Famous Novels

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

1.Which Brazilian novel pairs a widow with her dead husband's ghost?
- A. O Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma
- B. Grande Sertão: Veredas
- C. Vidas Secas
- D. Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos
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Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos
Did you know? Jorge Amado's Dona Flor became a film and a musical.
2.Which novel opens with the line "It is a truth universally acknowledged..."?
- A. Pride and Prejudice
- B. The House of Mirth
- C. Robinson Crusoe
- D. Jane Eyre
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Pride and Prejudice
Did you know? Austen's famous opening pairs a universal truth with marriage-minded mothers.
3.Which Brazilian novel follows a migrant cook who upends Ilhéus?
- A. Gabriela, Cravo e Canela
- B. O Guarani
- C. Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos
- D. O Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma
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Gabriela, Cravo e Canela
Did you know? Gabriela, Cravo e Canela (1958) is Amado's best-loved Bahia romance.
4.Which novel is told through Celie's letters to God?
- A. The Color Purple
- B. The Betrothed
- C. Middlemarch
- D. The Picture of Dorian Gray
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The Color Purple
Did you know? The Color Purple won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award in 1983.
5.Which Brazilian novel follows a nationalist dreamer called Major Quaresma?
- A. O Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma
- B. Menino de Engenho
- C. Iracema
- D. Quarto de Despejo
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O Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma
Did you know? Lima Barreto's novel satirizes ufanista nationalism.
6.Which novel opens with the line "Buck did not read the newspapers"?
- A. Their Eyes Were Watching God
- B. The Color Purple
- C. Hopscotch
- D. The Call of the Wild
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The Call of the Wild
Did you know? London's opening explains why Buck is stolen for the Klondike.
7.Which Brazilian novel follows Fabiano's family fleeing the drought in the sertão?
- A. O Guarani
- B. Mar Morto
- C. Vidas Secas
- D. A Moreninha
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Vidas Secas
Did you know? Vidas Secas (1938) is a cornerstone of the Brazilian northeastern novel.
8.Which novel tells of a portrait that ages in its owner's place?
- A. Dune
- B. Robinson Crusoe
- C. The Picture of Dorian Gray
- D. The Stone Diaries
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
Did you know? Oscar Wilde's only novel is The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).
9.Which novel opens with "Marley was dead: to begin with"?
- A. Pride and Prejudice
- B. To the Lighthouse
- C. A Christmas Carol
- D. Great Expectations
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A Christmas Carol
Did you know? Dickens opens the Carol by settling Marley's death beyond doubt.
10.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1932?
- A. To the Lighthouse
- B. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- C. The Handmaid's Tale
- D. The Good Earth
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The Good Earth
Did you know? Buck's The Good Earth follows farmer Wang Lung in China.
11.Which novel opens with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"?
- A. Oscar and Lucinda
- B. A Tale of Two Cities
- C. Gone with the Wind
- D. To the Lighthouse
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A Tale of Two Cities
Did you know? Dickens's Tale of Two Cities is set in London and Paris during the French Revolution.
12.Which novel opens with "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day"?
- A. We
- B. The Name of the Rose
- C. The Kite Runner
- D. Jane Eyre
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Jane Eyre
Did you know? Brontë's opening traps Jane indoors at Gateshead.
13.Which novel opens with "All children, except one, grow up"?
- A. Peter Pan
- B. The Name of the Rose
- C. Schindler's Ark
- D. The Phantom of the Opera
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Peter Pan
Did you know? Barrie's opening line announces the one boy who never grows up.
14.Which novel won the Booker Prize in 1992?
- A. Frankenstein
- B. The English Patient
- C. A Visit from the Goon Squad
- D. Animal Farm
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The English Patient
Did you know? Ondaatje's novel was adapted into the 1996 Oscar-winning film.
15.Which novel follows Billy Pilgrim, who becomes "unstuck in time"?
- A. Mrs Dalloway
- B. A Tale of Two Cities
- C. Slaughterhouse-Five
- D. The Good Earth
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Slaughterhouse-Five
Did you know? Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five mixes war memoir with science fiction.
16.Which novel closes with Pip parting from Estella with no shadow of parting?
- A. Great Expectations
- B. The Road
- C. Wuthering Heights
- D. The Stone Diaries
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Great Expectations
Did you know? Dickens revised the ending of Great Expectations before publication.
17.Which novel follows Marlow's river journey toward Mr. Kurtz?
- A. The Plague
- B. Dangerous Liaisons
- C. Heart of Darkness
- D. Cyrano de Bergerac
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Heart of Darkness
Did you know? Heart of Darkness (1899) drew on Joseph Conrad's Congo experiences.
18.Which novel shows farm animals overthrowing their farmer?
- A. The Charterhouse of Parma
- B. Pride and Prejudice
- C. The Line of Beauty
- D. Animal Farm
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Animal Farm
Did you know? Orwell subtitled Animal Farm "a fairy story".
19.Which novel opens with a dated diary entry, "1801"?
- A. Their Eyes Were Watching God
- B. The Leopard
- C. The Old Man and the Sea
- D. Wuthering Heights
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Wuthering Heights
Did you know? Lockwood's diary entry opens the frame narrative of Wuthering Heights.
20.Which novel centers on Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman in Ohio?
- A. Beloved
- B. The Hobbit
- C. The Hours
- D. Like Water for Chocolate
