How well do you know the history of dandyism? Moreover, how closely do you read Dandyism.net?
OK, so you know Oscar Wilde was tried for indecency by the Marquess of Queensbury for his love affair with Lord Douglas. But what was his prison number? And what name did he travel under after he was released from jail?
Dandyism.net presents the opportunity to test your knowledge of two centuries worth of dandy history and lore. From Beau Brummell to Sebastian Horsley, find out if you’re a philomath or ignoramus when it comes to dandyism past and present.
The 100 questions were compiled by the D.net staff, who not only wrote them off the tops of their heads, they did so while drunk.
The test consists of six categories: The Regency, The 19th Century, The 20th Century, Pop Culture, Dandyland and Dandyism.net.
(Answers appear at the bottom of the post below the image.)
1) Which Oxford college did Brummell attend?
2) What regiment did he join after he left school?
3) What was the name of Brummell’s manservant?
4) On what London street is the statue of Brummell located?
5) To whom did Brummell address the remark, referring to the Prince Regent, “Who’s your fat friend?”
6) What grotesque term did George Cruikshank use to describe the insect-like dandies in his caricatures?
7) What night of the week were the balls at Almack’s?
8 ) What early biographer of Brummell wrote, “Posterity will hardly accord to George Bryan Brummell one line in the annals of history.”
9) Of what Regency buck and memoirist was it said, “He committed the greatest follies, without in the slightest disturbing the points of his shirt collar”?
10) In a famous anecdote, Brummell sent a message to a friend saying he needed a loan because all his money was in the three percents. Who denied the loan, coldly saying that all his money was also tied up in the three percents?
11) Where was Romeo Coates born?
THE 19TH CENTURY
12) Match the fashionable novelist to the fashionable novel:
Robert Plumer Ward
“Tremaine, or the Man of Refinement”
“Cecil: Or the Adventures of a Coxcomb”
“Granby, a Tale of Modern Society”
13) The title page of Bulwer’s “Pelham” includes the following epigraph from a Restoration-era comedy writer. Name the writer:
A complete gentleman, who, according to Sir Fopling, ought to dress well, dance well, fence well, have a genius for love letters, and an agreeable voice for a chamber.
14) What character and pseudonym did Thackeray create in 1837 to satirize dandy pretensions in a series of stories?
15) What Dickens book includes the following passage?
Dandyism? There is no King George the Fourth now (more the pity) to set the dandy fashion; there are no clear-starched jack-towel neckcloths, no short-waisted coats, no false calves, no stays. There are no caricatures, now, of effeminate exquisites so arrayed, swooning in opera boxes with excess of delight and being revived by other dainty creatures poking long-necked scent-bottles at their noses.
16) How old was Lady Harriet Blessington when d’Orsay married her?
17) In what shape is the tomb d’Orsay designed for himself?
18) What is the name of the character Disraeli modeled on d’Orsay in his novel “Henrietta Temple”?
19) In Disraeli’s “Vivian Grey,” what is the hero’s motto?
20) After he retired as Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli was given a peerage from Queen Victoria. What was his title?
21) What magazine serialized Carlyle’s “Sartor Resartus”?
22) What Victorian writer did Whistler sue for libel in 1877?
23) What “gentle art” does Whistler celebrate in book form?
24) Phileas Fogg, hero of Verne’s “Around the World in 80 Days,” lives in a house once occupied by what proto-dandy English writer?
25) In Gautier’s novel, under what alias does Mademoiselle de Maupin travel when dressed as a man?
26) In Stendhal’s “The Red and the Black,” who initiates Julien into “high foppishness,” admonishing him to always do the opposite of what people expect of him?
27) In Balzac’s “Lost Illusions,” who is described as having “the right to utter impertinence by the wit he gave to his clothes and the grace of manner which went with them”?
a) Henri de Marsay
b) Lucien de Rubempré
c) Eugene de Rastignac
d) Maxime de Trailles
28) What are the first two lines of Barbey d’Aurevilly’s “Of Dandyism and George Brummell”?
29) What was the name of Barbey d’Aurevilly’s favorite cat?
30) Which of the stories in Barbey d’Aurevilly’s “The She-Devils” features a character described by the narrator as “the most magnificent dandy I have ever known — I who have seen Brummell go mad and d’Orsay die!”
31) When Baudelaire turned 21, how much money did he inherit?
32) What famous French novel was banned for offending public morals the same year as Baudelaire’s “Flowers of Evil”?
