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Famous Books & Stories

10 cards · School · answer each one, then read the explanation. Your score tallies below.

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School · Famous Books & Stories · Card 001/010 easy

In Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Victor Frankenstein creates a living being in his laboratory. Who -- or what -- does the name "Frankenstein" actually belong to?

  1. The monster is never given a personal name in the novel at all -- "Frankenstein" is Victor Frankenstein, the scientist who creates and then abandons him
  2. The monster's real name is "Adam," which Victor gives him at the moment of creation, before regretting it
  3. "Frankenstein" is the monster's own chosen nickname, adopted after he escapes the laboratory
  4. The monster and the scientist share the same first name, Victor, which is why both are called Frankenstein interchangeably
School · Famous Books & Stories · Card 002/010 medium

In L. Frank Baum's original 1900 novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," what color are the magic shoes that eventually carry Dorothy home?

  1. Ruby
  2. Emerald
  3. Silver
  4. Gold
School · Famous Books & Stories · Card 003/010 medium

Sherlock Holmes is famous worldwide for supposedly saying "Elementary, my dear Watson" whenever he explains a deduction. What's actually true about that exact phrase in Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories?

  1. Holmes says the full phrase exactly once, in the very first story, "A Study in Scarlet"
  2. The exact phrase never appears anywhere in Conan Doyle's original stories -- it came from later stage and film adaptations
  3. Holmes says it, but only to Inspector Lestrade, never to Watson himself
  4. Watson says the phrase to Holmes, not the other way around, as a running joke between them
School · Famous Books & Stories · Card 004/010 easy

In Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels," Lemuel Gulliver visits the tiny people of Lilliput on his first voyage. What happens to him on his very next voyage, to the land of Brobdingnag?

  1. He finds another nation of tiny people, even smaller than the Lilliputians
  2. He discovers a floating island governed entirely by mathematicians and musicians
  3. He meets a race of intelligent, talking horses who rule over savage humans
  4. He becomes the tiny one himself, among a nation of giants roughly twelve times his height
School · Famous Books & Stories · Card 005/010 medium

Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1719) is often said to be based on a true story. Which statement about its real-life inspiration, the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, is accurate?

  1. Selkirk really was marooned alone on a Pacific island for years, but for a much shorter time than Crusoe's fictional 28 years, and he had no companion equivalent to Crusoe's Friday
  2. Selkirk was shipwrecked in the Caribbean and survived by finding a human footprint in the sand, exactly as Crusoe does in the novel
  3. Selkirk and Crusoe are simply two names for the same person -- Defoe just fictionalized Selkirk's real name for the book
  4. Selkirk was never actually alone; he survived alongside a small crew of other sailors, unlike the solitary Crusoe
School · Famous Books & Stories · Card 006/010 easy

Alexandre Dumas titled his novel "The Three Musketeers," and its heroes share the motto "all for one, one for all." Once young D'Artagnan joins the group partway through the story, how many musketeers does that famous band actually contain?

  1. Three, since D'Artagnan is a separate character who only assists them from the outside
  2. Four -- D'Artagnan joins Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, even though the book keeps its original three-musketeer title
  3. Five, once their commanding officer is counted as an honorary member of the band
  4. Two, since Dumas later reveals that Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are all the same man using three names
School · Famous Books & Stories · Card 007/010 easy

Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" opens with the famous line "Call me Ishmael." Based on the novel, what is Ishmael's actual role aboard the whaling ship Pequod?

  1. He is the ship's captain, obsessed with hunting down the white whale that took his leg
  2. He is the whale itself, narrating the story from the ocean
  3. He is the shipbuilder who constructed the Pequod before it ever set sail
  4. He is a sailor and the story's narrator, sailing under Captain Ahab, who is the one obsessed with hunting the whale
School · Famous Books & Stories · Card 008/010 hard

Trapped in the cave of the one-eyed giant Polyphemus in Homer's "Odyssey," Odysseus tricks his captor by giving him a false name before blinding him and escaping. Why does that particular false name save Odysseus and his men?

  1. The name is a magic word that puts Polyphemus into a deep, harmless sleep
  2. The name convinces Polyphemus that Odysseus is actually a god, so the giant is too afraid to fight back
  3. The name is the same as Polyphemus's own father's name, which forbids the giant from harming him under an ancient oath
  4. Odysseus calls himself "Nobody," so when the wounded Polyphemus cries out that "Nobody" is attacking him, the other Cyclopes hear that and don't bother to come and help
School · Famous Books & Stories · Card 009/010 easy

Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" follows four sisters growing up together in Massachusetts during the Civil War era. What are the names of the four March sisters?

  1. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy
  2. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Emily
  3. Anne, Jo, Beth, and Amy
  4. Meg, Jo, Cecilia, and Amy
School · Famous Books & Stories · Card 010/010 hard

Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897) doesn't use a single, traditional narrator telling the story from start to finish. How is the novel actually structured?

  1. As one long flashback narrated entirely by Count Dracula himself, looking back on his own life
  2. As a script written entirely in dialogue, like a stage play, with no descriptive narration at all
  3. As a collage of letters, diary entries, telegrams, and newspaper clippings written by several different characters
  4. As a single unbroken third-person narration following one all-knowing narrator who watches every character at once