Literature Trivia Questions
Total Questions: 2000
Who adapted his novel 'The Caine Mutiny' into a play titled 'The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial' in 1953?
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herman wouk
Who is the scholarly amateur detective who solves the baffling case of 'The Purloined Letter'?
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c. auguste dupin
Which ancient playwright wrote 'The Clouds,' a play that debuted in Athens almost 2,400 years before Michael Frayn's 'Clouds' debuted in London?
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aristophanes
Who was the female member of the Bloomsbury Group who wrote her second novel 'Night and Day'?
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virginia woolf
Which essayist, cartoonist, and humorist described his years at The New Yorker in 'The Years With Ross'?
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james thurber
Which Evelyn Waugh novel is narrated by Charles Ryder?
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brideshead revisited
Who was the novelist that served as a speechwriter for LBJ before writing 'Jaws'?
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peter benchley
Which famous author and illustrator's work is featured on Wedgwood's Peter Rabbit children's tea set?
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beatrix potter
Who wrote the book 'Generation of Swine' as a commentary on the 1980s?
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hunter s. thompson
Who is the character that exclaims, 'Angels and ministers of grace defend us!' when he sees the ghost of his father?
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hamlet
Who is the playwright known for works such as 'The Real Inspector Hound' and 'The Real Thing'?
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tom stoppard
What is the name of the novel in which Mr. Lockwood rents Thrushcross Grange?
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wuthering heights
Which British veterinarian, known for writing 'All Creatures Great and Small,' passed away in 1995?
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james herriot
What is the 3,182-line poem in Old English that combines Norse legend with 6th-century Danish history?
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beowulf
Which day of the week is referenced in the title of one of T.S. Eliot's longer poems, 'Ash'?
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wednesday
Who is the Yiddish language Nobel Prize winner author of the 20th-century novel 'The Magician of Lublin' set in Poland?
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isaac bashevis singer
How many nights are described in the tales of 'One Thousand and One Nights'?
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1001
Who is the biologist known for writing 'Silent Spring'?
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rachel carson
In Thomas Mann's 'Magic Mountain,' what disease is the Swiss sanatorium treating?
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tuberculosis
Which American poet was nicknamed 'The Nun of Amherst' due to her reclusive life after her father's death?
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emily dickinson
Who is the author of the poem 'Tam O'Shanter' that features a witch named Cutty Sark pulling a mare's tail off?
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robert burns
Which Welsh poet is the focus of the collection of stories, 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'?
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dylan thomas
Which author wrote 'Silas Marner' and 'Middlemarch'?
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george eliot
From which little town did the Grinch steal Christmas?
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whoville
Which Round Table wit collaborated with Elmer Rice on the 1924 play 'Close Harmony'?
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dorothy parker
What is the name of the poetic work that features pilgrims including a knight, a cook, a squire, a miller, and a merchant?
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canterbury tales
In T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land', which cards are alluded to with the line 'I do not find the hanged man'?
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tarot
Who is the author of the play 'The Widow's Tears' who also translated Homer and greatly impressed John Keats?
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george chapman
Who is the author of the 1954 book titled 'My Left Foot'?
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christy brown
Which famous Danish author wrote the fairy tale that inspired the ballet 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier'?
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hans christian andersen
In Sue Grafton's book series, if 'F' is for a person on the run, what is the word?
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fugitive
Which poet's collection, 'The Children of the Night,' included the frequently reprinted poem 'Richard Cory'?
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edwin arlington robinson
What animal 'roared' and 'saved the West' in novels about a tiny duchy called Grand Fenwick?
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mouse
Which poet, who was the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, wrote the poem 'Goblin Market'?
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christina rossetti
Who wrote the 1938 work 'The Unvanquished', in which the Sartoris family copes with the Civil War?
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william faulkner
Which Beat Generation writer is the subject of the oral biography titled 'Jack's Book'?
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jack kerouac
Who wrote the phrase 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast' in his 'Essay on Man'?
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alexander pope
Which author wrote the 1996 mystery 'The Fallen Man', featuring Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Navajo policeman Jim Chee?
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tony hillerman
What magazine is known as the 'International News Magazine of Book Publishing'?
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publishers weekly
Which author won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1982 for their third novel featuring the character Harry Angstrom?
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john updike
What is the title of Richard Condon's 1959 suspense novel about Raymond Shaw, an ex-POW programmed to be an assassin?
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manchurian candidate
Who wrote the prose 'Devotions' which includes the line, 'No man is an island, entire of itself'?
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john donne
Which contemporary author wrote 'The Alexandria Quartet' and 'The Avignon Quintet'?
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lawrence durrell
Who is the author of the novel 'Curtain: Hercule Poirot's Last Case'?
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agatha christie
Which author, who wrote the novel, is honored in the dedication of the 1957 play 'Miss Lonelyhearts'?
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nathanael west
Who is referred to as 'America's Sherlock Holmes in Sneakers' in this book series?
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encyclopedia brown
Who is the author of both 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and 'Going Solo,' which recounts his experiences in the RAF?
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roald dahl
Who is the author of the unfinished novel 'Sanditon', which she began writing in 1817, the year of her death?
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jane austen
Which fictional heroine's statue at Grand Pre commemorates the expulsion of the Acadians in Nova Scotia?
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evangeline
Which poet became an immediate sensation after the 1812 publication of 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'?
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lord byron
What is the name of the title animal in Anna Sewell's only novel that served as a plea for the proper care of horses?
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black beauty
Who is the Newsday columnist who wrote the novel 'The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight'?
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jimmy breslin
What classic book by Margery Williams involves the love of a boy bringing a stuffed bunny to life?
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velveteen rabbit
Which contemporary author saw the paperback release of his book 'The Apocalypse Watch' climb the best seller charts in 1996?
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robert ludlum
In which novel do the characters Wang Lung and O-Lan endure 34 chapters of war, pestilence, famine, floods, drought, disease, and locust swarms?
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good earth
What is the term for a professional copyist, exemplified by Bartleby in a Melville story?
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scrivener
Who is the author of 'Sons', the second novel in the 'House of Earth' trilogy that traces the lives of Wang Lung's three sons?
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pearl s. buck
Who was the 18th century author of 'The Beggar's Opera'?
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john gay
What flower, which could be the Japonica variety, is associated with a courtesan in a Dumas novel?
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camellia
In books by B. Malamud, what is the title given to ballplayer Roy Hobbs?
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natural