Are you ready to embark on a literary journey through the greatest works of classic literature? Whether you’re a bookworm who devours the classics or simply curious about the literary masterpieces that have shaped our culture, this comprehensive quiz will challenge and entertain you!
From ancient epics to 20th-century novels, we’ve crafted 100 carefully selected questions that will test your knowledge of authors, characters, plots, and literary movements.
This quiz progresses through five increasingly challenging rounds, starting with basic literary facts and building to specialized questions that will challenge even the most dedicated literature enthusiasts.
Each round offers a unique perspective on classic literature, with questions designed to both test your knowledge and introduce you to fascinating literary trivia you might not know.
Perfect for literature students, book club members, or anyone who appreciates great writing, this quiz can be enjoyed solo or with friends to see who truly knows their Shakespeare from their Steinbeck, their Austen from their Achebe. So grab your reading glasses and prepare to test your literary prowess!
Round 1: Easy Classic Literature Questions
Let’s start with some foundational knowledge about classic literature. These questions cover famous authors, well-known works, and basic literary facts.
- Who wrote “Pride and Prejudice”?
Answer: Jane Austen - What is the name of the protagonist in “The Great Gatsby”?
Answer: Jay Gatsby (or James Gatz) - Which Brontë sister wrote “Jane Eyre”?
Answer: Charlotte Brontë - In which city is Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” set?
Answer: Verona, Italy - Who is the author of “War and Peace”?
Answer: Leo Tolstoy - What’s the name of Captain Ahab’s ship in “Moby-Dick”?
Answer: The Pequod - Which famous novel begins with the line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”?
Answer: “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens - Who wrote “The Odyssey”?
Answer: Homer - What is the name of the island in William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”?
Answer: The island is unnamed in the novel - Who wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird”?
Answer: Harper Lee - What is the name of the Dashwood family home at the beginning of “Sense and Sensibility”?
Answer: Norland Park - Which Russian author wrote “Crime and Punishment”?
Answer: Fyodor Dostoevsky - In “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” what is the White Rabbit concerned about?
Answer: Being late - Who is the protagonist of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre”?
Answer: Jane Eyre - Which ancient Greek playwright wrote “Oedipus Rex”?
Answer: Sophocles - What is the name of Don Quixote’s horse?
Answer: Rocinante - Which American author wrote “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”?
Answer: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) - What type of plant is central to John Wyndham’s “The Day of the Triffids”?
Answer: A mobile, carnivorous plant (Triffid) - Who wrote “Frankenstein”?
Answer: Mary Shelley - What is the profession of Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories?
Answer: Consulting detective
Looking for more ways to test your knowledge? Try these thought-provoking questions to challenge yourself and others!
Round 2: Multiple-Choice Classic Literature Questions
Now let’s step it up with some multiple-choice questions! Choose the correct answer from the four options provided.
- Which of these works was NOT written by Charles Dickens?
- A) David Copperfield
- B) Bleak House
- C) Wuthering Heights
- D) Oliver Twist
Answer: C) Wuthering Heights (written by Emily Brontë)
- In Jane Austen’s “Emma,” what is the profession of Emma’s father, Mr. Woodhouse?
- A) Clergyman
- B) Gentleman of leisure/landowner
- C) Doctor
- D) Lawyer
Answer: B) Gentleman of leisure/landowner
- Which of these novels features the March sisters?
- A) Little Women
- B) Pride and Prejudice
- C) Wuthering Heights
- D) Jane Eyre
Answer: A) Little Women
- Who wrote “One Hundred Years of Solitude”?
- A) Jorge Luis Borges
- B) Pablo Neruda
- C) Gabriel García Márquez
- D) Isabel Allende
Answer: C) Gabriel García Márquez
- In “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” what happens to the portrait?
- A) It is stolen
- B) It ages and becomes corrupted while Dorian remains young
- C) It is destroyed in a fire
- D) It is sold to a collector
Answer: B) It ages and becomes corrupted while Dorian remains young
- Which character appears in multiple William Faulkner novels?
- A) Quentin Compson
- B) Jay Gatsby
- C) Holden Caulfield
- D) Dean Moriarty
Answer: A) Quentin Compson
- Which novel begins: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”?
- A) Jane Eyre
- B) The Haunting of Hill House
- C) Rebecca
- D) The Turn of the Screw
Answer: C) Rebecca
- Who wrote “Things Fall Apart”?
- A) Wole Soyinka
- B) Chinua Achebe
- C) Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
- D) Ben Okri
Answer: B) Chinua Achebe
- What is the name of the governess in Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre”?
