Literature

101 Famous Author Trivia Questions If You’re Ready To Shoot For The Moon

How well do you know your favorite authors? Take this famous author quiz to prove how much of a bibliophile you are! To understand a book, you must also understand the author. Authors of our favorite works of literature have come from different eras, socioeconomic backgrounds, and cultures. Just like classic movies, works of classic literature are time capsules that provide us with insight into the culture of a particular period.

They also have unique personalities that directly influence the story, the characters, messages, and themes of their books. Roald Dahl was known as Roald the Rotten because of his nasty behavior that most likely spawned from a rough childhood. His work shows the darker experiences that children may go through. These surprisingly true famous author trivia questions and answers will make you think they are straight out of one of these authors’ books.

Are you looking for more trivia? Check out our literature, philosophy, and poetry trivia. Top it off with some book questions to test your knowledge.

The Deserted Village (1770) is a seminal work by which author?

Elizabeth Gaskell

EM Forster

Ford Maddox Ford

Oliver Goldsmith

Which author is not like the others?

F. Scott Fitzgerald

J. R. R. Tolkien

Ursula K. Le Guin

C. S. Lewis

The Three Laws are rules governing the behaviour of robots written by which author?

J K Rowling

L Ron Hubbard

Frank Herbert

Issac Asimov

Ingenious Pain was a James Tait Black Memorial prize winner by which author?

William Golding

Jenny Joseph

Graham Swift

Andrew Miller

Whose first published novel was ‘The Eyre Affair’?

Max Gladstone

Jasper Fforde

Terry Pratchett

Paul Melko

Who wrote the short story ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’?

Robert Benchley

Dorothy Parker

James Thurber

E. B. White

Who wrote the novel ‘Gorky Park’?

Mark Twain

John Steinbeck

Hardy Amis

Martin Cruz Smith

For which fictional hero did Alexander Selkirk provide a model?

Robinson Crusoe

Tom Sawyer

Lemuel Gulliver

Long John Silver

Dymoke is the middle name of which author?

Martin Amis

Zadie Smith

Anthony Powell

Mervyn Peake

In what year was ‘Pride and Prejudice’ first published?

1813

1823

1843

1833

Molloy and Malone Dies are both novels by which author?

Anthony Trollope

Jonathan Swift

Charles Dickens

Samuel Beckett

Who created ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ novels?

Isaac Asimov

Douglas Adams

Neil Gaiman

Terry Pratchett

Which classic novel opens with the line ‘You better not never tell nobody but God’?

Their Eyes Were Watching God

The Bluest Eye

Beloved

The Color Purple

Which author wrote works including The Eve of St Venus and The Wanting Seed?

Roddy Doyle

Anthony Burgess

Ian Fleming

Salman Rushdie

Who created the fictional detective Lord Peter Wimsey?

Agatha Christie

Dorothy L. Sayers

Ngaio Marsh

Margery Allingham

Which John Steinbeck novel revolves around the characters Lenny and George?

Tortilla Flat

Of Mice and Men

East of Eden

The Grapes of Wrath

Jean Valjean is a character from which novel?

The Count of Monte Cristo

Crime and Punishment

Les Misérables

Madame Bovary

Jean Valjean is a character from which classic novel?

War and Peace

Madame Bovary

Les Misérables

The Count of Monte Cristo

Which was the first story to feature the character Sherlock Holmes?

The Valley of Fear

The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Sign of the Four

A Study In Scarlet

Which former stand-up comedian wrote the best-sellers ‘Dead Famous’ and ‘Chart Throb’?

Jeremy Hardy

Jo Brand

Stephen Fry

Ben Elton

The Bookshop and Offshore are key works by which author?

John Le Carre

CS Lewis

Penelope Fitzgerald

Alan Sillitoe

Against what is Hemingway’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ set?

US Civil War

World War I

Spanish Civil War

World War II

In which book did the Babel fish first appear?

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

2001: A Space Odyssey

Way Station

Brave New World

Which writer created ‘The Brentford Trilogy’, a series of novels featuring Jim Pooley and John Omally?

Jasper Fforde

Tom Holt

Terry Pratchett

Robert Rankin

Which author wrote the novel ‘Les Misérables’?

Alexandre Dumas

Émile Zola

Honoré de Balzac

Victor Hugo

In which novel did Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson first appear?

The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Sign of the Four

The Valley of Fear

A Study in Scarlet

Which English author wrote The Canterbury Tales in the 14th Century?

Geoffrey Chaucer

Thomas Malory

John Gower

William Langland

What was the first James Bond novel?

Diamonds Are Forever

Casino Royale

Live and Let Die

Moonraker

Which of these is tied for most featured author in ‘1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die’

Oscar Wilde

Jane Austen

Charles Dickens

Mark Twain

Which of these is a detective in three Agatha Christie stories?

