The Secret History
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50 free The Secret History trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Donna Tartt's debut novel follows a small, hand-picked Greek class at an elite New England college as an experiment in living like the ancients turns into murder and cover-up. Decades on, it is still pressed on friends by its readers, and it has shaped a whole style of campus fiction. This quiz covers the whole book: the narrator's arrival at Hampden College, Henry Winter and the rest of the class, the night in the woods that starts everything, the plot against Bunny Corcoran and the slow unravelling that follows. It also steps outside the story to ask about Tartt herself, the real people and places behind the novel, and the film versions that were planned over the years. The early questions suit anyone who has read the novel once, and the later ones reward a careful reread. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the set works for a book club, a class, or settling an argument about who did what.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does the prologue of The Secret History reveal at once, turning the usual murder mystery upside down?
Who the killers are
Who the killers are is settled on the first page, where the narrator admits that he and his friends murdered a classmate. The suspense lies in why, which led one critic to call the book a murder mystery in reverse.
Q 02The Secret History is credited with originating which literary subgenre, later a hit aesthetic on social media?
Dark academia
Dark academia mixes Gothic gloom with old libraries, tweed and candlelit study. The online trend first grew up around fans of this one novel, decades after it was published.
Q 03Which twentieth-century milestone is news to Henry Winter, the most learned student in The Secret History?
The moon landing
The moon landing comes as a surprise to Henry, a prodigy who reads Homer and Plato for pleasure. He lives so far from the modern world that the news never reached him.
Q 04Hampden College, the small elite school where The Secret History unfolds, lies in which New England state?
Vermont
Vermont gives the novel its long, brutal winters. One of them nearly kills the narrator, who is too proud to tell his friends he has nowhere warm to stay over the break.
Q 05In The Secret History, how are Charles and Camilla Macaulay, the inseparable pair of the Greek class, related?
Fraternal twins
Fraternal twins and orphans, the Macaulays often host the group for dinner. Their bond is marked by a jealousy and protectiveness that grow more troubling as the story goes on.
Q 06How do his fellow students kill Bunny Corcoran in The Secret History, hoping the death will pass as an accident?
Pushed into a ravine
Pushed into a ravine on one of his regular Sunday walks, Bunny falls to his death. Henry does the pushing while the other four look on.
Q 07Which Greek god do Henry Winter and his friends try to summon with a secret woodland rite in The Secret History?
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of wine and ecstatic frenzy, and the students hope to lose themselves as his ancient worshippers did. Their professor's lectures on divine madness plant the idea.
Q 08Which actress was to produce a film of The Secret History with her brother directing, a project shelved in 2002?
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow and her brother Jake struck a deal with Miramax in 2002, with Jake set to direct. They shelved the project when their father, Bruce Paltrow, died later that year.
Q 09Which later novel by Donna Tartt, the author of The Secret History, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction?
The Goldfinch
The Goldfinch, her third novel, took the 2014 Pulitzer. Tartt has spent about ten years writing each of her books, so readers waited two decades for it after her debut.
Q 10Which scholarship student tells the story of The Secret History, looking back years after the murder?
Richard Papen
Richard Papen narrates at twenty-eight, still haunted by his first year at Hampden. He paints himself as a bystander, though the story shows a willing accomplice.
Q 11What does Bunny Corcoran start doing in The Secret History after he works out that his friends killed a man?
Blackmailing them
Blackmailing them is almost casual for Bunny, who lets Henry and Francis pay for his meals and travel. His demands and taunts grow until the group fears he will talk.
Q 12How does Henry Winter, the leader of the Greek class, die near the end of The Secret History?
He shoots himself
He shoots himself in a hotel room as staff try to force the door, moments after an armed Charles has wounded the narrator. His death lets the survivors explain the whole scene away.
Q 13How does the Classics professor in The Secret History react on learning that his students killed Bunny Corcoran?
Q 21Which freak April weather hides Bunny Corcoran's body for days after his death in The Secret History?
A heavy snowfall
A heavy snowfall begins soon after the killing and covers the body. Only when rain washes it away is Bunny found, and by then his death is taken for an accident.
