Famous Authors Quiz: Who Wrote These 13 Classic Books?

Knowing who wrote what is shorthand for being well-read. Confusing Tolstoy with Dostoevsky is forgivable. Confusing Hemingway with Fitzgerald is a giveaway.

How to Play: Each question shows a famous book or play. Pick its author from 4 options. 10 random per round.

Top 13 Book–Author Pairings

Western literary canon is dominated by a few dozen authors whose names appear repeatedly. Knowing which of them wrote which famous work is a baseline cultural literacy test — appearing on the SAT, GRE, AP English exams, and most college entrance assessments worldwide.

How to Place an Author in Literary History

Authors cluster by era and movement. Knowing the rough timeline helps remember who wrote what. Shakespeare (1564–1616) wrote during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Cervantes (1547–1616) is his Spanish counterpart — they died within days of each other in April 1616, though on different calendars.

The 19th-century novel is dominated by Russian and English writers. Tolstoy (War and Peace, Anna Karenina) and Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov) both wrote in 1860s–1880s Russia. Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility) wrote in 1810s England. Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities) wrote in mid-Victorian London. Brontë sisters (Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights) wrote in northern England in the 1840s.

The Modernist period (1910–1940) is the densest in 20th-century literature. James Joyce‘s Ulysses (1922) is widely regarded as the most influential novel of the century. Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), and Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea) define this era’s literary voice.

Latin American boom (1960s–1980s) brought magical realism to global prominence. Gabriel García Márquez‘s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) won the Nobel Prize in 1982 and inspired generations of writers worldwide. Jorge Luis Borges‘s short stories from the 1940s–60s laid the philosophical groundwork.

Some books are inseparable from their author’s biography. Toni Morrison‘s Beloved (1987) draws on the actual story of escaped enslaved woman Margaret Garner. Morrison was the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1993). Harper Lee‘s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) is set in fictional Maycomb, Alabama, modeled on her hometown of Monroeville.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Shakespeare really write all his plays?

Strong scholarly consensus says yes, though some plays (Henry VI parts, Pericles) had collaborators. The ‘Shakespeare authorship question’ is largely a fringe theory rejected by mainstream scholars.

Why is Ulysses so famous?

James Joyce’s 1922 novel pioneered stream-of-consciousness narration and explores a single day (June 16, 1904) in Dublin in unprecedented detail. It is often called the most influential novel of the 20th century.

Are Tolstoy and Dostoevsky from the same era?

Yes — both wrote in late-19th-century Russia. Tolstoy lived 1828–1910; Dostoevsky 1821–1881. They were contemporaries who reportedly never met but were aware of each other’s work.

Who wrote Don Quixote?

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616), Spanish author. Don Quixote (Part 1: 1605, Part 2: 1615) is widely considered the first modern novel.

What's the bestselling novel of all time?

Don Quixote at ~500 million copies — though older copies are estimates. Modern bestsellers include Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (~200 million) and J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book (~120 million).

Note: Book-author attribution per Library of Congress and standard literary references.

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