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Virginia Woolf Trivia

Virginia Woolf Trivia Quizzes

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3 Virginia Woolf quizzes and 30 Virginia Woolf trivia questions.
1.
  Virginia Woolf    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was one of the leading female writers of the 20th century. She was also a feminist thinker and an influential member of the Bloomsbury Group. She was an early exponent of 'stream of consciousness technique'.
Average, 10 Qns, indranil49, Nov 09 12
Average
indranil49
665 plays
2.
  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?   top quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
The play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" makes her sound like a monster. Actually, she is funny, sincere and most definitely worth knowing about.
Average, 10 Qns, windswept, Jun 02 11
Average
windswept gold member
765 plays
3.
  Kensington to Rodmell: Virginia Woolf's Life    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
From her "Room of One's Own", Virginia Woolf penned her way into literary and feminist history. Enjoy this exploration of her life.
Average, 10 Qns, blueswancafe, Nov 06 14
Average
blueswancafe
216 plays

Virginia Woolf Trivia Questions
1. Virginia Woolf is a familiar name to the English readers. What was her birth name?

From Quiz Virginia Woolf

Answer: Adeline Virginia Stephen

Virginia Woolf's father was Sir Leslie Stephen, the versatile scholar and an eminent Victorian intellectual. He was also the editor of 'The Dictionary of National Biography'.

2. During her childhood, Woolf spent a lot of time with her family at their summer home in Cornwall. What was the name given to this home?

From Quiz Kensington to Rodmell: Virginia Woolf's Life

Answer: Talland House

Talland House is still standing and is available as a vacation rental. It is situated near St. Ives Bay and the Godrevy Lighthouse, which is said to have inspired Woolf's 1927 novel "To the Lighthouse".

3. What was the name of the group of writers, artists, economists and philosophers of the early 20th century with whom Woolf was associated?

From Quiz Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Answer: The Bloomsbury Group

These people were active as a group from about 1904 until World War II. Some of the most famous, ground-breaking people of those times were involved, including economist John Maynard Keynes, novelist E.M. Forster, painters Clive Bell and Vanessa Woolf. At first they were associated with activities considered radical, and then later they were denigrated for being too intellectual, too aesthetically upper class.

4. Virginia Woolf was the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen. She had an odd nickname as a young child. What was it?

From Quiz Virginia Woolf

Answer: The Goat

There were a large number of children in the household of Sir Leslie Stephen. In her childhood Woolf got the nickname of 'the Goat'. Whatever may have been the reason for it, it doesn't sound altogether flattering!

5. Virginia, along with other members of the Bloomsbury group, orchestrated an elaborate prank in 1910, wherein they convinced the Royal Navy, among others, that they were a group of Abyssinian royals. What was the name given to the plot?

From Quiz Kensington to Rodmell: Virginia Woolf's Life

Answer: The Dreadnought Hoax

The prank was so successful that the Royal Navy was duped into presenting their flagship, the HMS Dreadnought.

6. Virginia Woolf had a pet dog. What was the name of the dog?

From Quiz Virginia Woolf

Answer: Hans

It had a very bad habit of falling asleep at parties. Moreover, it was prone to illness.

7. Virginia Woolf was the daughter of a famous nineteenth century scholar and the first editor of the "Dictionary of National Biography." He inspired a mixture of admiration and fear in Woolf. Her maiden name could be a man's name.

From Quiz Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Answer: Stephen

Her father was a famous Victorian journalist and biographer who supported the North during the American Civil War. He was a great walker, a mountaineer, one of the first presidents of the Mountaineers' Club as well as authoring "The History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century" (1876 and 1881) and "The Science of Ethics" (1882).

8. Virginia Woolf thought of committing suicide many times. How did Woolf try to commit suicide when she was 22?

From Quiz Virginia Woolf

Answer: By jumping from a window

However, it was an abortive attempt. She did not succeed because the window was not that high. Some believe she developed mental illness because of her family environment.

9. Which Woolf composition was inspired by "The Barretts of Wimpole Street", a play by Rudolf Besier?

From Quiz Kensington to Rodmell: Virginia Woolf's Life

Answer: Flush: A Biography

This whimsical story is written from the point of view of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spaniel. Like many of Woolf's pieces, it is part biography, part fiction.

10. What is the name of Woolf's most famous journey novel, which many say is modelled on her parents? In this novel they are called Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay.

From Quiz Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Answer: "To the Lighthouse"

It is interesting that Woolf later says that because he was so demanding she could not have written what she did if her father had remained alive. Woolf's painter sister Vanessa thought the character of Mrs Ramsay was evocatively like her mother: "You have given a portrait of mother which is more like her than anything I could ever have conceived possible. It is painful to have her so raised from the dead. You have made one feel the extraordinary beauty of her character, which must be the most dificult thing in the world to do." The novel is a brilliant example of Woolf's revolutionary, highly influential, approach to writing fiction.

11. Where did Virginia Woolf obtain her high schooling?

From Quiz Virginia Woolf

Answer: At home: she was homeschooled

She received a broad education, mainly from her father and to some extent, during vacations, also from her brothers. She also had the unrestricted use of father's extensive library. She proceeded to King's College, London, where she followed courses in Latin, Greek, German and History.

