Great Expectations Trivia
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110 free Great Expectations trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Great Expectations trivia quiz runs through all three stages of Pip's expectations: the convict in the graveyard, the file and the pork pie, the stopped clocks and the rotting cake at Satis House, the pale young gentleman, the leg iron, the London lawyer with the scented soap, Wemmick's castle, the return of the convict, the fire, the chase down the Thames and the meeting in the ruins. Joe, Biddy, Herbert, Jaggers, Orlick, Compeyson and Drummle all get their questions. The second half is about how Dickens made it and what happened next: the magazine he was rescuing, the weekly sales, the friend who talked him into a happier ending, Carlyle's 'Pip nonsense', the Rochester house behind Satis House and the jilted Sydney woman who may have inspired Miss Havisham. Then the screen: David Lean and John Mills, Alfonso Cuarón's New York version, Helena Bonham Carter, Olivia Colman and even South Park. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the novel, Miss Havisham, Magwitch and the 1946 film, and each explanation adds one detail worth passing on. BrainPickle has a separate quiz on Charles Dickens himself.
30 of 110 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the full name of the orphan nicknamed Pip?
Philip Pirrip
Philip Pirrip was too much for his infant tongue, which 'could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip', so Pip he called himself and Pip he stayed.
Q 02In which weekly periodical, owned by Dickens himself, was Great Expectations first serialised from December 1860?
All the Year Round
All the Year Round was the weekly Dickens launched in 1859 after falling out with the publishers of Household Words, which he then won in court, closed and folded into the new magazine.
Q 03Where does Great Expectations famously open?
In a graveyard on the Kent marshes
In a graveyard on the Kent marshes, Pip is studying his parents' tombstone when an escaped convict starts up from among the graves and turns him upside down, shaking out nothing but a piece of bread.
Q 04What two things does the convict demand that Pip bring him?
Food and a file
Food and a file: Pip steals a pork pie, brandy and a file for him, and when soldiers recapture the convict he claims the theft as his own to keep the boy out of trouble.
Q 05What is the cane Pip's fierce older sister beats him with called?
Tickler
Tickler was 'a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame', says Pip, whose sister likes to boast that she brought him up 'by hand'.
Q 06What is the name of the decaying mansion where Miss Havisham lives?
Satis House
Satis House means 'Enough House': Pip is told the name promised that whoever owned it could want nothing else, a bitter joke given what he finds rotting inside.
Q 07What has Miss Havisham worn every day for decades?
Her wedding dress
Her wedding dress has yellowed on her ever since she was jilted, and she still wears a single shoe, because the other was lying on her dressing table when the news reached her.
Q 08At what time have all the clocks in Miss Havisham's house been stopped?
Twenty minutes to nine
Twenty minutes to nine is the exact minute her fiancé's letter arrived to jilt her, so she stopped every clock in the house, and her own watch, at that moment.
Q 09What was the trade of Miss Havisham's father, the source of her fortune?
Brewer
Brewer was a gentlemanly trade, Pip is told: 'while you cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was and brew'. The silent brewery still stands beside her house.
Q 10Which pompous corn merchant first takes Pip to play at Miss Havisham's house?
Mr Pumblechook
Mr Pumblechook spends the rest of the book telling the town he was the founder of Pip's fortunes, then turns it against Pip when the money is gone.
Q 11What is the name of Miss Havisham's beautiful, cold adopted daughter?
Estella
Estella warns Pip herself, 'I have no heart', and she means it: Miss Havisham raised her to break men's hearts in revenge for her own.
Q 12What does Herbert Pocket tactfully teach Pip on his first night in London?
Table manners
Table manners, slipped in between gossip: 'in London it is not the custom to put the knife in the mouth, for fear of accidents', he says, so cheerfully that both of them end up laughing.
Q 13Who is the surly journeyman at the forge who attacks Pip's sister and later tries to murder Pip?
Dolge Orlick
Dolge Orlick lures Pip to a lonely sluice-house, ties him up and boasts of striking down his sister, until rescuers burst in, guided by Trabb's boy, the tailor's lad who once mocked Pip in the street.
Q 21To which colony was the convict Magwitch transported for life in Great Expectations?
