Famous Novels

45 questions · Answers revealed below each question · Print this set

1.Which novel closes with Molly Bloom's "yes I said yes I will Yes"?
- A. Cyrano de Bergerac
- B. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- C. Ulysses
- D. To the Lighthouse
Show answer
Ulysses
Did you know? Molly's final soliloquy closes Joyce's day-long novel.
2.Which novel closes with the line "Reader, I married him"?
- A. The Line of Beauty
- B. Jane Eyre
- C. The Old Man and the Sea
- D. Of Mice and Men
Show answer
Jane Eyre
Did you know? Jane's direct address to the reader closes her account.
3.Which novel follows Hans Castorp in a Swiss sanatorium?
- A. The Magic Mountain
- B. Candide
- C. The Hours
- D. Siddhartha
Show answer
The Magic Mountain
Did you know? Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain runs over a thousand pages in German.
4.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2003?
- A. Sister Carrie
- B. Hopscotch
- C. Middlesex
- D. Dead Souls
Show answer
Middlesex
Did you know? Eugenides's Middlesex spans three generations of a Greek-American family.
5.Which novel depicts an epidemic sweeping Oran?
- A. Frankenstein
- B. The Plague
- C. Slaughterhouse-Five
- D. Peter Pan
Show answer
The Plague
Did you know? Camus's The Plague (1947) is read as an allegory of resistance.
6.Which novel opens with "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents"?
- A. The Luminaries
- B. A Farewell to Arms
- C. Little Women
- D. The Good Earth
Show answer
Little Women
Did you know? Alcott's opening line belongs to grumbling Jo March.
7.Which novel follows a young man's spiritual search beside the river?
- A. The Kite Runner
- B. Siddhartha
- C. Sister Carrie
- D. Animal Farm
Show answer
Siddhartha
Did you know? Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha is set in ancient India, not about the Buddha himself.
8.Which novel opens with Caroline Meeber boarding a train to Chicago?
- A. Buddenbrooks
- B. Of Mice and Men
- C. Sister Carrie
- D. The Line of Beauty
Show answer
Sister Carrie
Did you know? Dreiser's debut follows Carrie from rural Wisconsin to Chicago.
9.Which novel tells of a wounded ambulance driver's love story on the Italian front?
- A. The Good Earth
- B. Heart of Darkness
- C. Jane Eyre
- D. A Farewell to Arms
Show answer
A Farewell to Arms
Did you know? A Farewell to Arms (1929) draws on Hemingway's own World War I service.
10.Which novel won the Booker Prize in 2020?
- A. Shuggie Bain
- B. The Age of Innocence
- C. The Master and Margarita
- D. The House of the Spirits
Show answer
Shuggie Bain
Did you know? Douglas Stuart's debut follows a boy in 1980s Glasgow.
11.Which novel follows a young man through disaster after disaster?
- A. The Road
- B. The Age of Innocence
- C. Candide
- D. Treasure Island
Show answer
Candide
Did you know? Voltaire's Candide (1759) satirizes the idea that all is for the best.
12.Which novel invites readers to reorder its chapters?
- A. Animal Farm
- B. The Plague
- C. Jane Eyre
- D. Hopscotch
Show answer
Hopscotch
Did you know? Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch (1963) offers a second reading order.
13.Which novel retells the Cain and Abel story in California's Salinas Valley?
- A. The Phantom of the Opera
- B. East of Eden
- C. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- D. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Show answer
East of Eden
Did you know? East of Eden (1952) was John Steinbeck's own favorite among his novels.
14.Which novel centers on a masked figure haunting the Paris Opera?
- A. Dracula
- B. Doctor Zhivago
- C. The Phantom of the Opera
- D. Candide
Show answer
The Phantom of the Opera
Did you know? Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera (1910) inspired countless adaptations.
15.Which novel revolves around a patricide trial in a Russian province?
- A. The Death of Ivan Ilyich
- B. Doctor Zhivago
- C. Frankenstein
- D. The Brothers Karamazov
Show answer
The Brothers Karamazov
Did you know? Dostoevsky's last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, was published in 1880.
16.Which novel won the Booker Prize in 2009?
