Question: Just as Edward Bulwer-Lytton is associated with bombastic writing, what is the similarly famous poem of William McGonagall?
Answer: The Tay Bridge Disaster

Question: In Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta the anarchist wears a mask of which real-life person?
Answer: Guy Fawkes

Question: What is particularly common to the narrators of the Edgar Allan Poe stories The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado?
Answer: Narrators are murderers

Question: What French novel is said to based on an epidemic that hit the Algerian city of Oran in 1849?
Answer: The Plague by Camus

Question: A crowned figure clutching a sword and a crosier is seen in the top part on the cover of what important philosophical work of the 17th century?
Answer: Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

Question: Fox Tor in Dartmoor, England is the inspiration for the fictional Grimpen Mire, home of what fearsome titular beast?
Answer: The Hound of the Bakervilles

Question: How is Henry Sweet, a rude phonetics scholar known for introducing the Broad Romic alphabet immortalized in literature?
Answer: As Henry Higgins in Shaw's Pygmalion

Question: Whose interview in Life magazine is said to have led to an upsurge in the sales of James Bond books? After a private screening of Dr. No, he also reportedly said "I wish I had had James Bond on my staff."
Answer: Jfk

Question: In technical terms, the unforgettable Jeeves of P. G. Wodehouse is a valet and not a butler. Why?
Answer: He serves a man and not a household

Question: Polydactyl cats (born with more than the usual number of toes) are associated with which writer who was known for his love for them?
Answer: Ernest Hemingway

Question: What atmospheric 1994 American best-seller set in Georgia became known for its striking cover of the sculpture of a girl holding two bowls?
Answer: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Question: The cover of the best-selling book Freakonomics features what two 'distinct' objects?
Answer: An apple and an orange!

Question: What 1956 children's work, also adapted by Disney, was written when a friend remarked to an author that her dappled dogs would make a lovely fur coat?
Answer: The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith

Question: Chekov's play Three Sisters is said to have been inspired by which real life siblings?
Answer: Brontë sisters

Question: The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money make up what trilogy of 'American' literature?
Answer: U.S.A. trilogy by John Dos Passos

Question: George Orwell in his whimsical 1946 essay Decline of the English Murders considers high profile cases like Dr. Palmer of Rugeley, Neill Cream, and several more but leaves out whose notable spree saying it was "in a class by itself"?
Answer: Jack the Ripper's

Question: Misselthwaite Manor is the chief locale of what beloved children's novel that tells the coming of age story of Mary Lennox?
Answer: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Question: According to a website promoting Norway, who is claimed to be the most widely performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare?
Answer: Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)

Question: What care-free place was said to have been inspired by the writings of National Geographic explorer Joseph Rock who traveled widely in Tibet in the 1920s?
Answer: Shangri-La (from James Hilton's Lost Horizon)

Question: The Adventure of the Speckled Band, The Adventure of the Red-Headed League and The Adventure of the Dancing Men were listed as the top-3 of his own work by whom?
Answer: Arthur Conan Doyle talking about his favorite Holmes' story

Question: The year 1819 is significant for lovers of English poetry because of the publication of six famous odes by whom?
Answer: John Keats (1795-1821)

Question: In what great 20th century novel does Rose of Sharon having lost her baby offer milk from her breasts to a starving man?
Answer: The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck

Question: Which writer wrote the introduction for Robert Frank's influential photography book The Americans (1958) that contained images from Frank's travels across the US?
Answer: Jack Kerouac

Question: What 1907 supposedly children's book contains some not-so politically correct tales like Matilda: Who told Lies, and was Burned to Death and Jim: Who ran away from his Nurse, and was eaten by a Lion?
Answer: Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc

Question: What 1927 German novel details the experiences of Harry Heller who tries to reconcile his conflicting persona of a high spiritual nature as well as a low beastly spirit?
Answer: Steppenwolf by Hesse

Question: Roma - $97,000 Moss - $22,000 Levene - $82,000 (then erased to nothing) Aaronow - $4000 What play has the above appear on a blackboard in the stage scenery in an act?
Answer: Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet

Question: Which literary character got his name from the wolves of Seeonee Hills as they thought he jumped around like a little frog just as they saved him from the clutches of a tiger? (hint: the tiger would be his main enemy in the story)
Answer: Mowgli (note that the name does not mean 'frog')

Question: What 1941 short-story by a noted South American writer is said to have introduced the genre of hypertext fiction, one in which the story can be read in multiple ways?
Answer: The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges

Question: The story of what acclaimed 1962 novel is that of writer Anna Wulf who keeps a record of her life in four journals and attempt to tie them all together in a fifth one?
Answer: The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

Question: What 1949 American work that is now a benchmark of the ecological movement is best known for the quote "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."?
Answer: A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

Question: The following dialogue, potent enough to make one give up quizzing, is addressed to Guy Montag in what dystopian classic of the 20th century? "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they fell stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change."
Answer: Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury

Question: What 300 BC book from ancient Greece that was essential reading for students for centuries was said to be second only to the Bible in the number of editions published?
Answer: Euclid's Elements

Question: The Battle of Kurukshetra fought between two groups of cousins is the centerpiece of what classic of world literature?
Answer: The Mahabharata by Vyasa

Question: In 1837, which literary great had his last meal at the Literaturnoe Kafe in St. Petersburg after which he went on to fight (and lose) a duel?
Answer: Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837)

Question: The British explorer and hunter Frederick Selous was the inspiration behind what adventurous character of 19th century literature? (hint: this character is also one of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)
Answer: Allan Quatermain from King Solomon's Mines

Question: The English bishop Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626) is best known for overseeing what literary task during the reign of King James I?
Answer: Translation of the Authorized Version (King James Version) of the Bible

Question: A translation of Roman poet Juvenal's quote "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" inspired the title of what book, the only one of its kind in Time's 2005 list of all-time greatest novels?
Answer: The graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore (artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins)