Oh England My Lionheart Trivia Quiz

Answer: Anne Bronte

Anne Bronte used the pseudonym Acton Bell to write the 1848 novel, "Tenant of Wildfell Hall". The story told of a young widow who took up residence in an old house along with her son and servant. She attempted to remain aloof from her neighbours but a young farmer was persistent and uncovered the truth about her past.

Haworth Parsonage was the family home of the Bronte sisters - Anne, Charlotte and Emily. It is where their classic novels were written, including "Wuthering Heights" and " Jane Eyre". The parsonage is now a museum and can be located in the small town of Haworth on the Pennine moors.

Answer: Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, but he spent most of his adult years living at several locations in London. Most of his books were written at Tavistock House in central London. He had also fallen in love with a house called Gads Hill Place in Kent when he was much younger, and was able to purchase it in 1856 from his growing wealth. It was here that he suffered a fatal stroke in 1870. The house today is used as a private school.

Esther Summerson was the lead character in "Bleak House" (1852/3), Mr. Gradgrind from "Hard Times" (1854) and William Dorrit from "Little Dorrit" (1855/7).

Answer: Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter was an author and illustrator with a number of her books published between 1902 and 1930. These included "The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle" (1905) and "The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck" (1908).

Born in London in 1866, she had a comfortable upbringing by artistic parents who nurtured her love of art and the natural world. Influenced by fairy tales and fantasy stories, she wrote and designed her first book, which was published in 1902. Her personal life took a turn for the worse when the man she was unofficially engaged to died of leukemia. She left city life and bought Hill Top Farm where she continued writing and followed another interest of hers; farming and breeding cattle. It was during this period in her life when she met and married local solicitor, William Heelis.

Hill Top Farm and its cottage garden is today owned by the National Trust and is open as a museum.

Answer: William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth wrote his classic poem, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" in 1802 after taking a walk around the stunningly scenic Ullswater in the Lake District.

"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of dancing daffodils".

He moved into Dove Cottage with his sister in 1799. It would later become the home for his wife, Mary Hutchinson, although they moved out in 1808 after it became too small for their growing family. The cottage was also close to where two very good friends lived, poets Samuel Coleridge and Robert Southey. The three men were collectively known as the "Lake Poets".

Dove Cottage has been a museum since 1890 and receives approximately 70,000 visitors every year.

Answer: Thomas Hardy

Currently owned by the National Trust as a museum, this three hundred year old cottage was originally built by Thomas Hardy's grandfather. The younger Hardy lived there for 34 years, having trained in London during those years as an architect, before moving back to the west country to start writing.

His designing skills helped him build his own house not too far away called Max Gate, and it was here that he wrote two of his great classics, "The Mayor of Casterbridge" (1886) and "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" (1891).

Married twice, the first to governess Emma Gifford, and secondly to his much younger secretary, Florence Dugdale, Hardy eventually died from cardiac related problems at the ripe old age of 87. His heart was buried with his first wife and his ashes buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey.

Answer: George Orwell

George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on 25th June, 1903. He was not a high acheiver at school, and failed to get a scholarship to university. Instead, he went to India for five years where he joined the Imperial Police. Returning to England in 1927, he reevaluated his life and took up writing. His first book "Down and Out in Paris and London" was published in 1933.

The following years saw him lead a colourful life, from being a teacher, fighting in the Spanish Civil War to becoming a newspaper editor. He always returned to writing with "Animal Farm" published in 1945, followed by "1984" in 1949. It was in a cottage on the remote island of Jura in the Hebridean islands off Scotland that he wrote "1984", and it was at the same location where he contracted tuberculosis which led to his demise.

Answer: Charles Darwin

Born in Shropshire, England, in February 1809 to wealthy parents, Charles Darwin was able to have a grammar school education before attending the University of Edinburgh Medical School, and then Cambridge University. The studies bored him and he became more interested in natural history and theology. After leaving university, he joined The Beagle on a five year journey to chart South America. Darwin surveyed the geology of the area and collected many samples of flora and fauna which was sent back to England. He wrote at the end of the journey that it "seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species".

Back in England, he settled down to married life with Emma Wedgwood at Down House in the small village of Downe in Kent. It was here that he completed his theories and wrote the 1859 book, "On the Origin of Species". It was also here that he died in 1882 of heart failure.

The house today has been restored to its former glory and is a museum, showcasing the life works of the world renowned author and naturalist.

Answer: Jane Austen

Born in 1775, Jane Austen was bought up as part of a close knit family and it was her rector father, and also her brothers, who taught her most of what she knew. She enjoyed writing from a very early age and grew into adulthood living in quiet gentility - visiting friends, attending balls, sewing, reading and playing music. After living in Bath for a short time, her father passed away and left his wife and two daughters in financial difficulty. They moved to the village of Chawton in rural Hampshire.

Jane Austen lived at Chawton Cottage for eight years and it was during this time that she wrote the novels which included her well loved heroines; Elinor and Marianne Dashwood from "Sense and Sensibility", Elizabeth Bennett from "Pride and Prejudice", Fanny Price from "Mansfield Park", Emma from the book with the same title, Anne Elliot from "Persuasion" and Catherine Morland from "Northanger Abbey".

The 17th century built cottage is today a museum which houses a small collection of Jane Austen memorabilia including her manuscript letters and music books.

Answer: William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in 1564 to John and Mary Shakespeare at the timber framed house in Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon. His juvenile years are very vague and not much is known about them. He married Anne Hathaway when he was 18 years old, and they were parents to two daughters and a son: Susanna, Judith and Hamnet. It is believed that his first play was "The Two Gentlemen of Verona", possibly written between 1589 and 1591.

When his father died in 1601, William inherited the house in Henley Street. He was already living in another house not far away called New Place, and had no need for another residence. He leased the building and most was turned into a tavern called "The Maidenhead", later to become "The Swan and Maidenhead". The rest of the house was used by his widowed sister.

The house today is a museum and is run by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Answer: Agatha Christie

The Georgian house was built in the late 18th century and was bought by Agatha Christie and her second husband in 1938. She had previously lived in London and at Styles, a house near Sunningdale which was her first marital home. It was from Styles that she disappeared when her first husband asked for a divorce in 1926. Greenway House was the setting of three of her later crime novels," Five Little Pigs" (1942), "Towards Zero" (1944) and "Dead Man's Folly" (1956).

Agatha Christie was born in 1890, in Torquay, Devon. Her first novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", was published in 1920 and featured Hercule Poirot for the first time. Since then, she wrote a further 65 crime novels and in total she has sold approximately four billion copies. The last book she wrote before her death was the 1973 novel, "Postern of Fate", featuring Tommy and Tuppence.

Greenway House and estate is run by the National Trust and is open to members of the public.