Have you ever drawn a blank on which Brontë sister wrote “Wuthering Heights” or mixed up your Hemingway with your Fitzgerald? With centuries of classic novels, countless authors, and memorable quotes that shape our culture, keeping track of literary masterpieces can be more challenging than deciphering James Joyce’s “Ulysses”! Our literature trivia collection turns this reading nightmare into a bookworm’s dream with questions spanning everything from Shakespeare’s greatest hits to modern bestsellers. Perfect for impressing your book club or discovering gaps in your literary knowledge that you can fill with your next reading adventure.
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Literature Trivia Questions and Answers
- Who wrote “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”?
Answer: J.K. Rowling - What is the name of the boy who never grows up in Peter Pan?
Answer: Peter Pan - Which famous novel begins with the line “Call me Ishmael”?
Answer: Moby Dick - Who wrote “Charlotte’s Web”?
Answer: E.B. White - What kind of animal is Aslan in “The Chronicles of Narnia”?
Answer: A lion - Who is the author of “The Cat in the Hat”?
Answer: Dr. Seuss - Who wrote “The Hobbit”?
Answer: J.R.R. Tolkien - What is the name of the farm in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”?
Answer: Manor Farm - Who created Sherlock Holmes?
Answer: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - What are the first names of the Brothers Grimm?
Answer: Jacob and Wilhelm - Which children’s author wrote “Matilda” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”?
Answer: Roald Dahl - In which city is “Romeo and Juliet” set?
Answer: Verona - Who wrote “The Great Gatsby”?
Answer: F. Scott Fitzgerald - What is the name of Harry Potter’s owl?
Answer: Hedwig - Which novel begins with the line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”?
Answer: A Tale of Two Cities - Who is the author of “The Gruffalo”?
Answer: Julia Donaldson - What’s the first book in “The Chronicles of Narnia” series?
Answer: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - Who wrote “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”?
Answer: Lewis Carroll - What is the name of the magical land in “The Wizard of Oz”?
Answer: Oz - Who wrote “Pride and Prejudice”?
Answer: Jane Austen - What is the name of the pig in “Charlotte’s Web”?
Answer: Wilbur - Which Shakespearean play features the character Puck?
Answer: A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Who wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird”?
Answer: Harper Lee - Who is the author of “The Hunger Games”?
Answer: Suzanne Collins - What’s the name of the detective in Agatha Christie’s novels who uses his “little gray cells”?
Answer: Hercule Poirot - Which author created the character of Miss Marple?
Answer: Agatha Christie - In which book would you find the character Atticus Finch?
Answer: To Kill a Mockingbird - What is the title of the first book in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy?
Answer: The Fellowship of the Ring - Who wrote “1984”?
Answer: George Orwell - What is the name of the second book in the Harry Potter series?
Answer: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Which sisters wrote “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights”?
Answer: Charlotte and Emily Brontë - What is the name of Captain Hook’s ship in “Peter Pan”?
Answer: The Jolly Roger - Who wrote “The Old Man and the Sea”?
Answer: Ernest Hemingway - What is the full title of the book commonly called “Alice in Wonderland”?
Answer: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Which famous author wrote both “Oliver Twist” and “A Christmas Carol”?
Answer: Charles Dickens - What is the name of the rabbit in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”?
Answer: The White Rabbit - Which classic novel begins with the line “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”?
Answer: Pride and Prejudice - Who wrote “The Catcher in the Rye”?
Answer: J.D. Salinger - What’s the name of the magical school in the Harry Potter series?
Answer: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - What temperature does paper burn in Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”?
Answer: 451 degrees Fahrenheit - Who wrote “Frankenstein”?
Answer: Mary Shelley - Which Shakespeare play features the line “To be, or not to be”?
Answer: Hamlet - Who wrote “Dracula”?
Answer: Bram Stoker - In which century was William Shakespeare born?
Answer: 16th century (1564) - What is the name of the magical wardrobe maker in “The Chronicles of Narnia”?
Answer: Professor Digory Kirke - Who wrote “War and Peace”?
Answer: Leo Tolstoy - What is the name of the family in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”?
Answer: The Bennet family - Who wrote “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”?
Answer: Mark Twain - What is the name of the giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk”?
Answer: The giant is not named in the original story - Who wrote “The Little Prince”?
Answer: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - What is the real name of Lewis Carroll, the author of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”?
Answer: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson - What bet led to Dr. Seuss writing “Green Eggs and Ham”?
Answer: A bet that he couldn’t write a book using only 50 different words - Which novel was written as a result of a ghost story competition between Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori?
Answer: Frankenstein - Who was the author that wrote under the pen name “George Eliot”?
Answer: Mary Ann Evans - How many plays did William Shakespeare write?
Answer: 37 plays - What is the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens?
Answer: Mark Twain - Which famous novel features the characters Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay as lookalikes?
Answer: A Tale of Two Cities - What was the original title for “Fahrenheit 451” before Ray Bradbury changed it?
Answer: The Fireman - Who are the three authors who wrote under the collective pseudonym “Carmen Callil”?
Answer: No one – Carmen Callil was a real person who founded Virago Press, not a pseudonym - Which famous playwright was born on the same day that he died?
Answer: William Shakespeare - What is the name of the raven that Gandalf uses to gather information in “The Hobbit”?
Answer: Roäc - Which book did Ernest Hemingway write largely while standing up due to an injury?
Answer: The Old Man and the Sea - What is the real name of George Orwell?
Answer: Eric Arthur Blair - Which famous American playwright died by choking on a bottle cap?
Answer: Tennessee Williams - What horror novel was inspired by its author’s childhood fear of a painting called “The Hands Resist Him”?
Answer: This is not verified – there is no well-known horror novel with this exact inspiration - Who wrote the novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude”?
Answer: Gabriel García Márquez - What is the longest novel ever published?
Answer: “Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus” by Madeleine de Scudéry - In what language was “Don Quixote” originally written?
Answer: Spanish - What was the original animal that Edgar Allan Poe considered using in his poem before settling on a raven?
Answer: A parrot - What was Charles Dickens’ last unfinished novel?
Answer: The Mystery of Edwin Drood - What poem did T.S. Eliot dedicate to Ezra Pound?
Answer: The Waste Land - Which famous novel’s manuscript was thrown into a fire by the author’s wife, forcing him to rewrite it from memory?
Answer: The first part of Thomas Carlyle’s “The French Revolution” - Which famous American author worked as a steamboat pilot before becoming a writer?
Answer: Mark Twain - What is significant about the poem “Eunoia” by Christian Bök?
Answer: Each chapter uses only one vowel - What was the first book ever printed using movable type?
Answer: The Gutenberg Bible - Which famous novelist completed his first novel while recovering from tuberculosis?
Answer: F. Scott Fitzgerald - What is the title of the first novel written on a typewriter?
Answer: “Life on the Mississippi” by Mark Twain - Which American playwright wrote a play set entirely in one men’s bathroom?
Answer: Neil Simon (in “The Odd Couple”) - Which Russian novelist was sentenced to death by firing squad but received a last-minute reprieve?
Answer: Fyodor Dostoevsky - What is the only book that John Kennedy Toole published in his lifetime?
Answer: None – “A Confederacy of Dunces” was published posthumously - Which famous author was also an inventor who held three patents?
Answer: Mark Twain