Nineteenth Century British Children's Literature Quiz

Sister Mary retold the comedies, while brother Charles retold the tragedies in this volume adapting many of William Shakespeare's plays for children.

Charles is known to adult readers as an essayist and poet. His popularity has waxed and waned, but "Tales from Shakespeare" has remained an enduring favorite through the decades and, indeed, the centuries.

"Tales from Shakespeare" was Mary's only book. But together with her brother, she was, for a while, part of a literary group that included the likes of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (author of "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" and William Wordsworth whose poem about daffodils, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", you might have read. Sadly, Mary suffered from mental illness, and spent many years in a hospital for the mentally ill.

A historical novel set during the English Civil War, "The Children of the New Forest" tells the story of the four Beverley children - Edward, Humphrey, Alice and Edith - after the Roundheads burn down their Cavalier father's manor house. Their guardian, an elderly forest ranger, teaches them self-reliance and trust in God so that, after his death, they can continue to live safely in his cottage, deep in the woods.

Though he wrote school stories and other types of books for both children and adults, Captain Marryat is best known for sea stories. He was very much admired by Joseph Conrad and C.S. Forester, who are also well known for their tales of adventures at sea.

It isn't all that unusual for a white rabbit to go by while you're sitting on a sunny bank. But it isn't every day you see him consulting a gold pocket watch. Is it any wonder Alice yielded to curiosity and followed him?

Lewis Carroll, whose real name was Charles Dodgson, was a clergyman and a university professor. In 1871, his second book about Alice, "Through the Looking Glass", was published.

Diamond is a sweet-tempered child, who brings joy to everyone he knows in the working class part of London where he lives with his family. He becomes friends with the beautiful - and sometimes terrifying - North Wind, who takes him on many adventures.

Scotsman George MacDonald was a minister, poet and novelist. He was also a friend and mentor of Lewis Carroll.

When Princess Irene meets a beautiful and mysterious lady, who lives in a secret tower, her adventures begin. She is aided in them by the lady, as well as by a kind and brave miner boy called Curdie.

The sequel to "The Princess and the Goblin", "The Princess and Curdie", appeared in 1883.

C.S. Lewis greatly admired George MacDonald's work, and it also had some influence on J.R.R. Tolkien's writing.

In "Treasure Island", Jim Hawkins signs on as cabin boy on a voyage to discover buried gold, and becomes involved in a pirate mutiny.

Scottish Author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote stories for both children and adults, as well as travel books and poetry.

The full title of this historical adventure (one of my all time favorite books) says it all: "Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; His Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called: Written by Himself and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson".

The sequel to "Kidnapped", "Catriona", was published in 1893.

This volume by the Irish author of "The Canterville Ghost" includes five stories: "The Happy Prince", "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Selfish Giant", "The Devoted Friend" and "The Remarkable Rocket".

Oscar Wilde's best known works are the play (for adults) "The Importance of Being Earnest" and his only novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray", which is a Gothic Horror story.

This volume of stories and poems is set in India, where Rudyard Kipling was born and where he lived for many years. It includes the stories: "Mowgli's Brothers", "Kaa's Hunting", "Tiger! Tiger!", "The White Seal", "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", "Toomai of the Elephants" and "Her Majesty's Servants" and the poems: "Hunting-Song of the Seeonee Pack", "Road Song of the Bandar-Log", "Mowgli's Song", "Lukannon", "Darzee's Chaunt", "Shiv and the Grasshopper" and "Parade-Song of the Camp Animals".

In "The Story of the Treasure Seekers: Being the Adventures of the Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune", Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and Horace Octavius (H. O.) Bastable try to make their fortune in order to help their widowed father. But their schemes tend to go terribly, and often hilariously, wrong. In 1901, E. Nesbit followed up with "The Wouldbegoods: Being the Further Adventures of the Treasure Seekers".

"The Story of the Treasure Seekers" was the only one of English author E. (Edith) Nesbit's children's books to be published in the Nineteenth Century. Her books, also including "The Railway Children" and "The Enchanted Castle", besides being favorites of young readers, were very much admired by later children's authors such as P.L. Travers and C.S. Lewis.