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60 free Brave New World trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Brave New World trivia for anyone who read it at school alongside Nineteen Eighty-Four and still remembers 'Our Ford' and the feelies. The quiz covers the novel in detail: the year AF 632, the Central London Hatchery, Bokanovsky's Process and the five castes, hypnopaedia, soma, Bernard Marx's height problem, Lenina Crowne's Malthusian belt, the Savage Reservation in New Mexico, Linda and John, the Director's public humiliation, Helmholtz Watson's chosen exile, Mustapha Mond's argument for happiness over truth, and the lighthouse near Puttenham where it all ends. It also asks where the title comes from and why it is ironic, why the French edition is called Le Meilleur des mondes, which H. G. Wells novel Huxley was parodying, who Mustapha Mond was named after, and what Neil Postman meant when he said Orwell feared what we hate and Huxley feared what we love. Then Huxley himself: the eye disease, teaching Orwell French at Eton, Hollywood, mescaline, and the death on 22 November 1963 that the world barely noticed. The 1980 and 1998 TV films, the 2020 Peacock series and the Iron Maiden album round it off. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our Nineteen Eighty-Four and dystopian fiction quizzes.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who wrote Brave New World?
Aldous Huxley
It was his fifth novel and his first dystopia, written in four months in 1931 and published in 1932.
Q 02The title Brave New World is a phrase from which Shakespeare play?
The Tempest
Miranda says it on first seeing the shipwrecked visitors, and her father Prospero deflates her with ''Tis new to thee'.
Q 03What is the French title of the novel, alluding to Leibniz via Voltaire's Candide?
Le Meilleur des mondes
It means 'The Best of All Worlds'; the Chinese title borrows the Shakespeare line and means 'Beautiful New World'.
Q 04Where was Huxley living when he wrote Brave New World?
Sanary-sur-Mer, France
He wrote it between May and August 1931, having already published four satirical novels.
Q 05Huxley said the book began as a parody of which H. G. Wells utopian novel?
Men Like Gods
He told a friend he had been 'pulling the leg of H. G. Wells' but then 'got caught up in the excitement' of his own ideas.
Q 06In what year, by the World State's calendar, does the novel open?
AF 632
That is AD 2540; the AF era counts from 1908, when the first Model T rolled off the line.
Q 07What do the letters AF stand for in the World State's calendar?
After Ford
Citizens swear 'By Ford!' and Christian crosses have had their tops cut off to make a T for the Model T.
Q 08What are the five castes of the World State, from top to bottom?
Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon
Each caste wears its own uniform colour and is conditioned to prefer its own lot.
Q 09Bokanovsky's Process is a technique for doing what?
Cloning up to 96 people from one egg
The name is thought to nod to Maurice Bokanowski, a French bureaucrat obsessed with efficiency; Podsnap's Technique speeds up egg maturation.
Q 10What is the World State's method of teaching children slogans while they sleep called?
Hypnopaedia
In the book it was discovered when a boy named Reuben Rabinovitch memorised speeches in his sleep; real science has since concluded sleep-learning does not work.
Q 11What is soma?
A happiness-inducing drug
Linda eventually dies of an overdose; the name has been compared to real-life Valium.
Q 12Where did Huxley get the name soma?
A Vedic ritual drink
His mid-1920s trip to India also inspired the caste system of the World State.
Q 13Which industrialist is revered almost as a god in the World State?
Henry Ford
Citizens sometimes say 'Our Freud' instead, and it is implied they think Ford and Freud were the same man.
Q 21The only literary book John has ever read is what?
The complete works of Shakespeare
It was left behind by a villager named Popé; the other book Linda owned was a scientific manual.
Q 22Who turns out to be John's father?
The Director of Hatcheries
When John calls him 'father' in public, the room roars with laughter and the Director resigns in shame.
Q 23Why is the Director's fatherhood so scandalous in the World State?
Because it was procreative
All sex is extramarital there; what is obscene is that a child was actually born from it.
Q 14Which of the carmaker's books did Huxley find on the boat to America and see applied everywhere he went?
My Life and Work
The trip left him outraged by youth culture, commercial cheeriness and promiscuity - all of which went into the novel.
Q 15Bernard Marx is an Alpha-Plus but a misfit. What is his physical oddity?
He is unusually short
An alleged accident with alcohol in his blood-surrogate before decanting is blamed for it.
Q 16Where does the Director threaten to exile Bernard?
Iceland
The threat evaporates when Bernard returns from the Reservation with the Director's own son.
Q 17What is Lenina Crowne's job?
Foetus technician
She is a Beta who is happy being a Beta, and one of the 30 percent of women who are not sterile 'freemartins'.
Q 18What is the name of the contraceptive device women wear in the World State?
Malthusian belt
It nods to Thomas Malthus, who ironically preferred abstinence to contraception.
Q 19The Savage Reservation that Bernard and Lenina visit is in which US state?
New Mexico
Its village culture resembles the Hopi and Zuni pueblo peoples of the region.
Q 20What is the name of the Reservation village where John was raised?
Malpais
John is unwanted there and unwanted in London: an outsider in both worlds.
Q 24Helmholtz Watson chooses exile to which remote place, hoping bad weather will help his writing?
The Falklands
Mustapha Mond tells him exile is really a reward: the islands hold the most interesting people in the world.
Q 25What is Mustapha Mond's title?
World Controller for Western Europe
He presides over one of ten zones set up after the Nine Years' War and the great Economic Collapse.
Q 26The World Controller's surname comes from which British industrialist with a Billingham chemical plant?
Alfred Mond
The first name is thought to nod to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who was remaking Turkey as Huxley wrote.
Q 27The World State's motto is 'Community, Identity' and what?
Stability
Mond argues that art, literature and free science must be sacrificed to secure it.
Q 28How does Mond sum up John's position at the end of their debate?
He claims the right to be unhappy
John asks to be sent to an island too, and Mond refuses because he wants to see what happens next.
Q 29Where does John retreat to live as a hermit at the end of the novel?
A lighthouse near Puttenham
A filmmaker's secret footage of his self-flagellation, 'The Savage of Surrey', turns him into a spectacle.
Q 30How does the novel end for John?
He hangs himself
Reporters arriving after a soma-fuelled orgy find the body.