I didn’t realize people were so hungry for literature trivia quiz questions and answers until I wrote my article: “Take the Ultimate Children’s Literature Quiz.” Since that post went live, it’s become my most visited blog article by far. That’s why I’ve assembled this sequel: 50 brand new literature trivia multiple choice questions. Dare to accept the challenge? Only true bookworms can answer all 50 English literature trivia questions… take this free classic literature quiz and prove you’re one of them!
And now onto the questions!
Classical and Early Literature to 1800 Trivia
1 – Name That Author: Who wrote The Iliad?
a) Euripides
b) Beowulf
c) Homer
d) Virgil
2 – Put the three cantos of The Divine Comedy in the correct order.
a) Paradiso, Purgatorio, Inferno
b) Inferno, Limbo, Paradiso
c) Purgatorio, Inferno, Limbo
d) Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso
3 – Don Quixote was written in which language?
a) Old English
b) Italian
c) Spanish
d) Greek
4 – The hero Beowulf faces a monster known by this name.
a) Hrothgar
b) Grendel
c) Heorot
d) Minotaur
5 – John Donne is known as a member of which school of poetry?
a) Romanticism
b) Jacobean
c) Georgian
d) Metaphysical
- Buy The Complete Poetry of John Donne on Amazon // Add The Complete Poetry of John Donne on Goodreads
6 – John Milton’s Paradise Lost was written during which century?
a) 1400’s
b) 1500’s
c) 1600’s
d) 1700’s
18th & 19th Century Literature Trivia
7 – Mark Twain’s beloved characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn reside in which state?
a) Alabama
b) Missouri
c) Mississippi
d) Tennessee
8 – This genre of fiction, in which novels like Dracula are told in letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings, and more mixed formats, came to prominence in the late 18th century.
a) Belles-lettres
b) Pastoral
c) Bildungsroman
d) Epistolary
9 – Sir Walter Scott is known for his historical novels about which country?
a) Ireland
b) Scotland
c) Wales
d) England
10 – In Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, what food does Oliver famously ask for more of when he says: “Please, Sir, I want some more”?
a) Bread
b) Soup
c) Cheese
d) Gruel
11 – Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights recounts the tragic romance between which two lovers?
a) Catherine and Heathcliff
b) Eleanor and Christian
c) Isabella and Hindley
d) Anne and Gordon
12) Who is the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter?
a) Anne Hutchinson
b) Emily Shelby
c) Agnes Grey
d) Hester Prynne
20th Century Literature Trivia
13 – Author Zora Neale Hurston was part of which literary movement
a) Romanticism
b) Harlem Renaissance
c) Transcendentalism
d) Beat
- Buy Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God on Amazon // Add Their Eyes Were Watching God on Goodreads
14 – Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood takes its name from which Shakespeare play?
a) Macbeth
b) Timon of Athens
c) Othello
d) Hamlet
15 – Who is the protagonist of James Joyce’s Ulysses?
a) Leopold Bloom
b) Leopold Ulysses
c) Ulysses Bloom
d) Homer Bloom
16 – Who wrote The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test?
a) William S. Burroughs
b) Hunter S. Thompson
c) Ken Kesey
d) Tom Wolfe
17 – In J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, protagonist Holden Caulfield worries about how this animal survives the winter in New York.
a) Ducks
b) Pigeons
c) Cats
d) Squirrels
18 – How many volumes are in Marcel Proust’s novel à La Recherche du Temps Perdu (“In Search of Lost Time”)?
a) 3
b) 5
c) 6
d) 7
- Buy Swann’s Way, the first book in Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time” on Amazon // Add Swann’s Way on Goodreads
21st Century Literature Trivia
19 – The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo was originally published in which language?
a) Swedish
b) Norweigian
c) Danish
d) English
20 – In what year was Gillian Flynn’s domestic thriller Gone Girl published?
a) 2012
b) 2013
c) 2014
d) 2016
21 – E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey was originally fan fiction for which book series?
a) The Twilight Series
b) The Harry Potter Series
c) The Outlander Series
d) The Left Behind Series
22 – Name That Book: What is the seventh and final installment in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series?
a) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
b) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
c) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
d) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- Buy the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, on Amazon // Add Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on Goodreads
23 – In Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, two star-crossed lovers are rivals. What profession do they share?
b) Acrobats
b) Magicians
c) Tightrope Walkers
d) Trapeze Artists
24 – In Stephen King’s 11/22/63, a high school English teacher hurtles back in time to 1963 and attempts to stop what monumental event?
a) The assassination of President John F. Kennedy
b) The moon landing of Apollo 11
c) The Cuban Missle Crisis
d) The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
25 – Name That Author: This writer penned the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Goldfinch.
a) Elizabeth Strout
b) Donna Tartt
c) Anita Shreve
d) Anne Patchett
Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Trivia
26 – Who is the hero of Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series?
