of servants meant that Lady Bertram didn't bother or need to do anything useful at all.

The incorrect options were the maiden names of various minor characters in Austen's novels. Charlotte Jennings became Mrs Palmer in 'Sense and Sensibility', Louisa Hurst nee Bingley appeared in 'Pride and Prejudice' and Sophia Croft was the sister of Captain Wentworth in 'Persuasion'.

Answer: Playing the piano

Lady Catherine de Bourgh was first introduced as the celebrated patroness of the Reverend William Collins - the distinctly silly cousin of the novel's heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. Although Mr Collins gave a glowing recommendation of her ladyship's character and behaviour, his extremely sycophantic nature led to a suspicion that his portrayal may not be very accurate. This proved to be the case when Elizabeth finally met the great lady during a visit to her cousin and his new wife (her friend Charlotte Lucas) in Kent - Lady Catherine turned out to be self-obsessed, judgemental, opinionated, condescending and rude. She also had an over-inflated view of her own superiority and didn't hesitate to dispense advice to Elizabeth on how to play the piano, despite the fact that she had never learned how to do so herself!

However, Lady Catherine's most egregious act of rudeness came when she visited Elizabeth in an attempt to prevent her from becoming engaged to Mr Darcy. In the process she criticised the Bennets' home, accused Elizabeth of using "arts and allurements" to break Darcy's (non-existent) engagement to Miss de Bourgh, insulted Elizabeth's relations and suggested that the "shades of Pemberley" would be "polluted" if Elizabeth was to become their mistress.

Answer: Lady Dalrymple

Jane Austen never actually specified the exact relationship between Sir Walter Elliot and the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple other than to describe them, somewhat vaguely, as 'cousins'. Presumably it couldn't have been a particularly close connection as apparently Sir Walter had never met the lady in question, only her late husband on one occasion. The two families had fallen out over ten years before the events of 'Persuasion' when the Elliots had failed to send the appropriate condolences on the death of Lady Dalrymple's husband and she had retaliated by failing to pay respects when Lady Elliot - the mother of Elizabeth, Anne and Mary - died.

Lady Dalrymple and her daughter Miss Carteret visited Bath during the time that the Elliots had been forced to relocate there due to their financial difficulties. After much dithering and concern over how to ingratiate themselves with the lady, Sir Walter wrote her an apologetic letter and succeeded in re-establishing the connection. However, Anne Elliot was dismayed by these events as she felt that her father and sister revered Lady Dalrymple purely because of her title and position in society and she herself found her to be rather boring company.

The incorrect options are not characters in the novel - although Mrs Musgrove, Mrs Clay and Mrs Harville all appeared.

Answer: Sanditon

Lady Denham was the owner of Sanditon House and a keen supporter of the plans behind the development of the seaside town into a fashionable resort. The other key person behind this idea was a gentleman named Mr Parker who, along with his wife, met the novel's heroine, Charlotte Heywood, when they suffered a carriage accident near Charlotte's home. After recuperating with the Heywood family, the couple invited Charlotte to stay with them in Sanditon, setting the scene for the rest of the story. Unfortunately, very little of the story was written as Jane Austen died just six months after beginning the manuscript and was clearly unable to work on it for the majority of that time.

The primary theme of Jane Austen's final work is health - both the benefits of the healthy environment of a seaside town and the absurdity of hypochondria. The majority of the characters in Sanditon are somewhat comedic caricatures; perhaps Austen, whose work is well-known for its sharp, witty and ironic plots, took some comfort from writing a humorous tale about illness since she would likely have been all too aware of her own impending mortality.

Steventon is the village where Jane Austen was born; Chawton is the Hampshire village where she lived from 1809 to 1817 and the location of the Jane Austen's House Museum; and Lyme (now known as Lyme Regis) featured in her novel 'Persuasion'.

Answer: Her husband was knighted

Sir William and Lady Lucas were the congenial neighbours who resided a short walk away from the Bennets' home at Longbourn. Their eldest daughter Charlotte was a particular friend of the novel's heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, and was the future mistress of Longbourn thanks to her marriage to Mr Bennet's heir - the foolish and bumbling parson, Mr Collins. Lady Lucas made infrequent appearances in the story, usually as the recipient of Mrs Bennet's incessant gossiping about her daughters' marriage prospects (or the lack of them).

Lady Lucas gained her title when her husband, a local businessman and mayor of the small town of Meryton, was knighted as a result of giving "an address to the king". In general the rules of the British honours system mean that a woman gains an equivalent title to that held by her husband and is known as "Lady [surname]" rather than "Lady [first name]", a fact which probably explains why Austen never mentions Lady Lucas's first name. In contrast the daughters of high-ranking members of the peerage (earls, marquesses and dukes) are known as "Lady [first name]" in their own right. In 'Pride and Prejudice', although Lady Catherine de Bourgh was the wife of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, she was known as Lady Catherine because she was also the daughter of an earl.

Answer: Her children

Sir John and Lady Middleton were one of the more mismatched couples in Jane Austen's works in terms of both their characters and their interests. While Sir John Middleton was a kind and friendly man who had offered a home to his widowed cousin, Mrs Dashwood, and her daughters, Lady Middleton appeared to be uninterested in her new neighbours and was somewhat distant in her interactions with them. The one subject which Lady Middleton was happy to discuss at length was her children. Despite being described as "reserved" and "cold", she was clearly a devoted mother and the amount of time she spent with them was probably unusual for a lady in Georgian times.

