A magical moment hearing questions based on our hero.
I was very impressed with Katharine (why isn't she a member here?) as out of 18 questions, she got 17 correct and went on to win the night's qualifying round for the second round. I have to hang my head in shame and admit to only managing 2 out the 18!!
After the specialist rounds the presenter, John Humphries, showed his lack of knowledge about DW's work: "they (the Roger brook books) were very different from those he wrote later, because he wrote a lot of Black magic and all that" and "were they Wheatley's best books, you think, compared with the stuff he wrote later? I remember The Devil Rides Out, I think."
For all of you who missed the excitement and the opportunity to test your knowledge, here are the questions:
(if you have to cheat, highlight the space after the A.'s with your mouse)
Honest replies, please!1. Q. In which of the Roger Brook novels, first published in 1951, does Wheatley state that his aim is to present the story of the French Revolution as "history without tears"?
A. 'The Man Who Killed The King'.
2. Q. Which school in Dorset did Roger Brook attend before going off to seek fame and fortune in 1783?
A. Sherborne.
3. Q. Georgina is married to which Prussian statesman when Roger meets her in the conference at Erfurt in 'Evil In A Mask'?
A. Baron Ulrich von Haugwitz.
4. Q. The endpaper of the original '74 edition of which novel contains a map of Waterloo and its surrounding area.
A. 'Desperate Measures'.
5. Q. At a meeting in Mannheim in 1795 Roger persuades which revolutionary General to defect to the French Royalists?
A. Pichegru.
6. Q. At what age does Roger run away to France to avoid being forced into the Navy as a midshipman by his father?
A. 15.
7. Q. Catherine the Great made Roger a Knight of the Order of St. Vladimir, but which King gave him his first order of chivalry, The Order of the Sword?
A. Gustavus III.
8. Q. What is the name of the house in which Lord Etheridge is killed in a scuffle after discovering his wife Georgina in bed with Roger?
A. Stillwaters.
9. Q. In 'The Wanton Princess', Roger is unwittingly involved in whose assassination on the 24 March 1801?
A. Czar Paul.
10. Q. Which of the Roger Brook novels was the last of Dennis Wheatley's so-called Black Magic novels to be published?
A. The Irish Witch.
11. Q. In 'The Man Who Killed the King', how much does William Pitt promise to pay Roger if he brings the Dauphin back from France?
A. £100,000.
12. Q. When Roger marries Lady Mary Ware in Stockholm on New Year's Day, 1813, who gives the bride away?
A. Bernadotte.
13. Q. Which of the novels ends with Roger and Georgina listening to church bells ushering in the new century?
A. 'The Sultan's Daughter'.
14. Q. In the final chapter of 'Desperate Measures', which of his wives does he tell Georgina was the worst?
A. Lisala.
15. Q. In 'The Irish Witch', Roger's daughter Susan becomes involved in the revival of which club supposedly founded 50 years earlier by Sir Francis Dashwood?
A. The Hell Fire Club.
16. Q. In 'The Dark Secret Of Josephine', Roger relates how he first met Napoleon in 1793 during the seige of which port?
A. Toulon.
17. Q. In 'The Rape Of Venice' which school bully, now a Colonel of the Dragoons, does Roger meet again in India?
A. George Gunston.
18. Q. What is the name of the French Marquise's daughter with whom Roger falls in love in the first book in the series, but is guillotined in 'The Man Who Killed The King'?
A. Athénais Hermonaie de Rochambeau.