Literature Trivia Questions
Total Questions: 2000
Who wrote 'Northanger Abbey'?
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jane austen
Who wrote the 1996 verse collection 'Falling Up' and is also known for 'The Giving Tree'?
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shel silverstein
In what U.S. state does Willa Cather's 'O Pioneers!' begin on a January day in the little town of Hanover?
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nebraska
Which Mississippi-born author was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for the novel 'The Optimist's Daughter'?
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eudora welty
Which 4-act comedy by Langdon Mitchell is based on William Makepeace Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair'?
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becky sharp
Which author of 'Hondo' and other Westerns was born in Jamestown, North Dakota?
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louis l'amour
Which play by Shakespeare begins with the line 'I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this night in Messina'?
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much ado about nothing
Which black American author won a 1988 Pulitzer Prize for the novel 'Beloved,' set in the Reconstruction era?
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toni morrison
Which Chilean poet's reputation was established in 1924 with the publication of 'Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair'?
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pablo neruda
Who is the poet that wrote, 'I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference'?
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robert frost
Which author said it took him "Five years to write 'In Cold Blood', and a year to recover"?
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truman capote
What is the title of the Jerzy Kozinski novel that begins with the sentence 'It was Sunday. Chance was in the garden'?
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being there
What is the only Sir Walter Scott novel in which Robin Hood appears?
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ivanhoe
Which poet compared Lincoln to Venus in the poem 'When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd'?
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walt whitman
Which author of 'The Moonstone' was named after his father's friend Sir David Wilkie?
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wilkie collins
Which Harlem poet wrote 'Rest at pale evening... a tall slim tree... night coming tenderly black like me'?
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langston hughes
Who is the author of the 1958 novel 'Our Man in Havana' set in pre-Castro Cuba?
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graham greene
Who is the German author of the 1943 novel 'Magister Ludi', also known as 'The Glass Bead Game'?
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hermann hesse
Who is the author of the 1930 novel 'Cimarron', which is set during the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889?
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edna ferber
Who is the English poet known for writing 'Queen Mab', 'Ozymandias', and 'To A Skylark'?
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percy bysshe shelley
What is the name of the legendary Spanish rake in a mock-epic poem by Byron that rhymes with 'new one'?
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don juan
Which author of 'Anne of Green Gables' was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1935?
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lucy maud montgomery
Which playwright wrote 'Back to Methuselah,' in which Edith Evans played the serpent in the 1923 cast?
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george bernard shaw
What was the name of James Thurber's 1945 collection, including the word 'Thurber'?
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carnival
Which poet, known for writing 'Kubla Khan,' considered 'Tom Jones' to have one of the three best plots in all literature?
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samuel taylor coleridge
Who is the author of the novel 'A Death in the Family', which was adapted for the stage as 'All The Way Home'?
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james agee
Which author wrote the novel 'Cancer Ward' that was originally banned in the Soviet Union?
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aleksandr solzhenitsyn
Who is the tattooed harpooner and cannibal from the uncharted South Seas island of Kokovoko in 'Moby Dick'?
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queequeg
Which famous detective met his end in the 1975 novel titled 'Curtain'?
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hercule poirot
Which author, the son of missionaries who worked in India, wrote the novel 'Siddhartha'?
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hermann hesse
Which author wrote the book 'An Inconvenient Woman' that explores morals and murders in L.A.'s high society?
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dominick dunne
Who is the playwright behind the 1882 play that includes the line 'The minority is always right'?
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henrik ibsen
Who is the author famous for writing the line 'I am a camera with its shutter open'?
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christopher isherwood
Which author followed his first novel, 'Appointment in Samarra', with 'BUtterfield 8'?
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john o'hara
Who is the author of 'A la recherche du temps perdu' known for his description of Madeleines?
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marcel proust
How many children did Shakespeare have before his descendants later died out?
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3
Which Shakespearean character lamented, 'I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died'?
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ophelia
Who wrote the expressionistic 1922 play 'The Hairy Ape' that opens in the firemen's forecastle of an ocean liner?
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eugene o'neill
Which sleuthing cleric is the central character in G.K. Chesterton's works 'The Wisdom...', 'The Secret...' and 'The Innocence...'?
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father brown
Which poet had hundreds of her poems discovered by her sister Lavinia in little handsewn booklets after she died in 1886?
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emily dickinson
What is the title given to Fyodor Dostoyevsky's saintly but foolish Prince Lvov Nikolayevitch Myshkin?
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idiot
Who wrote the novel 'Other Voices, Other Rooms'?
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truman capote
In which T. Dreiser novel is Clyde sentenced to death after the pregnant Roberta drowns?
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american tragedy
In which William Faulkner novel does Addie Bundren's family face numerous challenges to fulfill her burial wishes?
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as i lay dying
Who is the author that published 'Tales of a Wayside Inn' two years after his wife's death?
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henry wadsworth longfellow
Which author dedicated her novel 'Rubyfruit Jungle' to actress Alexis Smith?
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rita mae brown
Which heiress wrote the autobiography 'Black Knight, White Knight' recounting her search for happiness?
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gloria vanderbilt
Who is the author of 'The Betsy' and once worked as a shipping clerk for Universal Pictures?
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harold robbins
Which Swedish playwright's last marriage inspired him to write "The Dance of Death"?
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august strindberg
Which author wrote the adventure novel 'Jerry of the Islands' about an Irish terrier pup in the South Seas?
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jack london
Who wrote the best-selling book 'Cat Stories' in 1994?
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james herriot
Who is the author of the 1938 satire 'The Black Book' who also wrote 'The Alexandria Quartet'?
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lawrence durrell
Who wrote of 'things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme' in 'Paradise Lost'?
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john milton
Who is the author known for writing over 70 one-act plays and the novel 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'?
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betty smith
Which poet wrote 'Come live with mee, & bee my love' in 'The Baite'?
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john donne
Which German playwright wrote the 1804 play about the Tell legend, reducing the intensity of the Sturm und Drang movement?
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friedrich schiller
Which Prague writer wrote 'Hunger Artist,' in which the protagonist starves because he couldn't find the food he liked?
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franz kafka
Shelley's poem about which mythological character 'unbound' features figures like Ione and Hercules?
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prometheus
Which book did Tolstoy reportedly conceive after witnessing a woman jump in front of a train?
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anna karenina
What name comes between Athos and Aramis?
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porthos