Penguin Classics

Tis the season of goodwill once more so why not try our Classics quiz instead of charades?

Christmas celebrations in the Classics from Ebenezer Scrooge to Mole, Toad and friends.

1) 'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents' Which young lady thus mourns the news that the festive season will be a gift-less one?

Lydia, in Pride and Prejudice

Jo, in Little Women

Anne, in Anne of Green Gables

Amy, in Little Women

2) 'Roast and boiled Geese, Goose pies &c was victuals little known to us, and we had yet some Madeira Wine left... so that our friends in England did not perhaps, celebrate Christmas more cheerfully than we did.' Which 18th Century traveller ended Christmas Day in this manner?

Lemuel Gulliver

Robinson Crusoe

Captain Cook

William Bligh

3) Which Dickensian hero goes skating on Christmas Day and falls through the ice?

Mr Pickwick

Sydney Carton

Mr Micawber

Ebenezer Scrooge

4) How many ghosts visit Ebenezer Scrooge in the course of Dickens's A Christmas Carol?

One

Two

Three

Four

5) Who wrote a short story in which a fir tree growing in the forest longs to become a Christmas tree?

Hans Christian Andersen

The brothers Grimm

William Thackeray

Robert Louis Stevenson

6) In which Shakespeare play do the lines 'At Christmas I no more desire a rose / Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth' appear?

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Twelfth Night

Love's Labour's Lost

The Tempest

7) In Christina Rossetti's poem 'A Christmas Carol' (perhaps better known as 'In the bleak mid-winter') what gift does she offer?

Gold

Frankincense

Her heart

A lamb

8) Which heroine offers to play the part of the Turkish Knight in a Christmas mummer's play at the Yeobrights' house, so as to have an opportunity to meet Clym Yeobright?

Eustacia Vye (The Return of the Native)

Becky Sharp (Vanity Fair)

Fanny Price (Mansfield Park)

Esther Summerson (Bleak House)

9) Which animal carol-singers visit Mole's house in The Wind in the Willows?

Stoats

Badgers

Mice

Rabbits

10) Which poet wrote a play called 'Nativity'?

Wordsworth

Donne

Shelley

Keats

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