Women in Literature Trivia Quiz

Answer: Muriel Spark

'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' was written by the Scottish author Muriel Spark. It is set in Edinburgh in the 1930s, where Miss Brodie is an idealistic young teacher. She tries to teach her girls about art, drama and fascist ideas, and to mould her favourite students to fulfil her ambitions for them.

This, of course, goes disastrously wrong. Although Spark was a prolific writer of novels and short stories, 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' has remained the most popular of her works. She died in 2006 aged 88.

Answer: Jane Austen

Harriet Smith is a poor girl for whom Emma Woodhouse tries to find a husband, with disastrous results, in the novel 'Emma'. First she tries to match her with the local curate, who mistakes her intentions and thinks that Emma herself has designs on him.

Then she advises her to refuse a fine young farmer who loves Harriet and would have made her a good husband. In the end as is the way with Jane Austen stories, it all comes out right for all concerned. Jane Austen was an English novelist, the seventh of eight children, and her older sister Casandra was her nearest companion throughout her life.

Answer: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Daisy Buchanan is the object of Jay Gatsby's obsessive love in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel 'The Great Gatsby'. She is not worthy of Gatsby's love as she is a selfish, shallow and fickle person. For instance, she allows Jay to take the blame for a fatal driving accident while she was at the wheel, and takes no interest at all in her child. F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American writer whose novels were set in the flamboyant jazz age. During his lifetime, he did not receive much critical acclaim but became popular after his death.

Answer: Nancy Mitford

Polly Montdore is the only daughter of Lord and Lady Montdore in Nancy Mitford's novel 'Love in a Cold Climate'. Polly is very beautiful but her type of beauty is rather out of fashion because at the time men preferred small birdlike women, rather like Prince Edward's Mrs. Simpson.

She also appears totally uninterested in men to the despair of her mother who would love her to be surrounded by a bevy of admirers. Nancy Mitford was one of the famous and outrageous Mitford sisters. Her book 'The Pursuit of Love' was loosely based on their childhood, where the girls were all untutored. One became a communist and one married Oswald Mosely leader of the British Union of Fascists, another sister committed suicide, and Nancy, the writer, was the most "normal" one.

Answer: Lucy Maud Montgomery

Anne Shirley is the heroine of the novel 'Anne of Green Gables'. She is an 11-year-old orphan girl who is sent by mistake to brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, when they intend to adopt a boy to help on their farm. Ann is funny and imaginative and the old couple fall in love with her and keep her with them. Lucy Maud Montgomery was born on Prince Edward Island in Canada.

Although she did not enjoy teaching, she worked as a teacher to give her time for writing. Between 1897 and 1907, she published over one hundred stories.

Answer: Stella Gibbons

Flora Poste is a fashionable urbane young woman who due to financial difficulties has to seek accommodation with her wild and eccentric relatives at 'Cold Comfort Farm', which is the name of the novel. It is a parody of the kind of dramatic doom-laden novels depicting rural life at the time.

The book pokes fun at many authors including Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence. Stella Gibbons was an English author, journalist and poet. 'Cold Comfort Farm' was her first novel and though there were many subsequent books, none of them achieved the same level of success.

She died in 1989.

Answer: Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre because all the heroines of the time were great beauties, and she wanted to show that someone as small and insignificant as herself can have an interesting story. Jane was an orphan and was sent from the orphanage to be governess to the ward of Mr. Rochester, who turns out to have a sinister secret. Charlotte Bronte was the eldest of three talented writing sisters who lived in the village of Haworth in Yorkshire.

Her father was the local parson and their home, the rectory in Haworth, is now a museum.

Answer: J.K. Rowling

Hermione Granger is one of Harry Potter's best friends at Hogwarts School. She is a serious and studious girl who can always be relied on to know her spells. J.K. Rowling has said that Hermione is rather like herself as a girl, full of insecurities and fear of failure. Before she had the success with the Harry Potter series of books, J.K. Rowling was a single mother on benefits and suffering with depression. Now she is a multi-millionaire.

Answer: Frances Hodgson Burnett

Mary Lennox was a 10-year-old girl who had been born in India to parents who did not want her, in the novel, 'The Secret Garden'. Servants looked after her and she became very spoiled. When her parents and all the servants died of cholera, she was sent to England to live with an uncle she had never met.

She discovered the secret garden and met her cousin Colin and transformed all their lives. Frances Hodgson Burnett was a British-born American author. She also wrote the popular children's books 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' and 'The Little Princess'.

Answer: Jacqueline Wilson

Tracy Beaker is a mischievous 10-year-old girl who causes havoc wherever she goes. She lives in a children's home and originally appeared in Jacqueline Wilson's 1991 book 'The Story of Tracy Beaker'. Jacqueline Wilson is an English author who writes for children.

There have been more books, a play and even a video game about Tracy. From 2005 to 2007, Jacqueline was the Children's Laureate, and in 2002 she was awarded the OBE for services to literature in schools. In 2008 she was made a Dame.