Poetry, nicknames and the odd smack: how well do you know literary friendships? – quiz

1. 

   Biographers agree that Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon first met between 15 and 19 August 1917. Their friendship would lead to Owen writing two of his most enduring poems, Dulce et Decorum Est and Anthem For Doomed Youth. But where did they meet?

   1. At Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh

   2. At Dover, as they prepared for duty

   3. In the trenches in France

   4. In London at a literary party

2. Which two authors referred to each other in letters as "Cherest Maitre" and "Princesse Rapprochee"?

   1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth

   2. Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer

   3. Enid Blyton and CS Lewis

   4. Henry James and Edith Wharton

3. 

   Where did the writers Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman first meet – a literary friendship which would result in the jointly authored fantasy novel, Good Omens?

   1. In a Chinese restaurant, where Gaiman was interviewing Pratchett

   2. In a Chinese restaurant, where Pratchett was interviewing Gaiman

   3. In Lower Tadfield, Oxfordshire

   4. In prison

4. Who hid behind the curtains in her friend Elizabeth Gaskell’s house because she didn’t want to meet other visitors?

   1. Charlotte Bronte

   2. Anne Bronte

   3. Emily Bronte

   4. George Eliot

5. 

   Name the novelist who was a great friend of DH Lawrence, even making her way into his novels?

   1. Virginia Woolf

   2. Katherine Mansfield

   3. E Nesbit

   4. Jean Rhys

6. “A smooth, pale, fluent little chap … No harm in him: only needs a smack or two.” Which enduring literary friendship was marked by this less-than-glowing initial encounter?

   1. CS Lewis on JRR Tolkien

   2. Shelley on Keats

   3. Harper Lee on Truman Capote

   4. Herman Melville on Nathanial Hawthorne

7. 

   “You knew, didn't you, how I needed your language and the mind that formed it? How I relied on your fierce courage to tame wildernesses for me? How strengthened I was by the certainty that came from knowing you would never hurt me? You knew, didn't you, how I loved your love? You knew. This then is no calamity. No. This is jubilee.” Who is Toni Morrison writing about?

   1. Alice Walker

   2. Saul Bellow

   3. James Baldwin

   4. Chinua Achebe

8. Who was the poetic friend whose habit of regretting whichever path they took inspired Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken?

   1. TS Eliot

   2. Edward Thomas

   3. Wallace Stevens

   4. Ezra Pound

9. 

   “Tightly-folded bud, / I have wished you something / None of the others would…” Which author friend did Philip Larkin write this poem for, following the birth of his sister?

   1. Ted Hughes

   2. Ian McEwan

   3. Christopher Hitchens

   4. Martin Amis

10. Which character in To Kill A Mockingbird did Harper Lee base on her childhood friend, Truman Capote?

    1. Scout

    2. Atticus

    3. Dill

    4. Jem

Solutions

1:A, 2:D, 3:A, 4:A, 5:B, 6:A, 7:C, 8:B, 9:D, 10:C

Scores