Classic Books Every Bookworm Should Know: questions and answers
Study every question with its correct answer and explanation.
1. Who wrote 'Don Quixote', the tale of a would-be knight who fights windmills?
- A. Miguel de Cervantes
- B. Lope de Vega
- C. Dante Alighieri
- D. Giovanni Boccaccio
Answer: Miguel de Cervantes
Published in 1605, the novel's hero attacks windmills believing they are giants — which gave English the phrase 'tilting at windmills'.
2. Who wrote 'Pride and Prejudice'?
- A. Charlotte Brontë
- B. Jane Austen
- C. George Eliot
- D. Emily Dickinson
Answer: Jane Austen
Austen's 1813 novel about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy was first drafted under the title 'First Impressions'.
3. Leo Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' is set against the backdrop of which conflict?
- A. The Crimean War
- B. The First World War
- C. Napoleon's invasion of Russia
- D. The American Civil War
Answer: Napoleon's invasion of Russia
Tolstoy's epic follows several Russian families through the Napoleonic era, including the French invasion of 1812, across more than a thousand pages.
4. Gabriel García Márquez, author of 'One Hundred Years of Solitude', came from which country?
- A. Argentina
- B. Chile
- C. Peru
- D. Colombia
Answer: Colombia
The Colombian writer set his magical tale in the imaginary town of Macondo and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.
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5. In which Italian city is Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' set?
- A. Venice
- B. Verona
- C. Florence
- D. Milan
Answer: Verona
Visitors to Verona still crowd beneath a balcony at the so-called 'Juliet's House', even though the lovers are fictional.
6. Who wrote 'Things Fall Apart', one of the most widely read African novels?
- A. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- B. Wole Soyinka
- C. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
- D. Chinua Achebe
Answer: Chinua Achebe
Published in 1958, Achebe's novel follows Okonkwo, a proud man in an Igbo village in Nigeria, and takes its title from a poem by W. B. Yeats.
7. 'The Tale of Genji', often called the world's first novel, was written in which country?
- A. Japan
- B. China
- C. Korea
- D. India
Answer: Japan
It was written about 1,000 years ago by Murasaki Shikibu, a lady at the Japanese imperial court.
8. In Jules Verne's 'Around the World in Eighty Days', why does Phileas Fogg set off on his journey?
- A. To find hidden treasure
- B. To escape the police
- C. To win a bet
- D. To deliver a secret letter
Answer: To win a bet
Fogg wagers £20,000 with fellow members of his London club — and travelling eastward gains him a surprise extra day that saves the bet.
9. In Homer's 'Odyssey', the hero Odysseus struggles to return home to which island?
- A. Ithaca
- B. Crete
- C. Sicily
- D. Cyprus
Answer: Ithaca
After the ten-year Trojan War, Odysseus needs another ten years of adventures — including a one-eyed giant — to finally reach Ithaca.
10. Who wrote the Bengali novel 'Pather Panchali'?
- A. Rabindranath Tagore
- B. Kazi Nazrul Islam
- C. Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
- D. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Answer: Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
Satyajit Ray turned the 1929 novel about young Apu and his sister Durga into his celebrated first film, released in 1955.