Parker Pyne

Falcon Forrester

Sally Swan

Vernon Varrick

Finish the title of the novel by Doris Lessing: ‘The … Notebook’?

Lifetime

Scruffy

Love

Golden

Who wrote the novel ‘The Code of the Woosters’?

Guy Bolton

Evelyn Waugh

Russel Crouse

P. G. Wodehouse

Shaun Tan wrote about ‘Tales from Outer …’ where?

Date

Space

Suburbia

Bounds

My father gave me some advice which I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since,’ is a line from which novel?

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Catcher in the Rye

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Great Gatsby

The Road was a James Tait Black Memorial prize winner by which author?

Ian Mcewan

Andrew Miller

Cormac McCarthy

Sebastian Barry

What was the sequel to Tom Sharpe’s novel ‘Porterhouse Blue’?

Vintage Stuff

Grantchester Grind

Blott on the Landscape

The Great Pursuit

Janet Evanovich has written novels featuring Stephanie Plum, what is Stephanie’s occupation?

Private caterer

Nightclub dancer

Taxi driver

Bounty hunter

The History of Tom Jones was written by which author?

George Eliot

Thomas Hardy

Arthur Conan Doyle

Henry Fielding

Georges Marvelous Medicine is a famous work by which children’s author?

CS Lewis

Roald Dahl

Enid Blyton

Lewis Caroll

White Teeth is a seminal work by which author?

Martin Amis

Zadie Smith

Mervyn Peake

Anthony Burgess

Which novelist wrote the book ‘Death in Venice’?

Franz Kafka

Hermann Hesse

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Thomas Mann

Which classic novel opens with the line ‘A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories’?

Brave New World

Animal Farm

Fahrenheit 451

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Joseph Anton: A Memoir was a 2012 work by which author?

Salman Rushdie

VS Naipaul

Roddy Doyle

Anthony Burgess

Who wrote the story of Rip van Winkle?

Edgar Allan Poe

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Washington Irving

James Fenimore Cooper

In which novel do Carruthers and Davies discover a German plan to attack Britain while on a yachting holiday?

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

The Riddle of the Sands

Journey to the End of the Night

The Charterhouse of Parma

Which of these is the name of a real 19th Century author?

Thomas Love Peacock

Thomas Love Bird

ThomasLove Chicken

Thomas Love Hen

Which author introduced the phrase ‘Beat Generation’ to describe Beatniks?

Ernest Hemingway

James Jones

Aldous Huxley

Jack Kerouac

Which classic novel opens with the line ‘All this happened, more or less’?

The Catcher in the Rye

Slaughterhouse-Five

Fahrenheit 451

Catch-22

Which author famously said ‘Golf is a good walk spoiled’?

Mark Twain

James Joyce

Lewis Carroll

Charles Dickens

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a work by which author?

JKRowling

Jane Austen

Emily Bronte

Muriel Spark

In which book do we meet the characters Old Major, Squealer and Clover?

Incredible Journey

Charlotte’s Web

Animal Farm

The Sheep Pig

How many books are there in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ series?

4

5

2

3

Which authors final work was ‘The Blue Flower’?

John Le Carre

Penelope Fitzgerald

Alan Sillitoe

CS Lewis

Which infamous movie villain was originally created by American horror/thriller author Thomas Harris?

Hannibal Lecter (Hannibal)

Norman Bates (Psycho)

The Joker (Batman)

Tommy DeVito (Goodfellas)

Who wrote the novel ‘A Dirty Job’?

Terry Pratchett

Jasper Fforde

Tom Robbins

Christopher Moore

At what address did Sherlock Holmes live?

31 Spooner Street

221B Baker Street

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

61 Oakley Square

Jem Finch is a character from which novel?

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Catcher in the Rye

Lord of the Flies

Of Mice and Men

Rosemary’s Baby is based on a book of the same name by which author?

Enid Blyton

Harper Lee

Ira Levin

Minette Walters

Jo March is a character originally from which novel?

Pride and Prejudice

Jo’s Boys

Little Men

Little Women

Which spy was brought up among the bombed-out ruins of WWII Berlin?

John Brock

Bernard Samson

John Steed

Herbie Kruger

Bilbo Baggins is a character from which of these books?

Charlotte’s Web

The Hobbit

The B.F.G.

The Borrowers

Chingachoock is a character from which novel?

The Last of the Mohicans

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

The Scarlet Letter

Ivanhoe

Which detective features in the stories ‘The Nine Tailors’ and ‘Murder Must Advertise’?

Sam Spade

Harry Bosch

Nancy Drew

Lord Peter Wimsey

Which fictional detective retired to become a beekeeper?

Philip Marlowe

Lord Peter Wimsey

Miss Marple

Sherlock Holmes

Which author was given the Freedom of the City of London in 2012?

Michael Rosen

Jacqueline Wilson

J. K. Rowling

Julia Donaldson

Which author created the character Leopold Bloom?