- A. Of Mice and Men
- B. The Age of Innocence
- C. Wolf Hall
- D. Dangerous Liaisons
Show answer
Wolf Hall
Did you know? Mantel's Cromwell novel begins a trilogy continued in Bring Up the Bodies.
17.Which novel follows Chichikov buying serfs who have died but are still on the tax rolls?
- A. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- B. Shuggie Bain
- C. Heart of Darkness
- D. Dead Souls
Show answer
Dead Souls
Did you know? Gogol's Dead Souls was planned as a trilogy but only Part One was finished.
18.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001?
- A. The Kite Runner
- B. East of Eden
- C. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- D. The Great Gatsby
Show answer
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Did you know? Chabon's novel follows comic-book creators in wartime New York.
19.Which novel won the Booker Prize in 2004?
- A. The Line of Beauty
- B. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- C. Doctor Zhivago
- D. The Wind in the Willows
Show answer
The Line of Beauty
Did you know? Hollinghurst's novel is set in 1980s Thatcher-era London.
20.Which novel follows U.S. airmen on the Mediterranean island of Pianosa?
- A. Sister Carrie
- B. Catch-22
- C. The God of Small Things
- D. Little Women
Show answer
Catch-22
Did you know? Joseph Heller's Catch-22 was set in World War II Italy.
21.Which Brazilian novel chronicles the great 1915 Ceará drought?
- A. Iracema
- B. Mar Morto
- C. O Quinze
- D. Macunaíma
Show answer
O Quinze
Did you know? Rachel de Queiroz published O Quinze at nineteen.
22.Which novel follows an Irish orphan boy traveling India's Grand Trunk Road?
- A. The Shipping News
- B. The Death of Ivan Ilyich
- C. Vernon God Little
- D. Kim
Show answer
Kim
Did you know? Rudyard Kipling's Kim (1901) is set during the Great Game.
23.Which Brazilian novel follows dockworkers and sailors in Salvador?
- A. O Cortiço
- B. Mar Morto
- C. A Moreninha
- D. Quarto de Despejo
Show answer
Mar Morto
Did you know? Mar Morto (1936) fixed Jorge Amado's sea-side Bahia in fiction.
24.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994?
- A. The Shipping News
- B. Tales of the South Pacific
- C. The English Patient
- D. The Line of Beauty
Show answer
The Shipping News
Did you know? Proulx's novel follows Quoyle to a Newfoundland fishing town.
25.Which novel opens with Mole spring-cleaning his little home?
- A. The Wind in the Willows
- B. Middlemarch
- C. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- D. Wuthering Heights
Show answer
The Wind in the Willows
Did you know? Grahame's Mole abandons his cleaning for the river that morning.
26.Which novel centers on the nihilist Bazarov?
- A. Little Women
- B. Fathers and Sons
- C. We
- D. A Farewell to Arms
Show answer
Fathers and Sons
Did you know? Turgenev's Fathers and Sons (1862) popularized the word "nihilism".
27.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2011?
- A. Vernon God Little
- B. The Jungle Book
- C. The Master and Margarita
- D. A Visit from the Goon Squad
Show answer
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Did you know? Egan's linked stories include a chapter told in PowerPoint slides.
28.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1995?
- A. Little Women
- B. The Jungle Book
- C. The Stone Diaries
- D. Things Fall Apart
Show answer
The Stone Diaries
Did you know? Carol Shields's novel also won Canada's Governor General's Award.
29.Which novel follows Fabrice del Dongo in Napoleonic-era Italy?
- A. The Picture of Dorian Gray
- B. Animal Farm
- C. The English Patient
- D. The Charterhouse of Parma
Show answer
The Charterhouse of Parma
Did you know? Stendhal wrote The Charterhouse of Parma in just a few months.
30.Which novel opens with "Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow"?
- A. Mrs Dalloway
- B. To the Lighthouse
- C. The Magic Mountain
- D. Gone with the Wind
Show answer
To the Lighthouse
Did you know? Woolf's To the Lighthouse centers on the Ramsay family's Hebrides visits.
31.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948?
- A. We
- B. The Betrothed
- C. Slaughterhouse-Five
- D. Tales of the South Pacific
Show answer
Tales of the South Pacific
Did you know? Michener's story collection inspired the musical South Pacific.
