Literature Trivia Questions
Total Questions: 2000
Which novelist, known for writing screenplays for Howard Hawks, has a last name that means 'one who works with falcons'?
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william faulkner
Which author, known for writing 'Treasure Island', also created the collection 'A Child's Garden of Verses'?
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robert louis stevenson
In his introduction to 'A Tale of a Tub', which Irish-born satirist says that wisdom 'is a cheese'?
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jonathan swift
Which author, known for 'Ethan Frome', won the Pulitzer Prize for 'The Age of Innocence'?
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edith wharton
Who is the humorist behind the 1942 published collection 'My World--and Welcome to It'?
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james thurber
Who is the creator of Tevye the Dairyman, also known as the Jewish Mark Twain?
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sholem aleichem
Who is the 20th-century German author of the novel 'Buddenbrooks'?
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thomas mann
Who is the author whose stories feature Reb Tevye as the main character, including in 'Today's Children'?
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sholem aleichem
Who is the author of the story 'To Build A Fire', which describes a man and a dog struggling to survive a harsh Yukon winter night?
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jack london
Who is the author who wrote 'The Manchurian Candidate' and completed his third novel, 'Some Angry Angel', in Mexico City?
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richard condon
Who is the author of 'I, Claudius' for adults and 'The Poor Boy Who Followed His Star' for children?
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robert graves
What weather condition is mentioned in the titles of the 1948 and 1949 Caldecott Medal-winning books by Roger Duvoisin and the Haders?
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snow
Which author, known for her Gothic-style novels including 'Bellefleur', describes her works as 'not exactly parodies' but 'parodistic'?
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joyce carol oates
Who wrote the 1957 play 'The Dumb Waiter' featuring two characters who are hired killers?
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harold pinter
Which author, famously from Manhattan, Kansas, wrote the 'Guys & Dolls' stories?
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damon runyon
Which writer's travel books were overshadowed by the popularity of poems like 'The Owl and the Pussycat'?
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edward lear
In which Kipling short story does Daniel Dravot become the godlike monarch of an Afghani tribe?
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man who would be king
Which novel begins with the line, 'Mr. Jones of the Manor Farm had locked the hen-houses...but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes'?
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animal farm
Who is the poet whose 1971 collection 'Winter Trees' includes poems from the last year of her life?
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sylvia plath
Who authored the 1932 story set in Nebraska, titled 'Neighbor Rosicky'?
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willa cather
What novel by Herman Wouk won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize and is set during World War II?
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caine mutiny
Who is the author of 'Metamorphosis' who was the subject of a biography by his friend Max Brod?
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franz kafka
What is the name of the enchantress whom Odysseus is protected against by the flower Moly in The Odyssey?
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circe
Which famous author was only 5 years old when the plague devastated London and wrote a detailed account called 'Journal of the Plague Year' 57 years later?
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daniel defoe
Which Sri Lanka-born Canadian author won Britain's Booker Prize for the novel 'The English Patient'?
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michael ondaatje
In which Chaucer work does The Man of Law's Tale tell the story of Constance, an emperor's daughter?
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canterbury tales
Which author originally published his 1893 novel 'Maggie: A Girl of the Streets' under the pseudonym Johnston Smith?
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stephen crane
Which poet wrote the lines that include 'Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set and blew. 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.'?
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robert browning
Who is the monstrous descendant of Cain that serves as the villain in the epic poem 'Beowulf'?
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grendel
What is the name of the series of tales that includes the novel 'The Last of the Mohicans'?
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leatherstocking tales
Who is the title character tutored by Dr. Pangloss in a work created by Voltaire?
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candide
In which Midwestern state are Willa Cather's novels 'My Antonia', 'O Pioneers!', and 'A Lost Lady' set?
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nebraska
Which author won the 1989 Hemingway Foundation Pen Award for best first fiction for her novel 'The Book of Ruth'?
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jane hamilton
Which poet, known for 'The Altar', was the subject of a biography by Walton and shares a first name with former President Bush?
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george herbert
Johnny Gilbert portrays Marlowe's 'Passionate' one of these men in the following poem excerpt: 'Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove that valleys, groves, hills and fields, woods are sleepy mountain yields.' What type of man is he portraying?
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shepherd
What word completes this quote: 'I love thee to the depth and breadth and _____ my soul can reach'?
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height
Which Robert Frost poem concludes with the line 'Good fences make good neighbors'?
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mending wall
Which Irish poet did The New York Times Book Reviews describe as 'arguably the finest poet now writing in English' while reviewing 'Beowulf'?
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seamus heaney
Which author created the character Detective Alex Cross, who appears in novels such as 'Kiss The Girls', 'Jack & Jill', and 'Cat & Mouse'?
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james patterson
What opium-induced masterpiece was left unfinished by Coleridge due to an interruption by a person on business from Porlock?
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kublai khan
Who is the author of the 1921 novel 'Crome Yellow' known for its eccentric characters?
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aldous huxley
Which Mississippi author received help from Sherwood Anderson to publish his first novel, 'Soldiers' Pay'?
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william faulkner
Who wrote the play 'Oedipus at Colonus,' which was produced by his grandson after his death?
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sophocles
Who is the king of the fairies in medieval legend and in Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'?
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oberon
In which novel by E.L. Doctorow does the character Mobster Dutch Schultz appear?
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billy bathgate
What is the name of the book that precedes Thomas Wolfe's 'Of Time and the River'?
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look homeward, angel
What pen name was used by authors Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee?
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ellery queen
Who is the author of 'The Piano Lesson' who founded the Black Horizons Theatre Company in 1968?
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august wilson
Which woman, who also wrote 'The Temple of My Familiar,' authored the 1992 novel 'Possessing the Secret of Joy'?
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alice walker
Who is the author of the 1870s novel 'Middlemarch' subtitled 'A Study of Provincial Life'?
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george eliot
What is the title of the Shirley Jackson short story where the 'prize' is death by stoning?
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lottery
Which author wrote the quotation 'Go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you' in the work 'Fathers And Sons'?
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ivan turgenev
Which mesmerizing musician's death causes Trilby to lose her voice in the novel 'Trilby'?
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svengali
Which author created the characters Von Humboldt Fleisher, Augie March, and Moses Herzog?
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saul bellow
Who is the author of the 1993 novel 'Over the River' that features the Charwell and Forsyte families?
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john galsworthy
Which mystery author is jockeying for position in front of the microphone in the book 'Second Wind'?
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dick francis
Which author, known for 'Look Homeward, Angel', wrote the novella 'The Lost Boy' that wasn't fully published until 1992?
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thomas wolfe
In the 1766 novel 'The Vicar of ______', which town's name completes the title and involves the abduction of Sophia Primrose by Squire Thornhill?
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wakefield
On which epic did Virgil base the last six books on the 'Iliad'?
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aeneid
Who is the namesake of the award presented by the American Library Association for
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laura ingalls wilder