Jack Kerouac

Franz Kafka

James Joyce

John Updike

Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez wrote about Love in the Time of what?

Cholera

Hate

Peace

War

Wise Children was a 1991 work by which author?

JKRowling

Muriel Spark

Angela Carter

Emily Bronte

Four legs good, two legs bad’ is a quote from which George Orwell classic novel?

Coming Up for Air

Burmese Days

1984

Animal Farm

Which American author’s last words were: ‘Is it not meningitis?”’

Mark Twain

Louisa May Alcott

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Norman Mailer

Which Stephen is the cosmologist and author of ‘A Brief History of Time’?

Stephen King

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Merchant

Stephen Fry

The 1967 Disney film ‘The Jungle Book’ is based on a book by which author?

Cecil Rhodes

Rudyard Kipling

Robert Louis Stevenson

Charles Dickens

Which of these humour writers wrote columns for magazines ‘Outdoor Life’ and ‘Field & Stream’?

George Johnson

Erik Routley

Patrick F. McManus

Thomas McGuane

Which book contains the line ‘perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one’?

Cujo

Killing Floor

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Nineteen Eighty-Four

The Fudge Family in Paris is a key work by which author?

Charles Dickens

Henry Fielding

Thomas Moore

Jane Austen

Who wrote the significant scientific book ‘Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematical’, published in 1687?

Isaac Newton

Johannes Kepler

Albert Einstein

Galileo Galilei

Which authors first novel was Alton Locke?

George Eliot

James Joyce

Henry Fielding

Charles Kingsley

Which author wrote about Fagin and his gang of child thieves?

Oliver Twist

Francesca Simon

Hans Christian Anderson

Charles Dickens

Who created the character Kenneth Widmerpool?

Kingsley Amis

Anthony Powell

Alison Lurie

Evelyn Waugh

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is balanced on four elephants which stand on the back of which other creature?

Cat

Horse

Dog

Turtle

Which author won the ú10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize in 2009 for their first novel ‘Blackmoor’?

Candida Green

Rose Tremain

Edward Hogan

Clare Littleford

Which author wrote ‘Lord of the Rings’?

Stephen King

Douglas Adams

J. R. R. Tolkien

Mark Twain

Tom Holt’s book ‘Expecting Someone Taller’ is very loosely based on whose operatic saga?

Richard Wagner

Franz Liszt

Giuseppe Verdi

Richard Strauss

Who co-wrote ‘Peter and the Starcatchers’ and ‘Cave of the Dark Wind’ with Ridley Pearson?

Gene Weingarten

Dave Barry

Carl Hiaasen

Amy Tan

Which author wrote War and Peace?

J.D. Salinger

Leo Tolstoy

George R.R. Martin

Harper Lee

The To The End of The Earth Trilogy is by which author?

George Orwell

DH Lawrence

William Golding

Jerome K Jerome

In what year was ‘A Dirty Job’ first published?

2012

2008

2006

2010

Which novel is about a man believing he’s having a heart-attack while watching football on TV?

Last Notes from Home

Why Did I Ever

A Fan’s Notes

Pages From a Cold Island

Which author was actually two cousins using the same pen-name?

James Herriot

Ellery Queen

Dr Seuss

Raymond Chandler

The Sandcastle is a major work by which author?

Angela Carter

Muriel Spark

JKRowling

Irish Murdoch

Published in 1900 and about a cycling tour in Germany, what was the sequel to Three Men in a Boat?

Novel Notes

Told After Supper

Three Men on the Bummel

Diary of a Pilgrimage

Which novel features a group of choirboys led by Jack Merridew?

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Swallows and Amazons

The Catcher in the Rye

Lord of the Flies

The Stone Book Series is a series of novels by which author?

Jenny Joseph

Graham Swift

Alan Garner

William Golding

Which of these was a real 19th century author?

Maddox Ford Maddox

Maddox Ford

Ford Ford Maddox

Ford Maddox Ford

Who wrote the novel ‘The Bourne Identity’?

Frederick Forsyth

Robert Ludlum

Tom Clancy

Eric Van Lustbader

In what year was the novel ‘The Code of the Woosters’ first published?

1908

1918

1938

1928

In which novel is the protagonist called Winston Smith?

Animal Farm

Nineteen Eighty-Four

The Man with the Golden Gun

Ulysses

Wives and Daughters as well as Cousin Phillis were works by which author?

Henry Fielding

Ford Maddox Ford

EM Forster

Elizabeth Gaskell

Holden Caulfield appears in which novel?

The Catcher in the Rye

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Great Gatsby

Lord of the Flies

The 1969 novel ‘The Godfather’ was written by which author?

Al Pacino

Francis Ford Coppola

Mario Puzo

Marlon Brando

Which author would only write when facing north?

Anthony Trollope

Charles Dickens

Wilkie Collins

Thomas Hardy

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