Literature Trivia Questions
Total Questions: 388
Which Bront� heroine was portrayed by Flora Campbell in a 1939 production where Dennis Hoey played Rochester?
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jane eyre
In which futuristic novel does Bernard Marx work at the Hatchery and Conditioning Centre?
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brave new world
Who is the playwright of the 1996 collection of short stories titled 'Cruising Paradise'?
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sam shepard
Which poet wrote 'Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!' in his 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'?
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john keats
Which author had his book 'Daisy-Head Maysie' published in 1995, four years after his death?
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dr. seuss
Who is the author of the 1860 novel 'The Mill on the Floss', featuring characters Maggie & Tom Tulliver?
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george eliot
What element is the casket made of that Bassanio chooses in the lottery of the caskets in 'The Merchant of Venice'?
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lead
Which Shakespearean character makes the statement, 'Iago is most honest,' and ultimately regrets it?
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othello
In which George Orwell novel does the character Boxer appear as a noble cart horse?
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animal farm
Gabriel Garcia Marquez won an L.A. Times Prize for Fiction for 'Love in the Time of' what?
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cholera
Which novel includes the commandments: '1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. 2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend'?
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animal farm
To which author of 'Gulliver's Travels' did Alexander Pope dedicate his poem 'The Dunciad'?
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jonathan swift
Which humorist wrote a collection of sketches called 'Carnival' that includes stories such as 'The Night The Bed Fell'?
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james thurber
In a Christopher Marlowe play, Barabas is referred to as 'The Jew of' what island?
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malta
In which James Dickey novel do characters Ed Gentry, Drew Ballinger, Bobby Trippe, and Lewis Medlock go on a canoe trip?
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deliverance
Who was the Roman epic poet that guided Dante through the inferno in the 'Divine Comedy'?
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virgil
In which dystopian novel does the opening line read, 'It was a pleasure to burn'?
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fahrenheit 451
Which author of the Roman Empire, nearing death, asked that his epic poem 'Aeneid' be burned, but Augustus refused to have it destroyed?
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virgil
Who authored the work whose condensed version of 'Roots' was featured in Reader's Digest in May 1974?
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alex haley
Who wrote the tales 'The Premature Burial' and 'The Mystery of Marie Roget'?
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edgar allan poe
In which W.S. Gilbert libretto do the characters Nanki-Poo and Ko-Ko appear?
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mikado
Which Shakespeare play is set partly in the city of Corioli?
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coriolanus
Which author published their first book of tales in 1835, including 'The Tinderbox' and 'The Princess & the Pea'?
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hans christian andersen
Which author spent 20 years researching 'Queen' and wrote a 700-page outline, but did not live to write the book?
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alex haley
In which Ray Bradbury novel does Granger lead a secret group of intellectuals who have memorized great books?
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fahrenheit 451
In which Hemingway novel do Jake Barnes and Robert Cohn both seek the love of Lady Brett Ashley?
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sun also rises
Which Salman Rushdie novel begins with the characters Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha falling from an exploded jet?
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satanic verses
In which Shakespearean tragedy does Emilia declare, 'I will play the swan' and sings before she dies after being stabbed?
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othello
Which author defined 'alone' as 'In bad company' in 'The Devil's Dictionary'?
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ambrose bierce
Which author wrote both 'Looking for Mr. Goodbar' and the 1997 novel 'Perfidia', which was inspired by a real murder case?
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judith rossner
Who wrote 'Animal Farm' and recounted his years of hardship in 'Down and Out in Paris and London'?
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george orwell
What is a 7-letter word for a dank place where The Count of Monte Cristo was imprisoned for 14 years in the Chateau d'If?
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dungeon
In 'Through The Looking Glass', what nonsense poem does Humpty Dumpty explain to Alice?
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jabberwocky
Which author drew on his experiences as captain of a West African river steamer to write 'Heart of Darkness'?
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joseph conrad
In which Theodore Dreiser novel is Carolyn Meeber the title character?
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sister carrie
Which bird, also the subject of a poem by Charles Baudelaire, is featured in 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'?
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albatross
Which 'Gatsby' author did Budd Schulberg base the alcoholic central character of 'The Disenchanted' on?
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f. scott fitzgerald
Which author of 'Paradise Lost' wrote the essay 'Areopagitica' advocating against press censorship?
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john milton
What word completes the title of the 1919 work: '... and Sixpence'?
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moon
Which language's Golden Age of literature was marked by the Ciceronian and Augustan Ages?
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latin
Which author created the character Mowgli, who first appeared in a book titled 'Many Intentions'?
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rudyard kipling
According to the love poems, 'Man, man, man is for the woman made .... as the spur is for the jade, as the scabbard for' what object?
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blade
Who is the author of the well-known Holy Sonnet 'Batter My Heart' and 'Death, Be Not Proud'?
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john donne
Who wrote the line 'In the world of mules there are no rules'?
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ogden nash
Which maiden did Poe write about as living 'with no other thought than to love and be loved' by him?
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annabel lee
Under what pseudonym did Stephen King publish the stories 'Rage', 'The Long Walk', and 'The Running Man'?
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richard bachman
Which author introduced characters in 'Dubliners' who later reappeared in 'Ulysses'?
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james joyce
Who is Leopold Bloom's unfaithful wife in James Joyce's 'Ulysses'?
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molly bloom
In which Arthur Miller play does the character Abigail claim that she danced for the devil?
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crucible
Which poet wrote a sonnet beginning with the line, 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun'?
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william shakespeare
Which allegorical tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupery appeals to both children and adults for its deeper meanings?
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little prince
Which former Pinkerton investigator, who wrote only one 'Thin Man' novel, inspired a series of 6 films?
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dashiell hammett
Which poet lived in a boathouse in Laugharne in the early 1950s, which is now a museum?
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dylan thomas
Who wrote the novel 'Absalom, Absalom!'?
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william faulkner
Who is the author of the book 'Guys & Dolls'?
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damon runyon
In which poem does S. Jackson write the line, 'Who touches a hair of yon gray head dies like a dog!'?
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barbara frietchie
Which animal in Aesop's fables decided the grapes were sour because he couldn't reach them?
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fox
Which author had his novella 'Billy Budd' discovered in his desk after his death in 1891, but it remained unpublished until 1924?
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herman melville
Who is the author of the novel 'The Icarus Agenda', published in 1988?
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robert ludlum
In 'A Tale of Two Cities', what activity did Madame Defarge use to symbolically mark the victims of the revolution?
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knitting