100 Fun Facts About Halloween Book

What is the subtitle of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?

Shelley began the story at 18 and the first edition appeared anonymously in London on 1 January 1818.

At whose villa on Lake Geneva did the 1816 ghost-story contest that produced Frankenstein take place?

The rainy "Year Without a Summer" kept the party indoors at the Villa Diodati.

In what year was Bram Stoker's Dracula first published?

Stoker wrote it mostly in the 1890s and left over a hundred pages of notes drawn from folklore and history.

Which English seaside town does Dracula plague after arriving from Transylvania?

Stoker chose the name Dracula from a history of Wallachia because he thought it meant "devil" in Romanian.

What is the profession of Jonathan Harker, whose visit to the Count opens Dracula?

The novel is told entirely through letters, diary entries and newspaper articles.

In which collection did Washington Irving publish The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in 1820?

Irving wrote the story while living in Birmingham, England, and it was the longest piece in the book.

What is found near the bridge the morning after Ichabod Crane vanishes?

The pumpkin hints that Ichabod's rival, who marries Katrina soon after, may have staged the whole thing.

What is the name of Ichabod Crane's rival for Katrina Van Tassel?

Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt torments the nervous schoolmaster with pranks rather than confronting him.

The raven in Poe's poem perches on a bust of which goddess?

The bird's single repeated word torments a lover mourning the lost Lenore.

Which Charles Dickens novel, with a talking raven, partly inspired Poe's "The Raven"?

Poe also borrowed the rhythm of Elizabeth Barrett's "Lady Geraldine's Courtship".

In which year was "The Raven" first published under Poe's name?

It made Poe famous but brought him little money.

What was the title of the first Goosebumps book, published in July 1992?

Sixty-two books appeared under the main Goosebumps title between 1992 and 1997.

How many books were published in the original Goosebumps series between 1992 and 1997?

R. L. Stine followed with spin-offs including Series 2000, HorrorLand and SlappyWorld.

Which actor plays a fictionalised R. L. Stine in the two Goosebumps feature films?

The series had sold over 400 million copies in 35 languages by 2022.

Who wrote the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books?

Stephen Gammell's nightmarish illustrations were briefly replaced in 2011, to fan outrage.

Per the American Library Association, what distinction did Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark hold in the 1990s?

Complaints focused on violence and disturbing subject matter, and it made the list again in 2012.

Who wrote Room on the Broom, the picture book about a kind witch and her cat?

Axel Scheffler illustrated it, and the animated version was Oscar-nominated in 2013.

Which three animals join the witch and her cat on the broomstick in Room on the Broom?

The book has been translated into 22 languages and won six awards.

In Roald Dahl's The Witches, what does the Grand High Witch plan to turn all of England's children into?

The story is set partly in Norway, home of the narrator's grandmother.

Who played the Grand High Witch in the 1990 film of The Witches?

Nicolas Roeg directed; Anne Hathaway took the role in Robert Zemeckis's 2020 remake.

What does the Other Mother want to sew over Coraline's eyes?

Neil Gaiman began the novella in 1990 and it finally appeared in 2002.

Who directed the 2009 stop-motion film of Coraline?

The book won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella in 2003.

What is the name of the boy raised by ghosts in Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book?

It was the first book to win both the Carnegie Medal and the Newbery Medal.

The Graveyard Book was the first book to win which two children's book medals in the same year?

Illustrator Chris Riddell was also shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal.

What does Bunnicula, the rabbit in James and Deborah Howe's books, drain the juice from?

The books are narrated by Harold, the family dog, while Chester the cat plots against the bunny.

Which Bradbury novel follows eight boys and Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud through the history of Samhain?

It began as a 1967 screenplay for an unmade Chuck Jones film and became a 1972 novel.

On what date does the sinister carnival arrive in Green Town in Something Wicked This Way Comes?

The 1962 novel is the second book in Bradbury's Green Town Trilogy.

Which Shakespeare play supplies the title Something Wicked This Way Comes?

The carnival's leader, Mr. Dark, feeds on the townspeople's secret desires.

Who narrates the investigation in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?