33) In Baudelaire’s essay, what is the dandy “enamoured with above all?”
34) In what medium did Constain Guys, the subject of Baudelaire’s “The Painter of Modern Life,” primarily work?
35) Complete the following verse from Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin,” concerning how many hours Onegin spends dressing:
Eugene’s a pedant in his dress,
In fact a thorough fop, no less.
[HOW MANY?] whole hours, at the least accounting,
He’ll spend before the looking-glass.
36) What is the name of the Circassian princess Pechorin kidnaps in Lermontov’s “A Hero of Our Time”?
37) To what Italian city did Max Beerbohm retire?
38) What was Oscar Wilde’s prison number?
39) Under what sobriquet did Oscar Wilde travel after his release from Reading Gaol?
40) Who is the hero of Gilbert & Sullivan’s operetta “Patience,” meant as a satire of Wilde?
41) What are the names of the heroes of “The Green Carnation,” Robert Hichens’ satire of Wilde and Lord Douglas?
42) How old is Lord Goring in Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband,” and how old does he admit to?
43) What is the name of Goring’s butler?
44) At what train station did Miss Prism leave the handbag containing the baby Jack Worthing in Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”?
45) When we first meet Dorian Gray in Wilde’s novel, he’s seated at the piano leafing through a volume of music by what composer?
46) When The Yellow Book appeared in 1894, what was its cover price?
47) Who is John Albert Edward Claude Orde Angus Tankerton Tanville-Tankerton, Fourteenth Duke of Dorset?
48) Who provided Huysmans with the details of Robert de Montesquiou’s home, which he later used for inspiration in “Against Nature”?
49) Legend has it Robert de Montesquiou once stuffed a bunch of flowers in his shirt in lieu of a cravat. What kind were they?
50) In Boldini’s portrait of Montesquiou, what color is the handle of his cane?
51) Boni de Castellane married a daughter from what American dynasty?
52) Monsieur de Phocas, in the Jean Lorrain novel of the same name, is the protagonist’s alter-ego. What is his real name?
53) In what neighborhood does Charles Swann live in Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time”?
54) In the same book, when we first meet Robert de Saint-Loup, which of the following is not part of his general description?
a) Golden hair
b) Malacca cane
c) White suit
55) Whose violin sonata did Proust have in mind when he created the “little phrase” that serves as the love theme for Charles and Odette?
56) What motto did Khnopff have inscribed above the doorway to his home?
57) An epidemic of what disease claims Gustav von Aschenbach in Mann’s “Death in Venice”?
THE 20TH CENTURY
58) Which is not a character of Saki:
59) When his father dies, leaving him broke, Wodehouse’s character Psmith is forced to work for his uncle in what business?
60) At the time of her romance with Gatsby, before she became Mrs. Tom Bucchanan, what was Daisy’s last name?
61) What Christian name was the Duke of Windsor called by his intimates?
62) Which of the following items was not popularized by the Duke of Windsor:
a) Suede shoes
b) Argyle socks
c) Fair Isle sweaters
d) White dinner jackets
e) Backless tuxedo vests
63) With what dance legend did Cecil Beaton have sexual relations?
a) Isadora Duncan
b) Martha Graham
c) Adele Astaire
d) Fred Astaire
64) When Anthony Blanche takes Charles to dinner in “Brideshead Revisited,” what cocktail does he drink four of in quick succession?
65) How many neckties was E. Berry Wall said to own?
66) Match the Noel Coward song to the musical from which it comes:
Men About Town
Tonight at 8:30
67) At what time would Osbert Lancaster arrive for his job as a cartoonist for the Daily Express?
68) What was the name of the villa in Florence where Harold Acton lived all his life?
69) What was the name of Gabriele d’Annunzio’s villa?
70) What was the name of Lucius Beebe’s private railcar?
71) What work by Camus features remarks on dandyism?
72) In Derek Marlowe’s spy novel “A Dandy in Aspic,” what are the two names of the double-agent hero?
73) Tom Wolfe has a Ph.D. from Yale in what subject?
74) Who plays Beau Brummell in the 1924 silent film version?
75) In the 1945 film adaptation of “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” what is the name of the song Sibyl Vane sings?
76) In “The Red Shoes,” what oxymoronic phrase does a lady at a party use to describe ballet impressario Boris Lermontov, played by Anton Walbrook?
77) ’60s pop band the Beau Brummels had three top-40 hits. Name one.
78) What vintage car does Johnathan Steed drive in the TV series “The Avengers”?
