Write Around England Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy was born at Higher Bockhampton, Dorset in 1840 and used the local area in which he had grown up as the basis for Wessex, the setting for all his major novels. Bockhampton itself featured as the main setting for Hardy's first major published novel, 'Under the Greenwood Tree', under the fictional name of Mellstock. Other towns and cities featured in various novels include: Dorchester, the county town of Dorset, as Casterbridge in 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'; the city of Salisbury as Melchester in 'Jude the Obscure'; and Winchester, a former capital city of England, as Wintoncester in 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles'.

'Jude the Obscure' was Hardy's final novel, the controversy and criticism it received on its initial publication led Hardy to give up writing novels. He focused instead on poetry and continued writing and publishing poetry collections until his death in 1928.

Answer: Catherine Morland

Catherine Morland is the heroine of Jane Austen's 'Northanger Abbey'. It was published posthumously, in 1818, alongside 'Persuasion', the other novel to be partially set in Bath.

Although Jane Austen is famously associated with the city of Bath, she lived in the county of Hampshire for the majority of her life. She was born in the village of Steventon in 1775, where her father was the local rector, and lived there until the family moved to Bath in 1801. From 1809 she lived with her mother and sister in a large cottage in the village of Chawton, which was converted into a museum dedicated to her life and work in 1947. Jane Austen died in 1817 and was buried in Winchester Cathedral.

Anne Elliot, Emma Woodhouse and Fanny Price are the heroines of 'Persuasion', 'Emma' and 'Mansfield Park' respectively.

Answer: Manderley

'Rebecca' is narrated by the second Mrs de Winter, whose full name is never revealed to the reader. The plot of the novel revolves around her growing belief that she is a poor substitute for the eponymous Rebecca, her husband's first wife, who was believed to have died in a boating accident.

A 1940 film version of 'Rebecca', directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, won two Academy Awards from a total of 11 nominations.

Pemberley is the home of Mr Darcy in Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice', Thornfield Hall belongs to Mr Rochester in 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte, and Downton Abbey is the fictional estate in the television series of the same name.

Answer: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote four novels featuring Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick, Dr Watson, between 1887 ('A Study in Scarlet') and 1915 ('The Valley of Fear'). Holmes also featured in another 56 short stories which were later published in various anthologies.

'The Hound of the Baskervilles' is set in the wild countryside of Dartmoor, which was officially recognised as a National Park in 1951. The novel highlights several of Dartmoor's geographic features including the stone hut circles which are the remains of Bronze Age houses. Dartmoor Prison, established in 1809 to hold prisoners from the Napoleonic wars, was also incorporated into the plot as the fictional Princetown Prison from which the convict, Selden, had escaped.

Answer: Canterbury

'The Canterbury Tales' consists of a number of short stories, described in the work as pilgrims' entries to a story-telling contest that took place on the journey from Southwark to Canterbury.

The tales are mainly written in verse form and are notable for having been written in English rather than in French or Latin, which were the main languages used for written works in the earlier Middle Ages. They are actually written in Middle English, a dialect in use for approximately three hundred years from about 1200 to 1500 AD.

Geoffrey Chaucer was the first poet to be buried in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner. He was an influential man, serving as Comptroller of the Customs for the Port of London for many years under both King Edward III and King Richard II. Chaucer's wife, Philippa, was the sister of Katherine Swynford, third wife of John of Gaunt and an ancestor of the Tudor royal family.

Answer: Oliver Twist

Dickens' tackled a number of different social issues through his writing, with much of his work being set in London. 'Little Dorrit' was set in Marshalsea debtors prison where Dickens' father had been imprisoned for a period in the early 19th century. 'Bleak House' examined the flaws of the judicial system, and 'The Old Curiosity Shop' depicted the effect of gambling losses on a poor shopkeeper and his orphaned granddaughter.

The successful film and stage musical, 'Oliver!', is based on 'Oliver Twist' and features words and music written by Lionel Bart.

'Nicholas Nickleby', 'David Copperfield' and 'Martin Chuzzlewit' are among the other novels by Dickens to be at least partly set in London.

Answer: Middlemarch

George Eliot's 'Middlemarch' focuses on the interlinking lives and the choices made by the middle-class residents of the fictional town of Middlemarch. The novel also addresses the theme of women's choices in marriage by contrasting the lives of two of the main female characters, Dorothea Brooke and Rosamond Vincy. Dorothea's desire for knowledge and academic study leads her to marry a scholarly middle-aged clergyman rather than becoming the wife of a rich landowner, whilst Rosamond chooses a husband who she thinks can raise her social status and provide a comfortable lifestyle.

George Eliot is the pen-name of Mary Anne Evans, who wrote under a male pseudonym in order to ensure that her work was taken seriously by Victorian society. 'Adam Bede', 'The Mill on the Floss' and 'Silas Marner' are other novels by Eliot.

Answer: Elizabeth Gaskell

In 'North and South' the heroine, Margaret Hale, moves from the rural village of Helstone in southern England to the northern industrial town of Milton, thought to be modelled on the city of Manchester. During the industrial revolution Manchester grew to become one of the largest manufacturing cities in the world and was the centre of the cotton industry in England, gaining the nickname 'Cottonopolis'. Gaskell's novel depicts the affect of poverty in Victorian industrial towns. The heroine is portrayed as showing sympathy for the poverty stricken striking mill workers and develops a friendship with the character Bessy Higgins, a young girl who dies from the long-term effects of inhaling cotton dust while working in the mills.

Elizabeth Barrett-Browning was a Victorian era poet, the wife of fellow poet Robert Browning. Mary Shelley wrote the famous novel 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'. Mary Barton is the eponymous heroine of Gaskell's first published novel.

Answer: Whitby

Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' is perhaps the best known vampire novel, first published in 1897, and subsequently adapted numerous times for the stage, film, television and a wide range of other mediums such as comics and video games.

Early in the novel Count Dracula is living in a desolate castle in Transylvania, a historic region now part of modern day Romania. Although he initially arrives in England at Whitby in Yorkshire, his main destination is London, as its large population is capable of providing him with a ready supply of victims.

Scarborough, Bridlington and Hornsea are all coastal towns in Yorkshire. Many of the locations around Whitby that are depicted in the novel are likely to be based on real places Stoker visited whilst on holiday in the area.

Answer: Thrushcross Grange

Emily Bronte, along with her literary sisters Charlotte and Anne, was brought up in the village of Haworth, which is situated amongst the Yorkshire moors, near the city of Bradford. Their novels were originally published under the pen-names Ellis, Currer and Acton Bell, although there was considerable speculation at the time that all the novels were the work of Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte).

Their native Yorkshire countryside is arguably most evident in 'Wuthering Heights', however most of the novels by the three sisters are set in and around the north of England. The exceptions are 'The Professor' and 'Villette', by Charlotte Bronte, which are mainly set in Belgium. However, this setting was also based on the author's own experience as both Charlotte and Emily Bronte had worked at a boarding school in Brussels in 1842.

Wildfell Hall, Ferndean Manor and Fieldhead are all houses that appear in other novels by the Bronte sisters. Ferndean Manor and Fieldhead were created by Charlotte Bronte in 'Jane Eyre' and 'Shirley' respectively. Wildfell Hall appears in 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' by Anne Bronte.