Stevenson had long been fascinated by Deacon Brodie, an Edinburgh councillor with a secret life as a burglar.

Who wrote the 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House?

It was a National Book Award finalist and inspired two films and a Netflix series.

Which real Colorado resort inspired the Overlook in The Shining?

King visited the Colorado hotel in 1974; The Shining was his first hardcover bestseller.

Who rescued the first three pages of Carrie from the trash after Stephen King gave up on it?

The 1974 debut, set in Chamberlain, Maine, had a first print run of 30,000 copies.

In Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party, how is thirteen-year-old Joyce Reynolds killed?

The 1969 Poirot novel was dedicated to P. G. Wodehouse.

Which 2023 film is loosely based on Hallowe'en Party?

Kenneth Branagh moved Poirot's apple-bobbing murder to a Venetian palazzo.

Who wrote the 1902 short story "The Monkey's Paw"?

It first appeared in Harper's Monthly and has been adapted since 1903, including a lost 1915 silent film.

How many wishes does the enchanted paw grant in "The Monkey's Paw"?

A fakir cursed the paw so that every wish comes with a terrible price for tampering with fate.

Which vampire tells his life story to a reporter in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire?

Rice wrote her 1976 debut soon after the death of her daughter Michele, the inspiration for the child-vampire Claudia.

Who wrote Rosemary's Baby, the best-selling horror novel of the 1960s?

It sold over four million copies and Roman Polanski filmed it in 1968.

What is the name of the Gothic Revival New York apartment building in Rosemary's Baby?

A friend warns the Woodhouses about its history of witchcraft and murder.

William Peter Blatty heard of the 1949 possession case behind The Exorcist while at which university?

That is why the 1971 novel is set in Washington, D.C., near the Georgetown campus.

Meg and Mog, the picture books about a witch whose spells go wrong, were illustrated by whom?

Helen Nicoll wrote the first book, published in January 1972.

Henry James's ghost story The Turn of the Screw was first serialised in which magazine in 1898?

Critics have argued since the 1930s over whether the governess imagines the ghosts.

The Picture of Dorian Gray first appeared in the July 1890 issue of which periodical?

It was the only novel Oscar Wilde ever wrote; the longer book version came out in 1891.

The Nightmare Before Christmas began as a poem written by Tim Burton in which year?

He was working as an animator at Walt Disney Productions at the time.

Which of these prizes did Stephen King's It win in 1987?

It was also the best-selling hardcover fiction book in the US in 1986 and drew Locus and World Fantasy nominations.

Which fairy tale came to Stephen King's mind on a bridge, seeding the idea for It?

He also twisted a Marianne Moore line into 'real trolls in imaginary gardens'.

Beside which Maine town's busy road was King renting a house when he conceived Pet Sematary?

He was writer-in-residence at the University of Maine in 1979; dogs and cats were often killed by trucks on the road.

What is the name of the cat in Pet Sematary, belonging to the Creeds' daughter Ellie?

Called Church for short, the cat is the first creature buried in the cursed ground.

Whose 1783 Legends of Rübezahl is seen as an influential source for the Headless Horseman?

Bürger's Der Wilde Jäger and Burns's Tam o' Shanter are other cited forerunners of Irving's tale.

In what year was Alice Hoffman's novel Practical Magic published?

The Owens sisters descend from a long line of witches cursed so that any man an Owens woman loves is doomed.

Which vampire novella, set in Styria, predates Dracula by 25 years?

Its narrator Laura is slowly preyed upon by a guest who is really the long-dead Countess Mircalla Karnstein, an anagram of her own name.

Who wrote The Vampyre (1819), featuring the aristocratic vampire Lord Ruthven?

Byron's personal physician spun it from a fragment Byron abandoned during the same Geneva ghost-story contest that produced Frankenstein.

Which 1764 novel by Horace Walpole is considered the first Gothic novel?

Walpole passed the first edition off as a translation of a 1529 Italian manuscript, and only owned up in the second edition.

Which Jane Austen novel satirises Gothic fiction through heroine Catherine Morland?