79) What year did David Bowie adopt his Thin White Duke persona?
80) In Visconti’s adaptation of d’Annunzio’s “L’Innocente,” what fencing weapon do the brothers bout with?
81) At the beginning of Volker Schlondorff’s “Swann in Love,” when Charles arrives at the Guermantes’ salon, what piece of music is the harpist playing?
82) In “A Room with a View,” at the engagement party, when Cecil is asked his profession, what is his answer?
83) In the Rupert Everett version of “An Ideal Husband,” what color are the walls of his flat?
84) “The Last Mistress,” based on the novel by Barbey d’Aurevilly, features a young new actor in the role as the dandyish hero.
a) Spell his name
b) Pronounce it
85) What is Fonzworth Bentley’s real name?
86) What shirt and suspenders color combination does Andre 3000 wear in the OutKast video “Hey Ya”?
87) What dapper pop star successfully bid on Bunny Rogers neckties at a Sotheby’s auction?
88) What New York haberdasher made Lord Whimsy’s infamous blackwatch tartan suit?
89) Who’s the dandified lesbian artist Michael Mattis interviewed for D.net?
90) What is the age difference between Doran Wittelsbach and his current girlfriend?
91) In what country did Sebastian Horsley get himself crucified?
92) What musical instrument does Winston Chesterfield play semi-professionally?
93) What is John Dodelande’s gibberish neologism for dandyism?
94) After he was featured in a “Who’s The Dandy?” post, Andrea Sperelli posted a comment in which he reveals his true identity in all its polysyllabic pomposity. What’s his full name?
95) When Dandyism.net first launched in June 2004, what was the website’s background color?
96) What institution of higher learning did Christian M. Chensvold attend on a fencing scholarship?
97) Using “The Red Shoes” as his springboard, what kind of dandies did Robert Sacheli write about in his first essay for the site?
98) Under what pseudonym did Michael Mattis write history’s most atrociously spelled and grammatically eccentric essay on dandyism while in his twenties?
99) Three columnists have resigned or been fired from D.net. Name them.
100) Does Nick Willard really exist?
2) The Tenth Light Dragoons
4) Jermyn Street
5) Lord Alvanley
8 ) Captain Jesse
9) Captain Gronow
10) Scrope Davies
12) Lister/Granby, Gore/Cecil, Disraeli/Vivian, Ward/Tremaine
13) Sir George Etherege
14) Charles Yellowplush
15) Bleak House
18) Count Alcibiades de Mirabel
19) “A smile for a friend and a sneer for the world is the way to govern mankind”
20) Earl of Beaconsfield
22) John Ruskin
23) Making enemies
26) Prince Korasoff
27) Henri de Marsay
28) “Sentiments have their destiny. Toward one of them, vanity, the whole world is pitiless.”
30) The Crimson Curtain
31) 100,000 francs
32) Madame Bovary
39) Sebastian Melmoth
41) Esmé Amarinth and Lord Reggie Hastings
42) 34 and 32
44) Victoria (the Brighton line)
46) 5 shillings
47) Hero of Beerbohm’s “Zuleika Dobson”
49) Parma violets
52) Duc de Freneuse
53) Quai d’Orleans
54) Malacca cane
56) On n’a que soi
59) Fish business
62) White dinner jackets
63) Adele Astaire
64) Brandy Alexander
66) Regency Rakes/Conversation Piece, Men About Town/Tonight at 8:30, Green Carnation/Bitter Sweet
67) 4 p.m.
68) La Pietra
69) Il Vittoriale
70) Virginia City
71) The Rebel
72) Eberlin, Krasnevin
73) American Studies
74) John Barrymore
75) Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird
76) Attractive brute
77) Laugh Laugh, Just a Little, You Tell Me Why
81) Debussy’s “Arabeque No. 1″
82) “I have no profession”
84) a) Fu’ad Ait Aattou b) Hell if we know
85) Derek Watkins
86) Green and white
87) Bryan Ferry
88) Lord Willy’s
89) Jack Dandy
90) A lot
91) The Philippines
94) Massimiliano Mocchia conte di Coggiola e Pray; signore di S. Benigno; consignore di Ceva, Ostana, Roascio, S. Michele, Torricella. Alias Andrea Sperelli Fieschi d’Ugenta.
96) Cal State Mediocrity
97) Impressario dandies
98) Chevalier d’Hamilton
99) Scott Rose, Doran Wittelsbach, JM Garcia III