New South Wales
New South Wales was meant to be the last England saw of him: 'I was sent for life. It's death to come back', he tells Pip, yet he risks the gallows simply to look at the gentleman he has made.
Q 22Under what false name does Magwitch hide after secretly returning to England in Great Expectations?
Provis
Provis is the name he took on the ship home, and Pip passes him off as a visiting uncle while privately shrinking from the rough man whose money has made him a gentleman.
Q 23Which man jilted Miss Havisham and later fought Magwitch as a fellow escaped convict?
Compeyson
Q 14What weapon is used to strike down Pip's sister in Great Expectations?
A leg iron
A leg iron is found beside her, and Pip is sure it is the one his convict shed years before, so he carries the guilt of having armed her attacker.
Q 15What is the profession of Mr Jaggers, who brings Pip news of his expectations?
Lawyer
Lawyer, and a feared one: he scrubs his hands with scented soap after every case, and Pip decides he is washing his clients off 'as if he were a surgeon or a dentist'.
Q 16Where in London do Pip and Herbert Pocket first share rooms?
Barnard's Inn
Barnard's Inn let Pip down at once: he had pictured a grand hotel and found 'the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together', and the friends later moved to the Temple.
Q 17Which brutish fellow pupil of Pip's eventually marries Miss Havisham's adopted daughter?
Bentley Drummle
Bentley Drummle, whom Jaggers admiringly calls 'the Spider', treats his wife cruelly and then dies in an accident brought on by his ill-treatment of a horse.
Q 18What kind of home does Wemmick share with his 'Aged Parent'?
A miniature castle with a drawbridge and moat
A miniature castle with a drawbridge and moat lets the clerk leave the office behind: he hoists a flag on Sundays and lets off a small cannon, the Stinger, every night to delight his deaf father.
Q 19Where does half of Pip's birthday £500 secretly go?
Herbert's partnership
Herbert's partnership with a young shipping broker is arranged in secret after Pip turns twenty-one: Herbert comes home radiant at his luck, and Pip cries with joy that his expectations 'had done some good to somebody'.
Q 20How did the convict Magwitch earn the fortune he secretly spent on making Pip a gentleman?
Sheep farming
Sheep farming made him rich after he was transported, and every guinea went to Pip: 'I lived rough, that you should live smooth; I worked hard, that you should be above work', he tells the horrified young man.
Compeyson, a smooth gentleman swindler, drew seven years to Magwitch's fourteen by looking the part in court, and that injustice is why Magwitch gives up his own escape to hand him back to the soldiers.
Q 24Who turns out to be the mother of Miss Havisham's adopted daughter?
Molly
Molly, Jaggers's housekeeper: Pip sees it over dinner at his guardian's, in hands and eyes he has loved since boyhood, and later learns that the father is his own convict, Magwitch.
Q 25How is Miss Havisham fatally injured?
Her dress catches fire
Her dress catches fire as Pip looks in on her one last time: she runs at him ablaze, and he smothers the flames with his coats and the great cloth from her table, dragging down its rotten feast and burning his own hands.
Q 26Where is Pip's rowing boat taking the convict when the police intercept it?
To a steamboat bound for Hamburg
To a steamboat bound for Hamburg, which they plan to hail in midstream: in the struggle the convict goes overboard, comes up badly injured and dies of his wounds before he can be hanged.
Q 27What happens to Magwitch's fortune once he is convicted in Great Expectations?
It is forfeited to the Crown
It is forfeited to the Crown, as a convicted felon's property, so Pip is left penniless and in debt, and he takes care that the dying man never learns his gift has come to nothing.
Q 28Who nurses Pip through his illness in London and pays off his debts?
Joe
Joe comes up to London, nurses him for weeks and then slips away early one morning, leaving a short note and a receipt showing he has paid the debt Pip had been arrested for.
Q 29In which city does Pip work for eleven years with Herbert before returning to England?
Cairo
Cairo is where the firm opens its eastern branch, and Pip follows Herbert out as a mere clerk, lodges with him and his wife, lives frugally and pays off every debt.
Q 30Where does Pip meet the widowed heroine in the final scene of Great Expectations?
In a ruined garden
In a ruined garden, all that is left of the house where they met as children: she is a widow softened by suffering, and as the evening mist rises Pip sees 'no shadow of another parting from her'.