32.Which novel shared the Booker Prize in 1992?
- A. Peter Pan
- B. Hopscotch
- C. Sacred Hunger
- D. The Leopard
Show answer
Sacred Hunger
Did you know? Unsworth's slave-ship novel tied with The English Patient for the 1992 Booker.
33.Which novel follows Renzo and Lucia separated by a tyrant in 17th-century Lombardy?
- A. Wolf Hall
- B. The Betrothed
- C. Wuthering Heights
- D. The Hobbit
Show answer
The Betrothed
Did you know? Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed (1827) is a cornerstone of the Italian language.
34.Which novel follows a judge confronting his own mortality?
- A. The Death of Ivan Ilyich
- B. The Color Purple
- C. The Wind in the Willows
- D. Animal Farm
Show answer
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Did you know? Tolstoy wrote The Death of Ivan Ilyich in 1886.
35.Which novel follows the ambitious Julien Sorel?
- A. Buddenbrooks
- B. Vernon God Little
- C. The Red and the Black
- D. The Phantom of the Opera
Show answer
The Red and the Black
Did you know? Stendhal's The Red and the Black (1830) is set in Restoration France.
36.Which novel is told through the letters of aristocratic schemers?
- A. Candide
- B. Dangerous Liaisons
- C. Like Water for Chocolate
- D. Possession
Show answer
Dangerous Liaisons
Did you know? Choderlos de Laclos published Dangerous Liaisons in 1782.
37.Which novel opens through the mind of Benjy Compson?
- A. The Good Earth
- B. Dead Souls
- C. The Sound and the Fury
- D. The Line of Beauty
Show answer
The Sound and the Fury
Did you know? The Sound and the Fury (1929) uses four narrators to tell one family's decline.
38.Which novel won the Booker Prize in 1988?
- A. Sister Carrie
- B. Oscar and Lucinda
- C. Beloved
- D. A Tale of Two Cities
Show answer
Oscar and Lucinda
Did you know? Carey's Booker winner centers on a bet over a glass church.
39.Which novel opens with Lawrence Selden surprised by a familiar face at Grand Central?
- A. The House of Mirth
- B. A Farewell to Arms
- C. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- D. Sacred Hunger
Show answer
The House of Mirth
Did you know? Wharton's The House of Mirth follows Lily Bart through New York society.
40.Which novel closes by praising "unhistoric acts" of ordinary goodness?
- A. Middlemarch
- B. Animal Farm
- C. David Copperfield
- D. Doctor Zhivago
Show answer
Middlemarch
Did you know? Eliot's closing tribute honours Dorothea's everyday influence.
41.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1996?
- A. The Magic Mountain
- B. Little Women
- C. Independence Day
- D. The Luminaries
Show answer
Independence Day
Did you know? Richard Ford's novel was the first Pulitzer winner to be a sequel.
42.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1982?
- A. The Hours
- B. Wuthering Heights
- C. Rabbit Is Rich
- D. The Luminaries
Show answer
Rabbit Is Rich
Did you know? Updike's Rabbit series earned him two Pulitzer Prizes.
43.Which novel closes with Lily Briscoe's "I have had my vision"?
- A. To the Lighthouse
- B. The Phantom of the Opera
- C. The Age of Innocence
- D. A Farewell to Arms
Show answer
To the Lighthouse
Did you know? Lily's finished painting gives Woolf's novel its final line.
44.Which novel follows Don Cossacks through World War I and the revolution?
- A. Like Water for Chocolate
- B. The Red and the Black
- C. And Quiet Flows the Don
- D. Sacred Hunger
Show answer
And Quiet Flows the Don
Did you know? Mikhail Sholokhov won the Nobel Prize in 1965 for And Quiet Flows the Don.
45.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1973?
- A. Independence Day
- B. The English Patient
- C. The Optimist's Daughter
- D. The Time Machine
Show answer
The Optimist's Daughter
Did you know? Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter won the 1973 Pulitzer in her lifetime.

Questions are for entertainment — difficulty ratings are a guide, and you know your crowd best. Always follow the rules of your venue or event.