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Answers to Primrose Hill in Literature Quiz
1. William Blake, whose words “I have conversed with the spiritual Sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill” are inscribed at the top of the hill.
2. Mary Shelley. According to diaries they sailed fire boats on Primrose Hill at least three times in October 1814. The last pond on Primrose Hill was filled in in 1902.
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3. Mother Goose. The first printed edition bearing the name was Mother Goose’s Melodies , or Sonnets for the Cradle , published in London in 1780 and described as ‘a compilation of traditional English nonsense songs and rhymes’.
4. HG Wells. The quote is from The Invisible Man (1897). Primrose Hill also features in The War of the Worlds in which Primrose Hill is made into a ‘huge redoubt’ by the Martians.
5. Jerome K Jerome. The quote is from his memoirs.
6. WH Auden. He wrote two poems about Primrose Hill, one about dawn and this one about the evening.
7. Louis MacNeice. He wrote several times about wartime on the hill, including reservists drilling, and the erection of anti-aircraft guns. “Primrose Hill was embarrassingly naked, as if one’s grandfather had shaved his beard off. Propped on tree trunks on the top of it were two or three little museum-piece guns, ingenuously gaping at the sky.”
8. Allen Ginsberg. In 1948, in Harlem, on reading the poetry of William Blake, Ginsberg had a vision in which he believed he heard the voice of Blake himself.
9. Alan Coren, father of Victoria and Giles.
10. Ben Elton. The book was turned into a movie in 2000 entitled Maybe Baby , starring Hugh Laurie and Joely Richardson.
Score Your Answers
7–10 “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright.” (William Blake)
2–6 “What really matters is what you do with what you have.” (HG Wells)
0–1 “I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things.” (Alan Coren)
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