Thanks to Lorna Challand for permission to post below the quiz questions she provided for the entertainment/bafflement of those attending the Literary Society's Garden Party in July. If you couldn't be there, have a go, and see how you compare with the winners.
Below is a list of first lines of novels. Name the novels
and their authors. (Answers below)
1)
When the east wind blows up the Helford
River the shining waters become troubled and disturbed and little waves beat angrily on the sandy
shore.
2)
It was a pleasure to burn.
3)
One evening of late summer, before
the nineteenth century had reached a third of its span a young man and woman,
the latter carrying a child, were approaching the large village of Weydon
Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot.
4)
Dr Iannis had enjoyed a
satisfactory day in which none of his patients had died or got any worse.
5)
Thursday January 1st
BANK
HOLIDAY IN ENGLAND,IRELAND SCOTLAND AND WALES.
6)
To the red country and part of the
gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently and they did not cut the
scarred earth.
7)
1801 – I have just returned from a
visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.
8)
We are in a camp behind the line.
9)
All happy families are alike but an
unhappy family is unhappy in its own fashion.
10)
There was no possibility of taking
a walk that day.
11)
One may as well begin with Helen's
letter to her sister.
12)
Wilson sat on the balcony of the
Bedford Hotel with his bald pink knees thrust against the iron work.
13)
When he was nearly thirteen my
brother Jem got his arm badly broken.
14)
The past is a foreign country; they
do things differently there,
15)
Far out in the uncharted backwaters
of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small
unregarded yellow sun.
16)
If you really want to hear about
it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, what my
lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they
had me and all that David Copperfield
kind crap but I don't feel like going into it if you really want to know
the truth.
17)
Many years later as he faced the
firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon
when his father took him to discover ice.
18)
The mole had been working very hard
all morning spring cleaning his little house.
19)
I was set down from the carrier's
cart at the age of three; and there, with a sense of bewilderment and terror my
life in the village began.
20)
I was born in the city of
Bombay.....once upon a time.
21)
I write this sitting in the kitchen
sink.
22)
It was love at first sight.
23)
It was the day my grandmother
exploded
24)
This is the saddest story I've ever
heard.
25)
For a long time, I went to bed
early.
Answers
1)
Frenchman's Creek Daphne Du Maurier
2)
Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
3)
The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy
4)
Captain Corelli's Mandolin Louis de Bernieres
5)
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Sue Townsend
6)
The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
7)
Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
8)
All Quiet on the Western Front. Eric Maria Remarque
9)
Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
10) Jane
Eyre Charlotte Bronte
11) Howards
End E.M. Forster
12) The
Heart of the Matter Graham Greene
13) To
Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
14) The
Go-Between L.P. Hartley
15) The
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams
16) The
Catcher in the Rye J.D.Salinger
17) One
Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia
Marquez
18) The
Wind in the Willows Kenneth Graham
19) Cider
With Rosie Laurie Lee
20) Midnight's
Children Salmon Rushdie
21) I
Capture the Castle Dodie Smith
22) Catch
22 Joseph Heller
23) The
Crow Road Ian Banks
24) The
Good Soldier Ford Maddox Ford
25) Swann's Way
Marcel Proust.
