History Challenge & Journal

[dtaai-maai]

Sounds like the Berlin Wall being torn down, though there was quite a lot going on around that time.

[PeteC]

Correct. Morning trophy to dtaai-maai once again. Video at link.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/newsnight ... linwall%5D

VPN needed to watch video. Clip not available in Thailand. (BBC is starting to do some stupid blocking for no apparent reason. )

[PeteC]

Originally published in 1928, it was banned in the UK until this day in 1960. What was it?

Note: All I can say is WOW!...how the world has changed.

[dtaai-maai]

Haha! Lady Chatterley's Lover!!

[PeteC]

You must have found my daily source.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover was first published in its entirety in the UK on 10 November 1960.

The novel by DH Lawrence was first published in Italy in 1928, but had been banned in the UK for its sexually explicit scenes and use of profane words.

Under the Obscene Publications Act 1959, books considered obscene by some but that could be shown to have “redeeming social merit” might still be published. Penguin won the right to publish the book in its entirety in a much-publicised trial.

Bookshops across England sold out of all 200,000 copies of the novel’s first run on the first day of its publication.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/lady-chat ... atterly%5D. (Video, and it works today)

[dtaai-maai]

What is generally considered to be the first English novel and when was it published?
And for a bonus point: What is generally considered to be the first European novel and when was it published?

[dtaai-maai]

You must have found my daily source.

LOL, this was an infamous case in the UK, and often still crops up in relation to censorship.

[PeteC]

Give Pharvey until Friday, he may come up with it?

[lindosfan1]

Hazard a guess Chaucers Canterbury tales

[dtaai-maai]

Chaucer's not a bad guess but doesn't qualify as a novel sadly.

[pharvey]

I'll say something like Robinson Crusoe, but I'm damn sure there were English novels published before then...

As for European, couldn't hazard a guess. The world's first I'm sure was Japanese, written hundreds of years before all others (a useless piece of information I seem to have stashed away).

[dtaai-maai]

I'll say something like Robinson Crusoe, but I'm damn sure there were English novels published before then...

I suppose it depends how you define a 'novel' (hence the 'generally considered to be...'), but you're spot on. "Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719."

As for Europe, well, I suppose I was tilting at windmills hoping someone might guess that...

[dtaai-maai]

[By the way, the bonus prize is spending the rest of lockdown holed up with D-M in a small flat in the northeast Midlands...]

[PeteC]

Questions like this quiz keep me awake at night so of course I had to look it up yesterday which disqualified me. I was a bit surprised at both though thinking like Pharvey that there must have been some much earlier, but I guess not.

[pharvey]

I suppose it depends how you define a 'novel' (hence the 'generally considered to be...'), but you're spot on. "Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719."

Have to say I'm amazed at that. Truly thought there would have been earlier novels, but the likes of Crusoe was all I could think of.

[By the way, the bonus prize is spending the rest of lockdown holed up with D-M in a small flat in the northeast Midlands...]

Yep, that's going to keep me awake at night.....