Q 01/05

What was Mark Twain's real name?

A) Josh Billings

B) Charles Farrar Browne

C) Samuel Langhorne Clemens

D) William Sydney Porter

Answer · why

C) Samuel Langhorne Clemens

He took his pen name from a riverboat leadsman's call.

Q 02/05

The novel is written throughout in what kind of English, then a novelty in major American literature?

A) Vernacular

B) Elizabethan

C) Latinate

D) Received Standard

Answer · why

A) Vernacular

Its local-colour regionalism helped change the course of American children's literature.

Q 03/05

In which decade is the novel set?

A) The 1860s

B) The 1880s

C) The 1820s

D) The 1840s

Answer · why

D) The 1840s

It depicts an antebellum society that had ceased to exist more than twenty years before publication.

Q 04/05

What is the name of the fictional Missouri town where the story begins?

A) St. Petersburg

B) Cairo

C) Pikesville Landing

D) Hannibal

Answer · why

A) St. Petersburg

It stands in for Hannibal, where Twain grew up.

Q 05/05

Which two women become Huck's guardians at the start of the book?

A) Mrs Phelps and Mrs Grangerford

B) The Widow Douglas and Miss Watson

C) Judith Loftus and Mary Jane Wilks

D) Aunt Polly and Aunt Sally

Answer · why

B) The Widow Douglas and Miss Watson

The widow tries to sivilize him as her Christian duty; her sister is a tough old spinster.