a) Paul Atreides
b) Winston Smith
c) Arthur Dent
d) Rick Deckard
- Buy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on Amazon // Add The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on Goodreads
27 – Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 epic sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey was inspired by a short story by this writer, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Kubrick.
a) Arthur C. Clarke
b) Robert Heinlein
c) Philip K. Dick
d) William Gibson
28 – In H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, does the character first travel forward or backward in time?
a) Forward
b) Backward
29 – Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is set in an underground world of which city?
a) Dublin
b) Paris
c) New York City
d) London
30 – Who is the central hero of Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind?
a) Felurian
b) Kvothe
c) Denna
d) Bast
31 – Name That Book: Chronologically, this novel comes first in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series.
a) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
b) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
c) The Magician’s Nephew
d) The Silver Chair
- Buy The Complete Chronicles of Narnia on Amazon // Add The Complete Chronicles of Narnia on Goodreads
32 – What’s the name of the college of magic that Quentin Coldwater attends in Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy?
a) Osthorne
b) Brasenose
c) Pembroke
d) Brakebills
Mystery and Thriller Book Trivia
33 – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in print with which novel?
a) The Sign of the Four
b) The Valley of Fear
c) The Hound of the Baskervilles
d) A Study in Scarlet
- Buy the collected novels of Sherlock Holmes on Amazon // Add the collected novels of Sherlock Holmes on Goodreads
34 – True or False: “Agatha Christie” is a pen name.
a) True
b) False
- Buy Agatha Christie’s thriller And Then There Were None on Amazon // Add And Then There Were None on Goodreads
35 – Name That Author: Who wrote the noir classic The Maltese Falcon?
a) James Ellory
b) Dashiell Hammett
c) James M. Cain
d) Raymond Chandler
36 – Tana French’s mystery series that starts with In the Woods is based in which city?
a) Dublin
b) London
c) Edinburgh
d) Belfast
37 – Who is the heroine of Janet Evanovich’s One for the Money and its sequels?
a) Sadie Pear
b) Stacy Partridge
c) Sarah Peach
d) Stephanie Plum
38 – Name That Author: Who wrote The Girl on the Train?
a) A.J. Finn
b) Sophie Hannah
c) Paula Hawkins
d) Ruth Ware
Poets and Poetry Trivia
39 – Which is NOT a poem by Emily Dickinson?
a) “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”
b) “Because I could not stop for Death”
c) “Acquainted with the night”
d) “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”
40 – Name That Poet: Who wrote the Beat classic “Howl”?
a) Jack Kerouac
b) Lawrence Ferlinghetti
c) Allen Ginsberg
d) William Carlos Williams
41 – Which two poets co-wrote the Lyrical Ballads?
a) T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound
b) William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
c) Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton
d) Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop
42 – When was Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” first published?
a) 1838
b) 1840
c) 1845
d) 1850
- Buy The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe on Amazon // Add The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe on Goodreads
43 – Name That Poet: Which poet associated with Romanticism wrote Songs of Innocence and Experience?
a) William Blake
b) John Keats
c) William Wordsworth
d) Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Buy Songs of Innocence and Experience on Amazon // Add Songs of Innocence and Experience on Goodreads
44 – Who wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?
a) Audre Lorde
b) Maya Angelou
c) Adrienne Rich
d) Gwendolyn Brooks
William Shakespeare Trivia
45 – How many acts are in Romeo and Juliet?
a) Two
b) Three
c) Four
d) Five
46 – The character of Hamlet was the ruler of which country?
a) Denmark
b) Scotland
c) Sweden
d) England
47 – Who is the youngest daughter of King Lear?
a) Ophelia
b) Cordelia
c) Regan
d) Goneril
48 – Which of these ingredients does NOT appear in the Witches’s “Double, double toil and trouble” speech from Macbeth?
a) Eye of newt
b) Lizard’s leg
c) Wing of bat
d) Tongue of dog
49 – William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury takes its title from which Shakespeare play?
a) Hamlet
b) King Lear
c) Romeo and Juliet
d) Much Ado About Nothing
50 – Which of these plays is NOT considered to be one of Shakespeare’s comedies?
a) Two Gentlemen of Verona
b) Merchant of Venice
c) Macbeth
d) Winter’s Tale
ANSWERS
And now on to the answers!
1 – c
2 – d
3 – c
4 – b
5 – d
6 – c
7 – b
8 – d
9 – b
10 – d
11 – a
12 – d
13 – b
14 – b
15 – a
16 – d
17 – a
18 – d
19 – a
20 – a
21 – a
22 – d
23 – b
24 – a
25 – b
26 – c
27 – a
28 – a
29 – d
30 – b
31 – c
32 – d
33 – d
34 – b – False
35 – b
36 – a
37 – d
38 – c
39 – c
40 – c
41 – b
42 – c
43 – a
44 – b
45 – d
46 – a
47 – b
48 – c
49 – a
50 – c
