100 free Halloween Book trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Halloween book trivia quiz covers the reading list for the spookiest month: the Gothic classics people rediscover every October, from Frankenstein and Dracula to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Raven, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Turn of the Screw, plus modern horror from Shirley Jackson, Ira Levin, William Peter Blatty, Anne Rice and Stephen King. Ray Bradbury's two great Halloween novels are here, and so is Agatha Christie's murder at an apple-bobbing party. It also covers the books children reach for: Goosebumps, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Room on the Broom, Meg and Mog, Roald Dahl's The Witches, Bunnicula and Neil Gaiman's Coraline and The Graveyard Book. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has read the books or seen the films, a third need a closer memory of plots and authors, and the rest reward the readers who know the publishing dates and the stories behind the stories. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the books before publishing, and each question carries the sentence that establishes it. If you think one is wrong, use the report button and we will look again.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the subtitle of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?
The Modern Prometheus
Shelley began the story at 18 and the first edition appeared anonymously in London on 1 January 1818.
Q 02At whose villa on Lake Geneva did the 1816 ghost-story contest that produced Frankenstein take place?
Lord Byron's
The rainy "Year Without a Summer" kept the party indoors at the Villa Diodati.
Q 03In what year was Bram Stoker's Dracula first published?
1897
Stoker wrote it mostly in the 1890s and left over a hundred pages of notes drawn from folklore and history.
Q 04Which English seaside town does Dracula plague after arriving from Transylvania?
Whitby
Stoker chose the name Dracula from a history of Wallachia because he thought it meant "devil" in Romanian.
Q 05What is the profession of Jonathan Harker, whose visit to the Count opens Dracula?
Solicitor
The novel is told entirely through letters, diary entries and newspaper articles.
Q 06In which collection did Washington Irving publish The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in 1820?
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon
Irving wrote the story while living in Birmingham, England, and it was the longest piece in the book.
Q 07What is found near the bridge the morning after Ichabod Crane vanishes?
His hat and a smashed pumpkin
The pumpkin hints that Ichabod's rival, who marries Katrina soon after, may have staged the whole thing.
Q 08What is the name of Ichabod Crane's rival for Katrina Van Tassel?
Brom Bones
Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt torments the nervous schoolmaster with pranks rather than confronting him.
Q 09The raven in Poe's poem perches on a bust of which goddess?
Pallas Athena
The bird's single repeated word torments a lover mourning the lost Lenore.
Q 10Which Charles Dickens novel, with a talking raven, partly inspired Poe's "The Raven"?
Barnaby Rudge
Poe also borrowed the rhythm of Elizabeth Barrett's "Lady Geraldine's Courtship".
Q 11In which year was "The Raven" first published under Poe's name?
1845
It made Poe famous but brought him little money.
Q 12What was the title of the first Goosebumps book, published in July 1992?
Welcome to Dead House
Sixty-two books appeared under the main Goosebumps title between 1992 and 1997.
Q 13How many books were published in the original Goosebumps series between 1992 and 1997?
62
R. L. Stine followed with spin-offs including Series 2000, HorrorLand and SlappyWorld.
Q 14Which actor plays a fictionalised R. L. Stine in the two Goosebumps feature films?
Q 21What does the Other Mother want to sew over Coraline's eyes?
Buttons
Neil Gaiman began the novella in 1990 and it finally appeared in 2002.
Q 22Who directed the 2009 stop-motion film of Coraline?
Henry Selick
The book won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella in 2003.
Q 23What is the name of the boy raised by ghosts in Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book?
Nobody Owens
It was the first book to win both the Carnegie Medal and the Newbery Medal.
Q 24The Graveyard Book was the first book to win which two children's book medals in the same year?
Jack Black
The series had sold over 400 million copies in 35 languages by 2022.
Q 15Who wrote the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books?
Alvin Schwartz
Stephen Gammell's nightmarish illustrations were briefly replaced in 2011, to fan outrage.
Q 16Per the American Library Association, what distinction did Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark hold in the 1990s?
Most challenged book series
Complaints focused on violence and disturbing subject matter, and it made the list again in 2012.
Q 17Who wrote Room on the Broom, the picture book about a kind witch and her cat?
Julia Donaldson
Axel Scheffler illustrated it, and the animated version was Oscar-nominated in 2013.
Q 18Which three animals join the witch and her cat on the broomstick in Room on the Broom?
A dog, a bird and a frog
The book has been translated into 22 languages and won six awards.
Q 19In Roald Dahl's The Witches, what does the Grand High Witch plan to turn all of England's children into?
Mice
The story is set partly in Norway, home of the narrator's grandmother.
Q 20Who played the Grand High Witch in the 1990 film of The Witches?
Anjelica Huston
Nicolas Roeg directed; Anne Hathaway took the role in Robert Zemeckis's 2020 remake.
Carnegie and Newbery
Illustrator Chris Riddell was also shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal.
Q 25What does Bunnicula, the rabbit in James and Deborah Howe's books, drain the juice from?
Vegetables
The books are narrated by Harold, the family dog, while Chester the cat plots against the bunny.
Q 26Which Bradbury novel follows eight boys and Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud through the history of Samhain?
The Halloween Tree
It began as a 1967 screenplay for an unmade Chuck Jones film and became a 1972 novel.
Q 27On what date does the sinister carnival arrive in Green Town in Something Wicked This Way Comes?
October 24
The 1962 novel is the second book in Bradbury's Green Town Trilogy.
Q 28Which Shakespeare play supplies the title Something Wicked This Way Comes?
Macbeth
The carnival's leader, Mr. Dark, feeds on the townspeople's secret desires.
Q 29Who narrates the investigation in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?
Gabriel John Utterson
Stevenson had long been fascinated by Deacon Brodie, an Edinburgh councillor with a secret life as a burglar.
Q 30Who wrote the 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House?
Shirley Jackson
It was a National Book Award finalist and inspired two films and a Netflix series.