Classic Literature Trivia
Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, Brontë, Melville and the rest of the shelf. These questions go deeper than titles and authors — characters, settings, first lines and the stories behind the books.
It leans hard, so it's a good test for serious readers. Every answer is typed, and each question comes with a short literary fact.
- 235questions
- 28easy
- 73medium
- 134hard
What's covered
- 19th-century novels
- Characters
- Opening lines
- Russian literature
- Shakespeare
- Poets
Classic Literature Trivia: sample questions
Answer in your head, then tap to check. In the game you type it.
- easy
In Greek mythology, which warrior-hero of the Trojan War, said to be invulnerable except for his heel, was killed by an arrow shot by the Trojan prince Paris?
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Achilles
According to legend his mother, the sea nymph Thetis, dipped him as an infant into the River Styx, leaving only the heel by which she held him unprotected.
- easy
Which author created the detective Sherlock Holmes?
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Arthur Conan Doyle
The author once tried to kill off his detective at the Reichenbach Falls, but public outcry forced him to bring the character back to life years later.
- medium
What is the name of the delusional Spanish knight-errant who charges at windmills, believing them to be giants, in Cervantes' novel?
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Don Quixote
The phrase 'tilting at windmills,' meaning to fight imaginary enemies, comes directly from this scene in the novel.
- medium
Which Russian author wrote Crime and Punishment, the novel following student Rodion Raskolnikov's murder and its aftermath?
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Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment was first published in twelve monthly installments in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in 1866.
- hard
Whose 1862 novel Fathers and Sons, centered on the radical young character Bazarov, is credited with popularizing the term 'nihilist'?
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Ivan Turgenev
Bazarov's nihilism struck such a nerve that Turgenev was attacked by both conservative and radical critics of the day.
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