AP English Literature and Composition › Contexts of British Prose 1660–1925
The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it.
Who is the author of this novel?
Jane Austen
George Eliot
Charles Dickens
Charlotte Brontë
Horace Walpole
Jane Austen wrote Sense and Sensibility, although it was originally published anonymously, by “A Lady.”
(Passage adapted from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, (1811))
What is considered the first English work of Gothic literature?
The Castle of Otranto
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
Frankenstein
Jane Eyre
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
British author Horace Walpole is widely considered the progenitor of the Gothic style, which is characterized by its mix of horror, romanticism, and macabre excess. Walpole’s 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto is usually described as the first work in this genre, although Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens’ unfinished Mystery of Edwin Drood, and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” are all more widely known works of Gothic literature.
Outside Dorlcote Mill
A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black ships, laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal, are borne along to the town of St. Ogg’s, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river brink, tinging the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures and the patches of dark earth, made ready for the seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn.
Which of the following works was not also written by this author?
Ethan Frome
Middlemarch
Daniel Deronda
Adam Bede
Silas Marner
George Eliot wrote Middlemarch (1874), Daniel Deronda (1876), Silas Marner (1861), and Adam Bede (1859). Ethan Frome is a 1911 novel by the American writer Edith Wharton.
(Passage adapted from The Mill on the Floss (1860) by George Eliot)
Which of the following male author names is actually the pseudonym of a female writer?
George Eliot
Henry Fielding
Thomas Hardy
Daniel Defoe
E. M. Forster
This is George Eliot, whose given name was Mary Anne Evans and who wrote nineteenth-century masterpieces such as Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, and The Mill on the Floss. She is said to have used a pen name in part to protect her privacy and in part to ensure that her works would be taken seriously and not considered as representative of the light-hearted romances that women were assumed to write exclusively.
In James Joyce’s seminal modernist work Ulysses, a hapless dreamer named Leopold Bloom goes about his daily routine in which city?
Dublin
London
Edinburgh
Cambridge
Belfast
Published in 1922, Ulysses occurs on a single day in Dublin. The novel is highly experimental, relying heavily on allusion, stream-of-consciousness, and esoteric wordplay.
The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it.
From which novel is this passage excerpted?
Sense and Sensibility
The Pickwick Papers
A Passage to India
Brideshead Revisited
Villette
These are the opening lines of Jane Austen's 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility.
The Pickwick Paper (1836) is by Charles Dickens, A Passage to India (1924) is by E.M Forster, Brideshead Revisited (1945) is by Evelyn Waugh, and Villette (1853) is by Charlotte Brontë.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
These are the opening lines to which novel?
A Tale of Two Cities
Great Expectations
Wuthering Heights
Middlemarch
Pride and Prejudice
This passage is adapted from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (1859).
_Great Expectation_s (1891) is by Charles Dickens, _Wuthering Height_s (1847) is by Emily Brontë, Middlemarch (1874) is by George Eliot, and Pride and Prejudice (1813) is by Jane Austen.
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is set in which of the following locations?
The Congo River
The Nile River
The Zambezi River
The Amazon River
The Mississippi River
Written in 1899, this classic and semi-autobiographical novella follows the adventures of the anti-hero Marlow up the Congo River as he seeks the ivory trader Kurtz. It examines issues such as racism, colonialism, madness, illness, and civilization.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
During what major historical event does this novel occur?
The French Revolution
The English Reformation
The English Restoration
The American Revolution
The War of Austrian Succession
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is set in London and Paris immediately before and during the French Revolution (1775 and 1792).
Outside Dorlcote Mill
A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black ships, laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal, are borne along to the town of St. Ogg’s, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river brink, tinging the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures and the patches of dark earth, made ready for the seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn.
Who is the author of this novel?
George Eliot
George Gordon, Lord Byron
Henry Fielding
D.H. Lawrence
Wilkie Collins
The Mill on the Floss is George Eliot’s novel, her second of seven.
George Gordon wrote Manfred (1817), Henry Fielding wrote Shamela (1741), D.H. Lawrence wrote Sons and Lovers (1913), and Wilkie Collins wrote No Name (1862).
(Passage adapted from The Mill on the Floss, (1860) by George Eliot)