The answer to each question is a book published in the newly relaunched Oxford World’s Classics series. In each case, we need the title and the author.

BRITISH/IRISH LITERATURE

1 “‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said, gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end; then stop.’”Good advice for anyone doing a prize quiz.From which book does it come?

2 “Like the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops when the summer shower is through . . .” When are you “the one”?

3 What was the first single written and performed by a woman to reach No 1 in the UK?

4 Regular to a fault, they win the main Cup competition every 50 years. Already the smart money is on a 2056 victory. Who?

5 “I’m no angel” is often attributed to Mae West. In fact, the words were first uttered by the heroine of which 1848 novel?

AMERICAN LITERATURE

6 It was farmland until April 1797, when the Common Council of New York bought it as a burial ground. It came in particularly useful during the yellow fever epidemics of the early 1800s, and 20,000 bodies rest beneath it still. Which New York park?

7 What is the surname of the man who took over from Peter Jay in 1977 and handed over to Matthew Parris in 1986? (The theme tune was Nantucket Sleighride by the American band Mountain.)

8 He claimed descent (on his father’s side) from Elizabethan pirates. And he delivered the first ever typewritten manuscript to his publisher, typed on an 1874 Remington. What was the book?

9 She wrote it in 2½ months and pulled herself out of poverty. What was the book? Its central character wrote a book called The Duke’s Daughter, and used the money to pay the butcher’s bill.

10 Tashtego, Fedallah, Daggoo. Who or what are they after?

CLASSICS/ANCIENT WORLD

11 “Every man is a poet when he is in love.” The former Miss Camberg borrowed the title for a late novel. What title?

12 The creation and history of the world in dactylic hexameter, or a plurality of Gregor Samsas? Call pest control!

13 English 1642-51. American 1861-65. Lebanese 1975-90. (And its author didn’t live long enough – 25 – to run away from anything.)

14 Jacques wrote an opera, and Sergei commissioned Maurice to write what he would come to call a “choreographic symphony”. The source material for both predated them by 1,700 years or so. What was it?

15 It’s “the skilled use of blunt objects”. It “offers yesterday’s answers to today’s problems”. It’s “a concentric series of conspiracies in which the last party to conspire emerges victorious”. And it’s a book by a man whose literary style Cicero called “a river of gold”.

EUROPEAN LITERATURE

16 In Japan, it’s seven. In E20, it’s Victoria Moon. In France, it’s the ninth of 20 and she dies from smallpox. What or who?

17 The censor Nikitenko insisted it have a new title, The Adventures of Chichikov. But the original title prevailed, and Joy Division used it again for a song 138 years later . . .

18 Nine circles, seven terraces, nine spheres. An hour after he finished writing it, he fell ill and died. Writing what?

19 Aged 13 he was River Phoenix, aged 93 he was George Hall. His real forenames are Henry Walton. What’s his nickname?

20 Prince Myshkin?

HOW TO ENTER

Send answers on A4 paper, with name and address in block caps, to The Sunday Times/Oxford World’s Classics Quiz, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP or e-mail oxfordworldsclassicsquiz@oup.com. Entries must be received by April 30, 2008. No correspondence will be entered into. The prizes can only be sent to a UK address. The winner will receive 50 paperback Oxford World’s Classics. Two runners-up will receive 20 Oxford World’s Classics.

Blogging the Classics, an OWC debate about book blogs, with John Carey, John Mullan, Lynne Hatwell and Mark Thwaite is on March 31, 8pm

OXFORD: WHERE TO STAY AND HOW TO BOOK

This year’s Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival runs at Christ Church from Monday, March 31 to Sunday, April 6. To get a flavour of the festival, and to immerse yourself fully in the atmosphere of Christ Church, you can stay at the college, either by booking individual rooms for a starting price of £53 per night, B&B, or by taking advantage of our two-night festival packages, available exclusively to Sunday Times readers:

March 31-April 1: accommodation and breakfast at Christ Church, plus tickets to see Sebastian Faulks, Clarissa Eden, Oliver James and Rita Carter. Prices from £130.

April 2-3: accommodation and breakfast at Christ Church, plus tickets to see Seamus Murphy discussing Afghanistan with Anthony Loyd; the Penguin readers’ evening with Catherine Bailey, Jane Johnson and Jeremy Page; Dragons’ Den judge Peter Jones; Mark Tully; and Adam Mars-Jones talking to Margaret Drabble. Prices from £137.

To book your stay, call 01865 286848/286877 or e-mail festival@chch.ox.ac.uk.

BOOKING TICKETS

To book tickets for events at the festival, go online at www.ticketsoxford.com (24hr booking until March 31 at 10am) or telephone 0870 343 1001.

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• Superfreakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• Vincent van Gogh’s letters show the soul of the artist