- A) Mrs. Fairfax
- B) Miss Temple
- C) Mrs. Reed
- D) Jane Eyre herself
Answer: D) Jane Eyre herself
- Which of these works is NOT by Virginia Woolf?
- A) Mrs. Dalloway
- B) Middlemarch
- C) To the Lighthouse
- D) Orlando
Answer: B) Middlemarch (written by George Eliot)
- In “Gulliver’s Travels,” what is the name of the land of tiny people?
- A) Brobdingnag
- B) Laputa
- C) Lilliput
- D) Houyhnhnm
Answer: C) Lilliput
- Which author created the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha?
- A) William Faulkner
- B) Flannery O’Connor
- C) Eudora Welty
- D) Thomas Wolfe
Answer: A) William Faulkner
- What is the name of Heathcliff’s love in “Wuthering Heights”?
- A) Jane
- B) Catherine
- C) Elizabeth
- D) Isabella
Answer: B) Catherine
- Which character appears in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” “As You Like It,” and “Macbeth”?
- A) A ghost
- B) A king
- C) A fool
- D) None appear in all three
Answer: D) None appear in all three
- Which novel features the character Sydney Carton?
- A) David Copperfield
- B) Great Expectations
- C) A Tale of Two Cities
- D) Nicholas Nickleby
Answer: C) A Tale of Two Cities
- Who wrote “The Grapes of Wrath”?
- A) Ernest Hemingway
- B) John Steinbeck
- C) F. Scott Fitzgerald
- D) William Faulkner
Answer: B) John Steinbeck
- What is the first name of Mr. Darcy in “Pride and Prejudice”?
- A) James
- B) Charles
- C) George
- D) Fitzwilliam
Answer: D) Fitzwilliam
- Which Russian novel features the character Anna Karenina?
- A) War and Peace
- B) Crime and Punishment
- C) Anna Karenina
- D) The Brothers Karamazov
Answer: C) Anna Karenina
- Which of these works was published first?
- A) The Great Gatsby
- B) Ulysses
- C) The Sound and the Fury
- D) The Waste Land
Answer: B) Ulysses (1922)
- Which literary character says “Call me Ishmael”?
- A) The narrator of “Moby-Dick”
- B) The narrator of “The Catcher in the Rye”
- C) The narrator of “Great Expectations”
- D) The narrator of “The Great Gatsby”
Answer: A) The narrator of “Moby-Dick”
If you enjoy testing your knowledge with friends, check out these interesting topics to talk about that can spark engaging conversations about literature and beyond!
Round 3: Medium Difficulty Classic Literature Questions
Now we’re getting more challenging! These questions dig deeper into classic literature and require more specific knowledge.
- Which poet wrote “The Waste Land”?
Answer: T.S. Eliot - What is the name of the family estate in Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited”?
Answer: Brideshead - Which 19th-century novel features the character Dorothea Brooke?
Answer: “Middlemarch” by George Eliot - What is the real name of the author who used the pen name George Eliot?
Answer: Mary Ann Evans - In Homer’s “The Iliad,” which god or goddess sides with the Trojans?
Answer: Apollo (others include Aphrodite, Ares, and Artemis) - What is the name of the fictional Caribbean island in Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea”?
Answer: Coulibri - Which poet wrote “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”?
Answer: Samuel Taylor Coleridge - What movement is James Joyce’s “Ulysses” associated with?
Answer: Modernism - Who is the author of “The Sound and the Fury”?
Answer: William Faulkner - What is the surname of the five sisters in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”?
Answer: Bennet - Which Russian author wrote “Anna Karenina”?
Answer: Leo Tolstoy - What is the name of the plantation in Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind”?
Answer: Tara - Which Shakespeare play features the characters Caliban and Ariel?
Answer: “The Tempest” - Who wrote the novel “Beloved”?
Answer: Toni Morrison - In which century was “Don Quixote” published?
Answer: 17th century (first part in 1605, second in 1615) - What is the setting of Albert Camus’ “The Stranger”?
Answer: Algeria - Which ancient Greek playwright wrote “Lysistrata”?
Answer: Aristophanes - What is the name of the river that Ophelia drowns in, according to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”?
Answer: The river is not named in the play - Who wrote “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”?
Answer: Ken Kesey - What is the occupation of Madame Bovary’s husband in Gustave Flaubert’s novel?
Answer: Doctor (specifically a country doctor/health officer)
For those seeking more in-depth literary discussions, explore these deep topics to talk about that delve into themes often found in classic literature!