12. Where did Woolf acquire the very little formal education she received?

From Quiz Kensington to Rodmell: Virginia Woolf's Life

Answer: King's College London

She took a few courses in Greek, Latin, and German there, having previously been homeschooled.

13. Virginia Woolf was sexually abused over a period of several years in childhood. Who abused her?

From Quiz Virginia Woolf

Answer: Her half-brothers

James King, the biographer of Virginia Woolf and Lee Marsh, the researcher, state that Virginia Woolf was a victim of sexual abuse in her childhood (from about age 7-14) by her much older half-brothers (sons of her mother by her first marriage) - George and Gerald Duckworth. This, said James King, left her with a lasting distrust of men. George Duckworth also abused her sister Vanessa. (Lee Marsh and James King, researcher and biographer respectively). She herself confirmed the matter in a letter. (Woolf, Letters, 12 January, 1941). Whether this abuse triggered or even caused her tendency to severe depressions is a matter that has been widely speculated on.

14. Virginia and Leonard Woolf leaped into the world of publishing in 1917. This endeavor was named _____ .

From Quiz Kensington to Rodmell: Virginia Woolf's Life

Answer: Hogarth Press

Hogarth Press published works by Woolf and Sigmund Freud, as well as T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land".

15. Virginia Woolf was always haunted by a desire to kill herself. What was the name of the river in which she ultimately drowned herself ?

From Quiz Virginia Woolf

Answer: Ouse

She committed suicide in 1941 by drowning herself in the River Ouse near Lewes, East Sussex, England. She was 59 at that time. (Obviously, this was the Sussex Ouse, not to be confused with the better known Yorkshire Ouse or the Great Ouse in Eastern England).

16. Virginia's older sister Vanessa carved a place for herself in the arts, as well. What was Vanessa's special talent?

From Quiz Kensington to Rodmell: Virginia Woolf's Life

Answer: Painting

Vanessa painted at least three portraits of her sister Virginia. Furniture that was hand painted by Vanessa and her son Quentin can still be seen at Monk's House, the country home of Virginia and Leonard Woolf.

17. Virginia Woolf penned altogether nine novels. What was the title of the first one?

From Quiz Virginia Woolf

Answer: The Voyage Out

Virginia Woolf was a prolific writer. She wrote nine novels and a number of essays. She was an exponent of the 'stream of consciousness' technique. Her first novel, entitled 'The Voyage Out' was published in 1915. However, the novel was originally entitled 'Melymbrosia'. It was published by Gerald Duckworth and Company, Ltd.

18. Virginia's 1915 novel "The Voyage Out" originally carried what title?

From Quiz Kensington to Rodmell: Virginia Woolf's Life

Answer: Melymbrosia

"The Voyage Out" was Woolf's first novel and took her nearly five years to complete.

19. Woolf's writing is new. It is not only stream of consciousness, with the author taking a picture of the contents of a person thinking. Woolf sees it more intimately. What does she call her method?

From Quiz Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Answer: Tunnelling

In her diary entry of August 30th 1923, Woolf writes that she has made a discovery: she found that she was digging caves out behind her characters--caves of a new kind of inner exploration. Her hope is that she will not only dig deeper into isolated separate caves, but that one day the caves can connect and come into the light of day. Her method becomes collaborative. It does not want to record what each isolated person thought. It becomes a method of bringing perception into the light in her tunnelling. She is famous also for writing "Moments of Being" and "On Modern Fiction," which describe exactly what she hoped for from this new focus in fiction. Generally, it would concentrate on perception and not exclusively on external events.

20. "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" was a famous drama of the 1960s. Who wrote it?

From Quiz Virginia Woolf

Answer: Edward Albee

"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is a three-act play by Edward Albee.It was published in 1962. It is _not_ about Virginia Woolf: the title is a jocular parody of "Who's Afraid of Big Bad Wolf?". It is about a middle-aged professor and his wife who humiliate and torment one another verbally. In this play Albee urges us to maintain restraint and practice compassion in domestic life.

21. What prompted Virginia and Leonard to move to their country home, Monk's House, full-time?

From Quiz Kensington to Rodmell: Virginia Woolf's Life

Answer: Their London home was damaged in an air raid.

This beautiful home features extensive gardens and a writing lodge.

22. Woolf had a close association with one of the most renowned literary and intellectual groups of her time. Which was it?

From Quiz Virginia Woolf

Answer: The Bloomsbury Group

The Bloomsbury Group, also known as the Bloomsbury Set, was an elite group of prominent liberal and left-wing writers, philosophers, economists, artists and critics from about 1907 to 1940. It was established by Virginia Woolf's brother Thoby and his Cambridge friends. The members used to meet in the Bloomsbury area of London to discuss issues relating to philosophy, art, society, etc. It was not a school of any new thought. It was open to almost all the intellectual issues of the time. Virginia Woolf was a co-founder and an influential member of the Group. They propounded the idea of 'Art for Art's sake'.

23. In those final years of her life, she did not feel she could write ever again. In 1941, she wrote two suicide notes to her husband. How did she kill herself?

From Quiz Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Answer: Filled her pockets with stones and drowned in the River Ouse

She tells him, "Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again: I feel we can't go through another of these terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight it any longer."

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