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Quiz about Original Titles of Famous Books
Quiz about Original Titles of Famous Books

Original Titles of Famous Books Quiz


"I've got a great idea for a novel, but all the good titles have been taken", as Snoopy once said. Many authors had problems deciding how to call their books: let's try to pair each working title with the final one.

A multiple-choice quiz by zordy. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
zordy
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
331,575
Updated
Jul 23 22
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
7 / 10
Plays
891
Awards
Top 35% Quiz
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. This Jane Austen novel was published in 1831. Her first idea was to call it, appropriately for a working title, "First Impression". Then she changed her mind. What was the final choice with which the book became a hit, and still is?

Answer: (Three Words, one is "and". Five daughters. No quotation marks please.)
Question 2 of 10
2. "All's Well That Ends Well" is Shakespeare's, but also Leo Tolstoi's first title for his huge novel, published in 1866. Which Tolstoi novel includes Napoleon as a character and depicts with rare skill some famous battle scenes?
Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. Joseph Heller almost did it at the first attempt: an excerpt of "Catch-22" published in a magazine had another title. Can you guess which one? (Will it help to know it is the same number of the year in which Muriel Spark and Mickey Spillane were born?)
Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. "Village Virus" was the original title of this novel by Sinclair Lewis that tells a story of a metropolitan girl trying to live in a small town in the American Midwest after marriage. By what title is this book known?
Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. What was the original title chosen for "The Great Gatsby"? If you've read the book, it'll be easy for you to guess it.
Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" is another of a million titles taken from Shakespeare (this one from "Macbeth"). But which was the original title, that could make you think of a vampire story?
Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" had a different title that has been used for many foreign editions. Under which title did I read the book for the first time (and also the last) in the Italian version?
Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. To find the right title for her masterpiece was a real problem for Margaret Mitchell: in the end she borrowed a line from an Ernest Dawson poem and called the book "Gone With the Wind". But among the first choices, which immortal line from the book itself was considered?
Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. "Something That Happened" is not much of a title, is it? Maybe that's why John Steinbeck found something more memorable for this novel and used a fragment of a Robert Burns's poem. A little help: one of the main characters is called Lennie Small. Now, which very famous novel is it?
Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. How was James Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" originally titled? If you know the Christian name of the main character, Dedalus, you'll guess it right.
Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. This Jane Austen novel was published in 1831. Her first idea was to call it, appropriately for a working title, "First Impression". Then she changed her mind. What was the final choice with which the book became a hit, and still is?

Answer: Pride and Prejudice

20 million copies sold worldwide. This is not Austen's only book with a different title from the first version. She called "Elinor and Marianne" the first draft of the novel that became "Sense and Sensibility".
2. "All's Well That Ends Well" is Shakespeare's, but also Leo Tolstoi's first title for his huge novel, published in 1866. Which Tolstoi novel includes Napoleon as a character and depicts with rare skill some famous battle scenes?

Answer: War and Peace

The battles of Austerlitz and Borodino are part of the book plot. Despite the choice of the working title, Tolstoi didn't appreciate Shakespeare at all and wrote an essay on "King Lear" to demonstrate how bad an artist Shakespeare was.
3. Joseph Heller almost did it at the first attempt: an excerpt of "Catch-22" published in a magazine had another title. Can you guess which one? (Will it help to know it is the same number of the year in which Muriel Spark and Mickey Spillane were born?)

Answer: Catch-18

Although the number 18 was the choice for a while, all the alternatives above had been taken into consideration and rejected for different reasons. "Catch-22", in the book, is the name of a bureaucratic absurd and contradictory rule in the military code.
4. "Village Virus" was the original title of this novel by Sinclair Lewis that tells a story of a metropolitan girl trying to live in a small town in the American Midwest after marriage. By what title is this book known?

Answer: Main Street

In the tale, the town is called "Gopher Prairie, Minnesota". But as the author clarifies in the introduction to the novel, "its Main Street is the continuation of Main Streets everywhere. The story would be the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Kentucky or Illinois, and not very differently would it be told Up York State or in the Carolina hills. Main Street is the climax of civilization (...) our comfortable tradition and sure faith. Would he not betray himself an alien cynic who should otherwise portray Main Street, or distress the citizens by speculating whether there may not be other faiths?"
5. What was the original title chosen for "The Great Gatsby"? If you've read the book, it'll be easy for you to guess it.

Answer: Incident at West Egg

West Egg is the place were the plot is set. Other working titles for the novel included: "Among Ash Heaps and Millionaires", "Gold-Hatted Gatsby", "The High-Bounding Lover".
6. William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" is another of a million titles taken from Shakespeare (this one from "Macbeth"). But which was the original title, that could make you think of a vampire story?

Answer: Twilight

Of course I was hinting about Stephanie Meyer's Saga. The three wrong titles are red herrings: Yoknapatawpha is the fictional county used by Faulkner as setting for many of his novels. Benji and Quentin are two characters and two "points of view" in the storytelling.
7. Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" had a different title that has been used for many foreign editions. Under which title did I read the book for the first time (and also the last) in the Italian version?

Answer: Fiesta

Published in 1927, this is the first of Hemingway's major novels, and some say his best. As you know, Hemingway's real value is a matter of dispute. A classic, anyway.
8. To find the right title for her masterpiece was a real problem for Margaret Mitchell: in the end she borrowed a line from an Ernest Dawson poem and called the book "Gone With the Wind". But among the first choices, which immortal line from the book itself was considered?

Answer: Tomorrow is Another Day

Other alternative taken into consideration: "Pansy", "Tote the Weary Load" , "Milestones" "Jettison", "Ba! Ba! Black Sheep", "Bugles Sang True". Another of Dawson's lines was used as the title of the famous song and jazz standard "The Days of Wine and Roses".
9. "Something That Happened" is not much of a title, is it? Maybe that's why John Steinbeck found something more memorable for this novel and used a fragment of a Robert Burns's poem. A little help: one of the main characters is called Lennie Small. Now, which very famous novel is it?

Answer: Of Mice and Men

Burns's poem is called "To a Mouse": "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley."
10. How was James Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" originally titled? If you know the Christian name of the main character, Dedalus, you'll guess it right.

Answer: Stephen Hero

In Italy and elsewhere the book is known as "Dedalus": that's why I bought it twice. The first draft of the novel under the title of "Stephen Hero" was published posthumously. I wonder if Joyce would have been happy.
Source: Author zordy

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor looney_tunes before going online.
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