Literature Trivia Questions
Total Questions: 2000
Who is the author of 'The Lady Of The Shroud', 'The Mystery Of The Sea', and 'Dracula'?
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bram stoker
In the 1800s, Eleonora Duse starred in the title role in the play 'Denise' by which famous French playwright whose surname is 'fils'?
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alexandre dumas
What city is just across the bridge from Southwark where 'The Canterbury Tales' open?
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london
Which B. Pasternak novel had excerpts published in a Soviet magazine in 1987, 29 years after it was banned?
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doctor zhivago
Who is the character that says, 'The raven himself is hoarse who croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements' in a Shakespeare play?
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lady macbeth
Who became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature the year after his book 'Dodsworth' was published?
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sinclair lewis
Which American author had his story 'The Cask of Amontillado' originally published in Godey's Lady's Book?
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edgar allan poe
Which attorney lost the case in Erle Stanley Gardner's 'The Case of the Terrified Typist'?
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perry mason
Which author wrote the 1993 bestseller 'Gai-Jin', the sixth novel in his Asian saga?
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james clavell
What flower is described in Wordsworth's phrase, 'The rainbow comes and goes, and lovely is'?
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rose
Who wrote the novel titled 'Sons and Lovers'?
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d. h. lawrence
Which author wrote a 6-volume work called 'Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag' several years before penning 'Jo's Boys'?
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louisa may alcott
Which author is known for the famous line 'I'll make him an offer he can't refuse'?
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mario puzo
In 'Shakespeare in Love,' when Will compared 'thee to a summer's day,' he wrote, 'Rough winds do shake the darling buds of' which month?
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may
Who is the Voltaire title character taught by Dr. Pangloss in metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology?
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candide
Which author created the characters Arthur Gordon Pym, Madeline, and Roderick Usher?
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edgar allan poe
In Goethe's epic poem, Reineke, or Reynard, is which type of animal?
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fox
What city in Wisconsin has the largest public library system with more than 1.5 million books?
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milwaukee
In which country was Ding Ling, an author known for writing about independent, brave women, one of the most popular authors?
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china
Which country is associated with the original Picaresque fiction about rogues called Picaros?
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spain
Which Scottish poet is known for writing the songs 'Comin' Thro' The Rye' and 'The Banks O' Doon'?
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robert burns
What literary form does Marianne Moore ironically refer to in her poem that begins with 'I, Too, Dislike It'?
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poetry
What is the title of H.G. Wells' first novel, published in 1895 and set in the future?
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time machine
Which queen of Egypt dies soon after receiving a basket of figs from a simple countryman in a Shakespeare play?
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cleopatra
Which author wrote 'Little House in the Big Woods,' which begins in Wisconsin?
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laura ingalls wilder
Who wrote 'Sketches by Boz'?
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charles dickens
What is the missing word in the William Congreve proverb, 'Music has charms to soothe a savage _____'?
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breast
What word completes the quote from Hamlet, 'To be or not to be: that is _____'?
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question
In 1994, Dell Magazines launched a 'Western Magazine' named for which author?
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louis l'amour
Who wrote 'The Glass Menagerie,' which is narrated by Tom Wingfield and described as a 'memory play'?
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tennessee williams
What tragedy did Shakespeare write to appeal to James I's fascination with witchcraft?
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macbeth
Who is the author of 'The Andromeda Strain' and 'Jurassic Park'?
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michael crichton
What genre is the focus of a magazine founded in 1912 that has published works by Wallace Stevens and T.S. Eliot?
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poetry
Who is the author of the famous story 'The Tell-Tale Heart' which includes the line, 'It was not the old man who vexed me, but his evil eye'?
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edgar allan poe
Who wrote a sonnet published in 1609 that begins with the line 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?'
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william shakespeare
Which British author published 'The Clockwork Testament' in 1974?
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anthony burgess
Who is the juvenile pickpocket described as 'as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six'?
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oliver twist
Which author adapted his initial major work 'Stephen Hero' into the novel 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'?
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james joyce
Which author's home in Key West, Florida, where he wrote 'To Have And Have Not,' is now a national landmark?
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ernest hemingway
Which English poet wrote the line, 'She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies'?
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lord byron
Which 1844 novel features Charles de Batz, Sieur d'Artagnan, a soldier in the service of Louis XIV?
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three musketeers
Who is the playwright of the drama 'Caesar and Cleopatra', which was first performed in 1901 and is considered his first great play?
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george bernard shaw
According to Emily Dickinson, which genre 'Makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me'?
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poetry
In which Shakespearean tragedy does Edgar disguise himself as a mad beggar?
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king lear
Which author, known for writing 'Pride and Prejudice,' had several suitors but never married?
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jane austen
Who is the 17-year-old character kidnapped from his village of Juffure in 1767 in Alex Haley's 'Roots'?
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kunta kinte
What word can be found in the titles of plays when it stands alone or follows 'The Shoemaker's' and 'Death Takes A'?
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holiday
Which historical figure is described by Enobarbus in Shakespeares play as someone whom 'age cannot wither, nor custom stale her infinite variety'?
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cleopatra
Which author, known for 'Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard,' refused an offer to become poet laureate?
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thomas gray
What family of animals is featured in the series of books written by Stan & Jan Berenstain?
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berenstain bears
Who is the fictional slave that forgives his sadistic master Simon Legree on his deathbed?
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uncle tom
Which American poet began the first poem in his first collection with the line 'I celebrate myself'?
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walt whitman
Which queen in Shakespeare's works says, 'Go tell him I have slain myself; say that the last I spoke was 'Antony''?
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cleopatra
In which John Grisham book does Darby Shaw investigate the murder of two Supreme Court justices?
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pelican brief
Which Mark Twain novel features the line, 'You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft'?
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huckleberry finn
Which 4-time Pulitzer Prize-winning poet was known as 'The Voice of New England'?
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robert frost
Who authored the memoir 'My Life in Three Acts' and is known as the First Lady of the American Theatre?
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helen hayes
Which Alice Walker novel narrates Celie's story through letters she writes to God and her sister?
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color purple
Who is the playwright whose 1659 comedy 'Les pr�cieuses ridicules', or 'The Affected Young Ladies', launched his career?
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molière
What is the name of the Longfellow poem that starts its 9th section with, 'On the shores of Gitche Gumee, of the shining Big-Sea-Water'?
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hiawatha