Interestingly, Lady Middleton's character was very different to that of both her mother, Mrs Jennings, and her younger sister, Mrs Palmer. Neither of those women would have been described as elegant or "well-bred". Mrs Jennings was a somewhat loud and vulgar, but kind-hearted woman and Mrs Palmer smiled and laughed a lot, but was rather silly. Mr Palmer, by contrast, was a quiet and serious man. The novel as a whole featured several couples whose characters - on first glance - would not appear to be very compatible. Marianne Dashwood (the character with the "sensibility") and the much older Colonel Brandon were another unlikely pair.

A pet pug was one of Lady Bertram's main interests in 'Mansfield Park'.

Answer: Godmother

Lady Russell was a good friend of Anne Elliot's late mother, Lady Elliot, and was Anne's godmother. She was a widow who had moved to Kellynch to be closer to her friend and her friend's family and was extremely close to her god-daughter - thanks mainly to the fact that neither Anne's father nor elder sister seemed to care much about her. When Anne fell in love and accepted a marriage proposal from an obscure naval captain who was not wealthy and had no certainty of ever achieving wealth, Lady Russell - who Austen described as a woman who "had a value for rank and consequence" - used her influence and persuaded Anne to change her mind. This persuasion set the scene for the events of the novel, which took place eight years after the broken engagement. Anne and Wentworth met again for the first time, but their positions had been reversed - Wentworth had become rich and successful, while Anne's father had accumulated debts and the family had been forced to rent out their stately home to Wentworth's sister and brother-in-law.

Lady Russell did not appear to regret her advice to her god-daughter and was not in favour of Anne and Wentworth rekindling their relationship. Instead, Lady Russell's greatest wish was for Anne to succeed her mother as Lady Elliot and mistress of Kellynch Hall by marrying her off to her father's heir, Mr William Elliot. Since Mr Elliot was a cruel, scheming and mercenary man, Anne was not persuaded a second time by her godmother's opinion and eventually found happiness in a reunion with Captain Wentworth.

Answer: Mary Crawford

Mary Crawford - the fashionable young woman who loved Edmund Bertram but wasn't sure about marrying a simple clergyman - was a great friend of both the London socialite Lady Stornaway and her sister Mrs Fraser. Following the end of her visit to Mansfield parsonage, Mary returned to London and the society of her old group of friends who believed in marrying for money, titles and prestige rather than love and as a result didn't tend to see any problem with infidelity and having affairs. After Mary's brother Henry created a major scandal by running off with Edmund's married sister, Maria Rushworth, Edmund was shocked and horrified and believed that Mary would be as well. He got a nasty shock when he visited Mary at Lady Stornaway's house and discovered that she was only unhappy that the affair had been discovered, believed the couple's actions to have been simple "folly" and actually blamed Fanny Price for allowing it to happen by refusing to marry Henry. Edmund believed that Mary's friendship with Lady Stornaway had "spoilt" her character - "the greatest misfortune of her life" - and as a result he felt unable to marry her - "the greatest misfortune of...mine".

In the end though, the loss of his relationship with Mary Crawford did not prove to be the end of Edmund Bertram's happiness. By the end of the novel Edmund and Fanny had married and were happily settled at Mansfield parsonage.

Answer: Eleanor

In 'Northanger Abbey' the hero and heroine, Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland, were initially prevented from marrying because of his father's opposition to the match. General Tilney had initially welcomed Catherine into his home because he mistakenly believed that she was a rich heiress. When he discovered his mistake he practically threw the 17-year-old out on the street, without even checking whether she had enough money to pay for her journey home. Needless to say after this display of extreme incivility, he did not approve of his son's decision to propose marriage and refused to give his blessing for a wedding to go ahead. The situation only altered when his daughter Eleanor became a 'Lady' by marrying a viscount and used her newfound influence over her father to persuade him to change his mind.

Prior to her marriage, Eleanor Tilney's life at Northanger Abbey had been fairly miserable as she had missed her late mother and felt oppressed by her tyrannical father. Luckily, she was able to marry for love because the man she cared for (who had previously been deemed just as unsuitable as Catherine for marriage into the wealthy Tilney family) suddenly became an eligible suitor when he unexpectedly inherited a position in the peerage.

The incorrect options are all sisters of a Jane Austen hero. Georgiana Darcy is the younger sister of Mr Darcy in 'Pride and Prejudice', Sophia Croft is Captain Wentworth's sister in 'Persuasion' and in 'Sense and Sensibility' Fanny Dashwood is the unpleasant sister of Edward Ferrars.

Answer: Lady Susan Vernon

Unlike Jane Austen's other eponymous character, Emma Woodhouse of 'Emma', Lady Susan Vernon is most definitely not the heroine of 'Lady Susan' and is instead a particularly unpleasant character. In the earliest letters between the major characters of the novella (the whole of 'Lady Susan' is written in the epistolary form popular in the late 18th century) the reader discovers that Lady Susan, a widow who lost her husband just four months earlier, is an unashamed and manipulative adulteress. She also readily admits, in letters to her equally immoral friend, Alicia Johnson, to deliberately flirting with a man she has no interest in purely to break off his relationship with her lover's sister and describes her only daughter as "the greatest simpleton on earth" and "the torment of my life".

The general plot of 'Lady Susan' describes Susan's attempts to ensnare Reginald De Courcy, although she has no intention of marrying him; her plans to force her daughter, Frederica, to marry a man she dislikes; and her eventual downfall, which results in her having to marry Sir James Martin, the suitor she had intended for Frederica. Although it was probably written when Austen was around 20 years old, she never submitted it to be published and it didn't appear in print until over 50 years after her death.