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Beloved
Did you know? Beloved (1987) was inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner.
21.Which novel tells of itinerant workers George and Lennie during the Depression?
- A. Hopscotch
- B. Of Mice and Men
- C. The Wind in the Willows
- D. Middlesex
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Of Mice and Men
Did you know? Of Mice and Men is set in California's Salinas Valley.
22.Which novel tells its story through twelve monthly recipes?
- A. The Betrothed
- B. Like Water for Chocolate
- C. Siddhartha
- D. The Wind in the Willows
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Like Water for Chocolate
Did you know? Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate (1989) blends cooking and magic.
23.Which novel opens with Alice growing sleepy by a riverbank with her sister?
- A. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- B. Pride and Prejudice
- C. Like Water for Chocolate
- D. The Charterhouse of Parma
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Did you know? Carroll's Wonderland began as a boat-trip story for the Liddell sisters.
24.Which novel opens with young Pip meeting a convict in a churchyard?
- A. To the Lighthouse
- B. The Time Machine
- C. Great Expectations
- D. The Luminaries
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Great Expectations
Did you know? Dickens's Magwitch scene opens Great Expectations.
25.Which novel follows Okonkwo in a Nigerian village under colonial rule?
- A. Animal Farm
- B. Things Fall Apart
- C. Siddhartha
- D. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Things Fall Apart
Did you know? Things Fall Apart (1958) has sold millions of copies in dozens of languages.
26.Which novel follows the Joad family along Route 66 in the Dust Bowl years?
- A. The Grapes of Wrath
- B. Cyrano de Bergerac
- C. The Death of Ivan Ilyich
- D. The Betrothed
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The Grapes of Wrath
Did you know? The Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940.
27.Which novel opens as a diary entry headed "3 May. Bistritz."?
- A. The House of the Spirits
- B. Treasure Island
- C. Dracula
- D. Peter Pan
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Dracula
Did you know? Stoker told Dracula entirely through journal entries and letters.
28.Which novel opens by telling readers not to trust the earlier Tom Sawyer book?
- A. The Handmaid's Tale
- B. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- C. Kim
- D. The Road
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Did you know? Twain's Huck narrates in his own ungrammatical voice by design.
29.Which novel tells of the boy Mowgli raised by wolves?
- A. A Farewell to Arms
- B. Pride and Prejudice
- C. The Jungle Book
- D. The Grapes of Wrath
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The Jungle Book
Did you know? Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book while living in Vermont.
30.Which novel opens by asking whether its hero will be the hero of his own life?
- A. The English Patient
- B. David Copperfield
- C. The Call of the Wild
- D. Gone with the Wind
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David Copperfield
Did you know? Dickens called David Copperfield his "favourite child" among his books.
31.Which novel follows Amir from Kabul to California?
- A. The Leopard
- B. The Kite Runner
- C. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- D. The Red and the Black
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The Kite Runner
Did you know? The Kite Runner (2003) was Khaled Hosseini's first novel.
32.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937?
- A. Dangerous Liaisons
- B. Frankenstein
- C. Of Mice and Men
- D. Gone with the Wind
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Gone with the Wind
Did you know? Mitchell's only published novel won the 1937 Pulitzer.
33.Which novel follows Bilbo Baggins to the Lonely Mountain?
- A. The Hobbit
- B. Animal Farm
- C. The Brothers Karamazov
- D. Middlemarch
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The Hobbit
Did you know? The Hobbit was published in 1937 as a children's fantasy.
34.Which novel follows Paul Atreides on the desert planet Arrakis?
- A. The Hobbit
- B. Dune
- C. East of Eden
- D. Little Women
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Dune
Did you know? Frank Herbert's Dune (1965) is often cited as the best-selling science fiction novel.
35.Which novel depicts the theocratic Republic of Gilead?
- A. The House of the Spirits
- B. The Handmaid's Tale
- C. The Trial
- D. To the Lighthouse
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The Handmaid's Tale
Did you know? The Handmaid's Tale was published in 1985.
36.Which novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953?
- A. Beloved
- B. The Old Man and the Sea
- C. Middlemarch
- D. Of Mice and Men
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The Old Man and the Sea
Did you know? Hemingway's novella won the Pulitzer in 1953, the year before his Nobel.
37.Which novel closes with Tiny Tim's "God bless Us, Every One!"?
- A. Sister Carrie
- B. Fathers and Sons
- C. The Optimist's Daughter
- D. A Christmas Carol
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A Christmas Carol
Did you know? Tiny Tim speaks the closing blessing of the Carol.
38.Which novel closes with Huck planning to "light out for the Territory"?
- A. The Trial
- B. The Luminaries
- C. The Age of Innocence
- D. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Did you know? Huck's ending rejects being "sivilized" once more.
39.Which novel follows an American volunteer in the Spanish Civil War?
- A. The Optimist's Daughter
- B. For Whom the Bell Tolls
- C. The Wind in the Willows
- D. Sacred Hunger
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For Whom the Bell Tolls
Did you know? For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) takes its title from John Donne's meditation.
40.Which novel opens with the Time Traveller lecturing his dinner guests?
- A. Heart of Darkness
- B. The Time Machine
- C. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- D. Things Fall Apart
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The Time Machine
Did you know? Wells frames The Time Machine as a story told after dinner.

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