Q 22Henry Winter takes Bunny Corcoran to which city for a winter break in The Secret History, then flies home alone?
Rome
Rome is wasted on Bunny, who cares only about spending as much as possible and ignores its ancient beauty. Henry, worn out and ill, finally slips away without telling him.
Q 23Which federal agency questions Henry Winter after Bunny Corcoran vanishes in The Secret History?
The FBI
He leaves for good
He leaves for good, abandoning his post without a word to the authorities. He never contacts his students again and even stays away from Henry's funeral.
Q 14Which charismatic professor teaches Greek to only a hand-picked few at Hampden College in The Secret History?
Julian Morrow
Julian Morrow was a 1940s socialite who moved among famous poets, Ezra Pound included. His students revere him as a father figure, and he picks them as much for money and connections as for brains.
Q 15Who is killed in the woods during the students' frenzied night ritual in The Secret History?
A local farmer
A local farmer dies, and the four who were there can barely recall how it happened. The novel never spells out the details of the killing.
Q 16Donna Tartt set The Secret History in New England, but in which Southern state was she born and raised?
Mississippi
Mississippi shaped her early writing: she grew up in the small town of Grenada and had a sonnet in print at thirteen. Like her narrator, she went north to college as a transfer student.
Q 17Which fact does Bunny Corcoran, who loves lavish restaurant lunches in The Secret History, keep quiet?
He is penniless
He is penniless, whatever his family's show of money, and cheerfully lives off his friends. He treats the narrator to a boozy lunch, then reveals he cannot pay the bill.
Q 18What does the narrator of The Secret History, a newcomer to the Greek class, embellish to fit in?
His background
His background is working-class, so he invents a glamorous one to match his rich friends. He is the only scholarship student among them, and keeping up the act nearly costs him his life.
Q 19What do the five students do in The Secret History while the whole campus hunts for the missing Bunny Corcoran?
Join the search parties
They join the search parties, combing the woods for a body they know is there. Later they stay at his parents' house and attend the funeral as grieving friends.
Q 20In which state does the narrator of The Secret History grow up in a working-class home?
California
California is home, in a small town called Plano that he finds dull and is desperate to escape. A college brochure seen by chance sets him on the road east.
The FBI is drawn in after a false sighting suggests that Bunny was taken away by strangers. Agents close the case once his body turns up and the death is ruled an accident.
Q 24Which novelist, a college classmate of Donna Tartt, shares the dedication of The Secret History?
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis was already a published star as a student and used his contacts to help his friend, whose book went out through his own literary agent. He later tried to bring it to television.
Q 25Which real college, attended by Donna Tartt in the 1980s, is the model for Hampden in The Secret History?
Bennington
Bennington classmates later claimed that the professor and several students in the book were drawn from life. One of them called the novel a thinly veiled account of real people.
Q 26What is the real first name of Bunny Corcoran, the murdered student in The Secret History?
Edmund
Edmund is hardly ever heard: to family and friends alike he is simply Bunny. One of his brothers later gives the nickname to a child of his own.
Q 27Henry Winter buys four one-way tickets to which country in The Secret History for an escape that never happens?
Argentina
Argentina was the plan: the four who killed in the woods meant to fly to Buenos Aires and never return. They cancelled when Francis could not raise the money he had counted on.
Q 28Where does the narrator of The Secret History nearly die of cold while lodging alone over the winter break?
A warehouse
A warehouse room with no heating is the cheapest lodging he can find, and he is too ashamed to tell anyone. Henry, back early from abroad, finds him collapsed with pneumonia and takes him to hospital.
Q 29For which offence is Charles Macaulay arrested in The Secret History, raising fears that he will expose the group?
Drunk driving
Drunk driving, in a vehicle that belongs to Henry, means the two must appear in court together when they can no longer bear to share a room. Henry sends the narrator to post bail in the middle of the night.
Q 30Which relative forces Francis Abernathy into an unwanted marriage in the epilogue of The Secret History?
His grandfather
His grandfather finds out that Francis is gay and threatens to cut off his money unless he takes a wife. Under the strain, Francis attempts suicide before the wedding goes ahead.