Q 01/05

Who wrote Brave New World?

A) Aldous Huxley

B) George Orwell

C) H. G. Wells

D) Ray Bradbury

Answer · why

A) Aldous Huxley

It was his fifth novel and his first dystopia, written in four months in 1931 and published in 1932.

Q 02/05

The title Brave New World is a phrase from which Shakespeare play?

A) The Tempest

B) Hamlet

C) King Lear

D) Macbeth

Answer · why

A) The Tempest

Miranda says it on first seeing the shipwrecked visitors, and her father Prospero deflates her with ''Tis new to thee'.

Q 03/05

What is the French title of the novel, alluding to Leibniz via Voltaire's Candide?

A) Le Meilleur des mondes

B) Le Nouveau Monde

C) L'État mondial

D) Les Enfants de Ford

Answer · why

A) Le Meilleur des mondes

It means 'The Best of All Worlds'; the Chinese title borrows the Shakespeare line and means 'Beautiful New World'.

Q 04/05

Where was Huxley living when he wrote Brave New World?

A) Sanary-sur-Mer, France

B) Los Angeles, California

C) Garsington, Oxfordshire

D) Florence, Italy

Answer · why

A) Sanary-sur-Mer, France

He wrote it between May and August 1931, having already published four satirical novels.

Q 05/05

Huxley said the book began as a parody of which H. G. Wells utopian novel?

A) Men Like Gods

B) The Time Machine

C) The War of the Worlds

D) The Sleeper Awakes

Answer · why

A) Men Like Gods

He told a friend he had been 'pulling the leg of H. G. Wells' but then 'got caught up in the excitement' of his own ideas.