Literature quiz questions for book lovers

Whether you're running a quiz night for a book club or just want a smart round to break up the film and sport questions, literature is a reliable source of good quiz material. It spans centuries and continents, so there's an angle to suit almost any crowd, from novels people read at school to poets, Nobel laureates and modern classics.

These 25 questions move from straightforward warm-ups to genuinely tricky ones for the serious readers in the room. If you want a round dedicated to a single writer or series, our Shakespeare quiz questions and Harry Potter quiz questions cover those in depth. This post is everything else: the classic novels, poems and authors that make up a solid general literature round. You can also build a custom round with your own mix of topics using our quiz creator.

Classic Novels

These cover books that turn up on school reading lists and "best novels ever written" polls, so most people should recognise a few even if they haven't read them.

1Who wrote "Pride and Prejudice"?

Answer:Jane Austen(click to reveal)

The novel was first published in 1813, though Austen began writing an early version of it in the 1790s under the title "First Impressions." It was rejected by a publisher back then and sat unfinished for over a decade before she reworked it.

2In "To Kill a Mockingbird," what is the name of the young narrator?

Answer:Scout Finch (full name Jean Louise Finch)(click to reveal)

3Which novel opens with the line "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"?

Answer:A Tale of Two Cities (by Charles Dickens)(click to reveal)

4In "Moby-Dick," what is the name of the ship's captain, obsessed with hunting the whale?

Answer:Captain Ahab(click to reveal)

5In George Orwell's "1984," what is the name of the Party's all-seeing but never-actually-seen leader?

Answer:Big Brother(click to reveal)

The novel was published in 1949, and its vocabulary (Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime) has become shorthand for surveillance and state control well beyond the book itself.

6Which Charlotte Brontë novel features the brooding Mr. Rochester and a secret hidden in his attic?

Answer:Jane Eyre(click to reveal)

7In "Great Expectations," what's the name of the escaped convict Pip helps in the graveyard at the start of the book?

Answer:Magwitch (Abel Magwitch)(click to reveal)

Poetry

8Who wrote "The Road Not Taken," the poem with the line "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood"?

Answer:Robert Frost(click to reveal)

It's often read as a celebration of individualism, but Frost reportedly wrote it partly as a gentle joke about a friend who could never make up his mind on which path to take during their walks.

9Which Romantic-era poet wrote "Ode to a Nightingale"?

Answer:John Keats(click to reveal)

10"Do not go gentle into that good night" is one of the most quoted lines in poetry. Which Welsh poet wrote it?

Answer:Dylan Thomas (written for his dying father)(click to reveal)

11Written in the 14th century, "The Canterbury Tales" tells its stories through a group of pilgrims travelling to Canterbury. Who wrote it?

Answer:Geoffrey Chaucer(click to reveal)

The collection was left unfinished when Chaucer died around 1400. Of the roughly 120 tales he planned, only 24 were completed.

12Which poet wrote the epic "Paradise Lost," retelling the biblical story of the Fall of Man?

Answer:John Milton(click to reveal)

He dictated much of the poem, since he had gone completely blind by the time he wrote it.

Authors and Literary History

13The Victorian novelist Mary Ann Evans wrote "Middlemarch" and other novels under which male pen name?

Answer:George Eliot(click to reveal)

She wanted her work judged on its own merits rather than dismissed as a "lady novelist," which was a common bias against women writers at the time.

14Which fictional detective, created by Arthur Conan Doyle, lived at 221B Baker Street?

Answer:Sherlock Holmes(click to reveal)

15In 1909, who became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature?

Answer:Selma Lagerlöf (a Swedish novelist)(click to reveal)

She was also the first Swedish writer of either gender to win the prize.

16Which detective novelist holds the Guinness World Record for best-selling fiction author of all time, with an estimated two billion copies sold?

Answer:Agatha Christie(click to reveal)

Her 78 crime novels have been translated into more than 100 languages, and she's credited as the creator of detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

World Literature

17Gabriel García Márquez's 1967 novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" follows several generations of which fictional family?

Answer:The Buendía family(click to reveal)

The novel is set in the fictional town of Macondo and is widely credited with bringing magical realism to a global audience.

18Published in 1958, which Nigerian author's novel "Things Fall Apart" is considered a foundational work of African literature?

Answer:Chinua Achebe(click to reveal)

The book tells the story of a proud Igbo leader and the arrival of European colonisers in pre-colonial Nigeria, and it remains one of the most widely read African novels of all time.

19Which Russian author wrote the sprawling historical novel "War and Peace"?

Answer:Leo Tolstoy(click to reveal)

20Which Russian author wrote "Crime and Punishment," about an impoverished student who commits murder and is tormented by guilt?

Answer:Fyodor Dostoevsky(click to reveal)

21Which Irish author wrote "Ulysses," a novel that takes place over a single day in Dublin?

Answer:James Joyce(click to reveal)

That single day, 16 June 1904, is now celebrated by fans every year as Bloomsday, named after the novel's main character, Leopold Bloom.

Harder Questions

These will separate the casual readers from the people who took a literature module at university.

22In Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," travelling salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning transformed into what?

Answer:A giant insect(click to reveal)

Kafka deliberately never specifies the exact species, and illustrators of early editions were reportedly asked not to draw the creature at all.

23Which gothic novel, often cited as one of the earliest works of science fiction, did Mary Shelley begin writing when she was just 18 years old?

Answer:Frankenstein(click to reveal)

It was published anonymously in 1818. In the story, Frankenstein is actually the name of the scientist who creates the creature, not the monster itself, though pop culture has muddled the two for two centuries now.

24Which American author, celebrated for novels like "Beloved," became the first Black woman to win a Nobel Prize in any category?

Answer:Toni Morrison(click to reveal)

She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

25Which author created Middle-earth, the setting for "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings"?

Answer:J.R.R. Tolkien(click to reveal)

He was also an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon and drew heavily on Old English and Norse mythology when building the world.

Tips for Running a Literature Quiz Round

Read the room before picking your mix. A pub crowd will handle the classic novels and poetry sections comfortably, but the harder round can feel like a trap if nobody in the room has read Kafka. Save it for a bookish audience or a specialist bonus round.

Watch out for book versus film knowledge. Plenty of people know "Frankenstein" or "1984" through adaptations and pop culture references rather than the source text. That's fine for general knowledge questions, but be careful with anything that depends on a detail only in the book.

Don't be afraid to mix eras and countries. A good literature round doesn't need to stay in one country or century. Pairing a Victorian novel question with a 20th-century Russian one keeps the round interesting rather than feeling like a single-author test.

Pair it with a themed round. If your quiz has a Shakespeare or Harry Potter round already, keep this general literature round separate so questions don't overlap or repeat the same authors.