Classic Short Story Quiz: John Cheever, Edgar Allan Poe and More

Between short story maestro Alice Munro winning this year's Nobel Prize in Literature and George Saunders' Tenth of December blowing up across bestseller and year-end best lists, short stories have been at the forefront of our minds in 2013. To celebrate the art of the short form, we've put together this quiz on classic and contemporary short stories. Test your knowledge with the questions below, then click the link at the bottom of the page to get your score!

1. Dubliners

In James Joyce's classic short story "Araby," the 13 year-old narrator hopes to buy a gift for his crush at:

a) Rite Aid

b) a bookstore

c) a toy store

d) a bazaar

2.The Lottery and Other Stories

In Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery, the winner of the annual community lottery receives what as a reward?

a) a book containing all knowledge

b) a baby

c) death by stoning

d) a five-day, all-expenses-paid trip to Saint-Tropez for two

3. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

In David Foster Wallace's short story, "Forever Overhead," the 13 year-old protagonist becomes paralyzed with hesitation before doing what?

a) asking a girl out on a date

b) jumping off a diving board

c) getting in line for a roller coaster

d) biting into a McRib

4. John Updike: Collected Early Stories

In John Updike's 1961 short story "A&P," the protagonist, Sammy, quits his job as a store clerk after his manager yells at who?

a) Sammy's 97 year-old great grandmother (for attempting to steal cabbage)

b) Sammy's dog (for having an accident on the floor in the frozen food section)

c) a group of teenage girls (for wearing bathing suits in the store)

d) Jesus (of whom Sammy's manager has occasional visions)

5. Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

In Edgar Allan Poe's classic horror story, "The Tell-Tale Heart," where does the protagonist hide the body parts of the man he kills?

a) inside a grand piano

b) in a pot of spaghetti

c) in a wedding cake

d) under the floorboards of the man's room

6. A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories

In Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the grandmother's cat is named:

a) Grizabella

b) Pitty Sing

c) LOLCat

d) McRib

7. The Stories of John Cheever

In John Cheever's short story "The Swimmer," whose pool does the protagonist, Neddy Merill, swim in first?

a) the Westerhazys'

b) the Adam's

c) the Bunkers'

d) the Hammers'

8. Interpreter of Maladies

Jhumpa Lahri's Interpreter of Maladies was only the seventh short story collection to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. What was the first?

a) The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford

b) The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter

c) The Bible

d) Tales of the South Pacific, by James A. Michener

9. Men Without Women

Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" consists entirely of a conversation between two people sitting in a train station in what country?

a) France

b) Tanzania

c) Italy

d) Spain

10. Samuel Johnson Is Indignant

The title story of Lydia Davis' collection consists of this single sentence:

a) "My mother is a fish."

b) "that Scotland has so few trees."

c) "And so is George Washington."

d) "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Got your answers? Click here to find out how you did.