Catherine's seven 'horrid novels' were all real Gothic titles, and Austen's satire revived interest in them after they fell into obscurity.

The Phantom of the Opera is set in which real Paris opera house?

Leroux drew on a real accident there, when a fire melted a wire and a chandelier counterweight crashed down, killing one person.

Robert Bloch's Psycho was shaped by the 1957 arrest of which Wisconsin killer?

Bloch was living just 35 miles away at the time, and said he was startled by how closely his invented Norman Bates matched the real man.

Emeric Belasco's haunted Maine mansion is the setting of which 1971 Matheson novel?

A physicist, his wife and two mediums are paid by a dying millionaire to spend a week there proving whether life continues after death.

Who wrote the 1977 book The Amityville Horror?

The Lutz family said they fled 112 Ocean Avenue after 28 days; the DeFeo defence lawyer later called the whole story a hoax cooked up over wine.

In 'Salem's Lot, which ancient vampire buys the Marsten House?

He poses as an Austrian antiques dealer, and King has twice named the 1975 book as his own favourite.

In Misery, who is Paul Sheldon's self-proclaimed 'number-one fan'?

The former nurse came to King in a dream, and the book was nearly released under his Richard Bachman pseudonym.

Cujo, the rabid dog in Stephen King's 1981 novel, is what breed?

King has said he barely remembers writing the book, which he produced at the height of his drinking.

Stephen King's Christine is a possessed car of which make and year?

King got the idea watching his odometer tick past 10,000 and imagining one that ran backwards, making the car younger.

Doctor Sleep, the 2013 sequel to The Shining, features which group of psychic nomads?

Led by Rose the Hat, they feed on 'steam', the essence released when gifted people die in pain.

Where does Arthur Kipps settle the Drablow estate in The Woman in Black?

Susan Hill took her spectre from a line in The Turn of the Screw; the stage version ran 13,232 performances in London.

Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart introduced which demonic beings?

Their leader had no name in the 1986 novella; the Hellraiser film crew nicknamed him Pinhead.

'The Call of Cthulhu' first appeared in 1928 in which pulp magazine?

Lovecraft wrote it in the summer of 1926, and its dreaming god became the founding figure of a whole shared mythos.

In Lovecraft's story, Cthulhu rises from which 'nightmare corpse-city'?

The narrator traces the island through a 1925 Australian newspaper report on the derelict yacht Alert and its lone survivor.

Which American family moves into the haunted castle in Wilde's The Canterville Ghost?

Unbothered by the ghost, the father offers it Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator to oil its clanking chains.

Which family is cursed by the executed Matthew Maule in The House of the Seven Gables?

Hawthorne's own ancestor judged the Salem witch trials, and the gabled house of his cousin Susanna Ingersoll inspired the setting.

In Hawthorne's 'Young Goodman Brown', what is the name of Brown's wife?

He leaves her at dusk in Salem Village for a night errand in the forest and glimpses her pink ribbons at a witches' gathering.

John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick is set in which US state?

The three divorcees gain their powers after their marriages end; Updike wrote a sequel, The Widows of Eastwick, in 2008.

In Gregory Maguire's Wicked, what is the Wicked Witch of the West's given name?

The name is built from the initials of L. Frank Baum; the 1995 novel became a Broadway musical in 2003.

Mildred Hubble of The Worst Witch attends which school?

Jill Murphy began writing it at 15; publishers rejected it as too scary until Allison & Busby took it in 1974.

Who illustrated John Bellairs's The House with a Clock in Its Walls (1973)?

Orphan Lewis Barnavelt moves in with his warlock uncle, whose house hides a doomsday clock left by a dead sorcerer.

In 'The Green Ribbon', what happens when Jenny's husband finally unties her ribbon?

The tale is one of seven in Alvin Schwartz's 1984 beginner reader In a Dark, Dark Room.

Creepy Carrots!, about Jasper Rabbit, earned illustrator Peter Brown which 2013 award?

Jasper ends up fencing and moating Crackenhopper Field to keep the carrots in, which is exactly what the carrots wanted.

In Dav Pilkey's The Hallo-Wiener, Oscar the dachshund wears what Halloween costume?

