Halloween Book Trivia
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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
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was the full title: Shelley began it 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
Lord Byron's rented Villa Diodati hosted the contest: the rainy 'Year Without a Summer' of 1816 kept Byron, Polidori and the Shelleys indoors, and Mary Shelley's entry grew into Frankenstein.
Q 03In what year was Bram Stoker's Dracula first published?
1897
Dracula was published in London by Archibald Constable in May 1897; Stoker had worked on it for about seven years, filling over a hundred pages of notes on folklore and history.
Q 04Which English seaside town does Dracula plague after arriving from Transylvania?
Whitby
Whitby: the Count's ship runs aground below the abbey during a storm and he leaps ashore as a great dog. Stoker holidayed in the North Yorkshire town in 1890 and found the name Dracula in its library.
Q 05What is the profession of Jonathan Harker, whose visit to the Count opens Dracula?
Solicitor
Harker is a solicitor: he has just passed his examinations when his employer Peter Hawkins sends him to Transylvania to complete the Count's purchase of Carfax, an estate near Purfleet.
Q 06In which collection did Washington Irving publish The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in 1820?
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., issued in instalments in 1819-20, contained it alongside 'Rip Van Winkle'; Irving wrote the story while living in Birmingham, England.
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 raven settles on 'a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door'; Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom, sets off the bird's one word, 'Nevermore', that torments the narrator mourning Lenore.
Q 10Which Charles Dickens novel, with a talking raven, partly inspired Poe's "The Raven"?
Barnaby Rudge
Barnaby Rudge (1841) features Grip, a talking raven; Poe reviewed the novel and wished the bird had been used more prophetically. He also borrowed the metre of Elizabeth Barrett's 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship'.
Q 11In which year was "The Raven" first published under Poe's name?
1845
1845: the New York Evening Mirror printed 'The Raven' under Poe's name on 29 January 1845, ahead of the American Review's pseudonymous 'Quarles' printing; it made him famous but paid about nine dollars.
Q 12What was the title of the first Goosebumps book, published in July 1992?
Welcome to Dead House
Welcome to Dead House, in which Amanda and Josh Benson move to the town of Dark Falls and find the neighbours are living dead, launched Goosebumps in July 1992.
Q 13How many books were published in the original Goosebumps series between 1992 and 1997?
62
62: the original run opened in July 1992 and closed with number 62, Monster Blood IV, in December 1997; Stine then moved to spin-offs such as Series 2000, HorrorLand and SlappyWorld.
Q 21What does the Other Mother want to sew over Coraline's eyes?
Buttons
Buttons: everyone in the world beyond the door has black buttons for eyes, and the Other Mother offers to sew a pair onto Coraline so she can stay forever. Gaiman began the novella in 1990 and published it in 2002.
Q 22Who directed the 2009 stop-motion film of Coraline?
Henry Selick
Henry Selick, who had directed The Nightmare Before Christmas, wrote and directed the 2009 stop-motion Coraline for the studio Laika; the book itself had won the Hugo and Nebula 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
Q 14Which actor plays a fictionalised R. L. Stine in the 2015 film Goosebumps?
Jack Black
Jack Black plays a fictionalised R. L. Stine in Goosebumps (2015), whose monsters escape from his locked manuscripts; he also voices the dummy Slappy and returned for Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (2018).
Q 15Who wrote the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books?
Alvin Schwartz
Alvin Schwartz wrote the three collections (1981-1991) from folklore and urban legends; Stephen Gammell illustrated them, and his nightmarish art was 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
Most challenged book series: the ALA ranked Scary Stories first on its list of most challenged books of 1990-1999, citing violence and disturbing content; it placed seventh on the 2000-2009 list.
Q 17Who wrote Room on the Broom, the picture book about a kind witch and her cat?
Julia Donaldson
Julia Donaldson wrote Room on the Broom (2001), with Axel Scheffler's illustrations; the 2012 animated adaptation was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
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
A dog, a bird and a frog each return something the witch dropped (hat, bow and wand) and hitch a ride; when the broom snaps, they rise from a bog disguised as a monster to scare off a dragon.
Q 19In Roald Dahl's The Witches, what does the Grand High Witch plan to turn all of England's children into?
Mice
Mice: the Grand High Witch unveils Formula 86 Delayed-Action Mouse-Maker to turn every child in England into a mouse; the narrator, eavesdropping at a Bournemouth hotel, is transformed himself.
Q 20Who played the Grand High Witch in the 1990 film of The Witches?
Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston played the Grand High Witch in Nicolas Roeg's 1990 film, the last feature Jim Henson worked on before his death; Anne Hathaway took the role in Robert Zemeckis's 2020 remake.
Nobody Owens, called Bod, is adopted by the ghosts Mr and Mrs Owens after his family is murdered by the man Jack; his guardian Silas, neither living nor dead, brings him food from the world outside.
Q 24The Graveyard Book was the first book to win which two children's book medals?
Carnegie and Newbery
Carnegie and Newbery: The Graveyard Book took the American Newbery Medal in January 2009 and the British Carnegie Medal in June 2010, the first book to win both; it also won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Q 25What does Bunnicula, the rabbit in James and Deborah Howe's books, drain the juice from?
Vegetables
Vegetables: the Monroes keep finding tomatoes and other produce drained white with two tiny fang holes, which convinces Chester the cat that the rabbit is a vampire; Harold the dog narrates.
Q 26Which Bradbury novel follows eight boys and Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud through the history of Samhain?
The Halloween Tree
The Halloween Tree (1972) grew from a 1967 screenplay Bradbury wrote for an unmade Chuck Jones film; Moundshroud whisks the boys from ancient Egypt to Mexico's Day of the Dead in search of their friend Pipkin.
Q 27On what date does the sinister carnival arrive in Green Town in Something Wicked This Way Comes?
October 24
October 24: Cooger and Dark's carnival train rolls into Green Town at three in the morning on 24 October, a week before Halloween, the day after a lightning-rod salesman warns Jim and Will of a storm.
Q 28Which Shakespeare play supplies the title Something Wicked This Way Comes?
Macbeth
Macbeth: the Second Witch says 'By the pricking of my thumbs, / Something wicked this way comes' in Act 4, Scene 1, just before Macbeth enters to demand prophecies from the witches.
Q 29Which character's investigation of Jekyll's will drives Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?
Gabriel John Utterson
Gabriel John Utterson, a lawyer and Jekyll's friend, pursues the mystery of Hyde after learning Jekyll's will leaves everything to him; Stevenson was long 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
Shirley Jackson published The Haunting of Hill House in 1959; a National Book Award finalist, it was filmed as The Haunting in 1963 and 1999 and adapted as a Netflix series in 2018.