Round 4: Hard Classic Literature Questions
These challenging questions will test even the most devoted literary scholars. Get ready to dig deep into your knowledge of literary works!
- In Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” who guides Dante through Paradise?
Answer: Beatrice - What is the name of the narrator in Vladimir Nabokov’s “Pale Fire”?
Answer: Charles Kinbote - Which ancient Greek play features the character Antigone?
Answer: “Antigone” by Sophocles (also appears in “Oedipus at Colonus”) - What is the full title of Mary Shelley’s novel commonly known as “Frankenstein”?
Answer: “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” - Which Irish author wrote “At Swim-Two-Birds”?
Answer: Flann O’Brien (Brian O’Nolan) - In Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” what is the occupation of the character who tells the second tale?
Answer: The Miller - Which poet wrote “Howl”?
Answer: Allen Ginsberg - What is the first line of Homer’s “The Odyssey” in Robert Fagles’ translation?
Answer: “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns” - Who wrote the novel “If on a winter’s night a traveler”?
Answer: Italo Calvino - What is the name of Captain Ahab’s chief mate in “Moby-Dick”?
Answer: Starbuck - Which Thomas Hardy novel was originally published with the subtitle “A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented”?
Answer: “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” - In James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” what is Leopold Bloom’s profession?
Answer: Advertising canvasser - Which ancient Roman poet wrote “Metamorphoses”?
Answer: Ovid - What was Virginia Woolf’s last completed novel?
Answer: “Between the Acts” - In Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” what is the profession of Porfiry Petrovich?
Answer: Investigating magistrate (detective) - Which poet wrote the collection “North”?
Answer: Seamus Heaney - What is the name of the governess in Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw”?
Answer: The governess is unnamed - Which novel by Umberto Eco is set in a medieval monastery?
Answer: “The Name of the Rose” - In “Paradise Lost,” what is the name of Satan’s palace?
Answer: Pandemonium - What was the original title of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”?
Answer: “The Heart of Darkness” (with “The” included)
Interested in sharing these literary insights with others? Check out these philosophical questions that pair perfectly with discussions of classic literature!
Round 5: Literary Quotes and References
For our final round, test your knowledge of famous quotations, opening lines, and significant passages from classic literature.
- “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Which novel opens with this line?
Answer: “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen - “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This is the opening line of which novel?
Answer: “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy - “Call me Ishmael.” This famous opening line belongs to which novel?
Answer: “Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville - “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” Which classic novel begins with this line?
Answer: “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald - “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” This famous opening is from which Charles Dickens novel?
Answer: “A Tale of Two Cities” - “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” This famous quote is from which Shakespeare play?
Answer: “Hamlet” - “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” From which Shakespeare play is this quote taken?
Answer: “As You Like It” - “Reader, I married him.” This line appears in which novel?
Answer: “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë - “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.” This is the opening line of which modernist novel?
Answer: “Ulysses” by James Joyce - “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” This opening line is from which novel?
Answer: “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez - “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This famous opening line belongs to which novel?
Answer: “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy - “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Which dystopian novel begins with this line?
Answer: “1984” by George Orwell - “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.” This is the opening of which epic poem?
Answer: “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri - “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like…” This is the opening of which novel?
Answer: “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger - “I am an invisible man.” This is the opening line of which novel?
Answer: “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison - “It was a pleasure to burn.” Which dystopian novel begins with this line?
Answer: “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury - “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.” This is the opening of which controversial novel?
Answer: “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov - “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.” This opening line belongs to which novel?
Answer: “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain - “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.” This is the opening of which existentialist novel?
Answer: “The Stranger” by Albert Camus - “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” This is the opening of which story?
Answer: “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka
If you enjoy engaging with literature in a social setting, try these questions for couples which can spark discussions about favorite books and literary preferences!
How Did You Score?
80-100 correct: Literary Genius! You have an exceptional knowledge of classic literature. You could probably teach a university course on the subject!
60-79 correct: Bookworm Extraordinaire! Your knowledge of classic literature is impressive. You’re definitely well-read!
40-59 correct: Literary Enthusiast! You have a solid foundation in classic literature and probably enjoy reading the classics.
20-39 correct: Casual Reader! You have a good basic knowledge of classic literature with room to explore more.
0-19 correct: Literary Novice! There’s a whole world of classic literature waiting for you to discover!
How did you do? Share your score with friends to see who is the true literature expert in your group! Looking for more brain-teasing quizzes? Check out our collection of trivia questions for couples for more fun challenges!