The mocked dachshund, named after Oscar Mayer, ends the night as 'Hero Sandwich' after rescuing the other dogs.

Erica Silverman's Big Pumpkin is loosely based on which Russian folktale?

A witch, a ghost, a vampire and a mummy all fail to pull the pumpkin off its vine until a tiny bat suggests pulling together.

In Burns's Tam o' Shanter, what do the witches tear from Tam's mare Meg?

Meg loses it at the Brig o' Doon, since witches cannot cross running water.

In Tam o' Shanter, where does Tam see witches dancing as the Devil plays bagpipes?

Burns wrote it in 1790 and it first appeared the next year in Francis Grose's Antiquities of Scotland.

Burns's 1785 poem 'Halloween' first appeared in a 1786 edition named for which town?

At 28 stanzas it is one of his longest poems, and it echoes a 1780 poem on the same night by John Mayne.

In Twilight, Bella Swan moves from Phoenix to which rainy Washington town?

The 2005 novel was the best-selling book of 2008, and was only outsold in 2009 by its own sequel.

Let the Right One In is set in which Stockholm suburb?

The 2004 novel takes its title from a Morrissey song; the American remake was called Let Me In.

World War Z follows up which 2003 Max Brooks book, a fictional manual for the undead?

Brooks borrowed his oral-history format from Studs Terkel's The Good War.

In 'The Tell-Tale Heart', the narrator is obsessed with the old man's what?

After dismembering the body in a bathtub, the killer hides it under the floorboards and is undone by a heartbeat only he can hear.

In 'The Cask of Amontillado', Montresor walls up Fortunato during what festivity?

Fortunato goes to his doom wearing a jester's cap and bells, and the narrator tells the tale fifty years later.

How many colour-themed rooms host Prince Prospero's masquerade in Poe's story?

The last room is black with blood-red windows, and an ebony clock inside stops the dancers every hour.

What is the name of the narrator's first black cat in Poe's 'The Black Cat'?

The story ran in The Saturday Evening Post in August 1843, the same year as 'The Tell-Tale Heart'.

Which short story caused New Yorker readers to cancel subscriptions in summer 1948?

The author received at least ten letters a day, many asking where such stonings were held so they could watch.

In We Have Always Lived in the Castle, what poison killed the Blackwood family?

It was stirred into the sugar bowl six years before the story opens; narrator Merricat survived because she had been sent to bed without dinner.

In Peter Straub's Ghost Story, four elderly men call their club what?

The 1979 novel is set in snowbound Milburn, New York, and was filmed in 1981 with Fred Astaire and Melvyn Douglas.

In Mexican Gothic, Noemí Taboada visits her cousin at which decaying mansion?

Silvia Moreno-Garcia's 2020 novel won the Locus Award for Best Horror Novel.

In The Exorcist, Regan first talks to the demon through a Ouija-board entity called what?

Father Merrin has already met the demon Pazuzu on a dig in northern Iraq before the novel reaches Washington.

Varney the Vampire (1845–47) was issued in what cheap weekly format?

Paid by the line, the author ran to 876 double-column pages, and gave Varney fangs and two puncture wounds decades before Dracula.

In The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Kit Tyler arrives in Puritan Connecticut from where?

She is first suspected of witchcraft for diving into the water to rescue a child's doll, since no respectable woman could swim.

Bradbury's 1955 collection The October Country reprints stories from which earlier book?

Fifteen of the 1947 collection's twenty-seven stories were kept, with four newer ones added.

Which Sesame Street character begs readers not to turn the page in a 1971 Little Golden Book?

He builds brick walls and ties the pages down, only to discover that the monster at the end is himself.

R. L. Stine's Fear Street books are set in which fictional town?

The street is named for the cursed Fear family, and the series had sold over 80 million copies by 2010.

At which university does Victor Frankenstein create his creature?

He leaves home for Bavaria after his mother dies of scarlet fever, and abandons the creature the night it wakes.

Dracula sails to England aboard which ship, carrying boxes of earth?

The crew vanish one by one during the crossing, and the vessel runs aground with its dead captain lashed to the wheel.