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50 free Mark Twain trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Mark Twain trivia quiz follows Samuel Clemens from Florida, Missouri, and the river town of Hannibal that became St. Petersburg, through the printer's apprenticeship, the two years learning the Mississippi under Horace Bixby, the brother killed by a steamboat boiler, two weeks as a Confederate volunteer, and the stagecoach west to a Nevada silver town where he first signed himself 'Mark Twain'. The second half covers the Jumping Frog, the Quaker City cruise and Olivia Langdon, the octagonal study at Quarry Farm, the Hartford years that produced Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, the patents and the scrapbook, Nikola Tesla, the Paige typesetter that swallowed $300,000, the bankruptcy and the round-the-world tour that paid every creditor, the German-language speech in Vienna, the Angel Fish club, the white suits, the daughters he outlived, the Edison footage and the comet he came in and went out with. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Charles Dickens quiz next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Mark Twain's real name?
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
He was the sixth of seven children; only three siblings survived childhood.
Q 02Twain was born in 1835 in a village called Florida, in which state?
Missouri
The family moved to a Mississippi port town when he was four.
Q 03Which Mississippi port town, Twain's boyhood home, became the fictional St. Petersburg?
Hannibal
Slavery was legal there at the time and became a theme of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Q 04After his father died in 1847, Twain left school after which grade to apprentice as a printer?
Fifth
He later educated himself in public libraries in the evenings and joined the printers' union at 18.
Q 05Twain's brother Orion owned which newspaper, to which young Sam contributed sketches from 1851?
The Hannibal Journal
Sam worked there as a typesetter before leaving at 18 to print in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Cincinnati.
Q 06Which steamboat pilot took Twain on as a cub for $500, payable out of his first wages?
Horace E. Bixby
It took more than two years for Twain to earn his licence for the New Orleans to St. Louis run.
Q 07'Mark twain' was the leadsman's cry for a river depth of how much?
Two fathoms, or twelve feet
It meant safe water for a steamboat; his grave monument is 12 feet tall for the same reason.
Q 08Twain's younger brother Henry died in 1858 after what?
The steamboat Pennsylvania's boiler exploded
Sam had got him the job as mud clerk, claimed to have dreamed the death a month before, and blamed himself for life.
Q 09How long did Twain serve in the Confederate Marion Rangers before the unit disbanded?
Two weeks
He turned it into the sketch 'The Private History of a Campaign That Failed'.
Q 10Twain went west in 1861 because his brother Orion had become secretary of which territory?
Nevada
The stagecoach journey across the Plains and Rockies, with a stop among the Mormons of Salt Lake City, fills Roughing It.
Q 11After failing as a miner on the Comstock Lode, Twain wrote for which Virginia City newspaper?
The Territorial Enterprise
He first signed a piece 'Mark Twain' there on February 3, 1863.
Q 12Which pen name did Twain use for humorous sketches until 1863, before settling on Mark Twain?
Josh
He also wrote a series of comic letters as 'Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass'.
Q 13Where did Twain hear the story that became 'The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County'?
The Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California
Q 21Twain's most commercially successful invention was what?
A self-pasting scrapbook
Its pages carried dried adhesive that needed only moistening; more than 25,000 sold.
Q 22Twain was an early champion of which forensic technique, central to the plot of Pudd'nhead Wilson?
Fingerprinting
He had first used it in a tall tale in Life on the Mississippi in 1883.
Q 23Who filmed Twain at his Redding home in 1909, producing the only known footage of him?
Thomas Edison
Some was used in the two-reel The Prince and the Pauper that year.
Published in the New York Saturday Press on November 18, 1865, it brought him national attention.
Q 14Twain's 1866 letters for the Sacramento Union, the basis of his first lectures, reported from where?
The Sandwich Islands (Hawaii)
He sailed there on the steamer Ajax's maiden voyage.
Q 15Twain's 1867 cruise to Europe and the Holy Land, basis of The Innocents Abroad, was on which ship?
The Quaker City
On board, Charles Langdon showed him a picture of his sister Olivia; Twain claimed love at first sight.
Q 16Twain married Olivia Langdon in February 1870 in which New York town, where the family is buried?
Elmira
They summered at her sister's Quarry Farm there for over 20 years; Woodlawn Cemetery holds the family plot.
Q 17Twain's only son, Langdon, died in 1872 at 19 months of what?
Diphtheria
The couple were living in Buffalo, where Twain owned a stake in the Buffalo Express.
Q 18What did Olivia's sister Susan Crane build for Twain at Quarry Farm in 1874?
An octagonal study away from the house
It gave him a quiet place to write and smoke his cigars; many classic novels were drafted there.
Q 19Twain built his Hartford home next door to which famous author?
Harriet Beecher Stowe
He lived in Hartford for 17 years and wrote Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and A Connecticut Yankee there.
Q 20Which inventor did Twain befriend, spending much time in his laboratory?
Nikola Tesla
Twain held three patents of his own, including one for adjustable garment straps to replace suspenders.
Q 24How much did Twain sink into the Paige typesetting machine between 1880 and 1894?
$300,000
It amazed viewers when it worked but broke down constantly and was made obsolete by the Linotype.
Q 25Twain's publishing house had a hit with whose memoirs before failing on a biography of Pope Leo XIII?
Ulysses S. Grant's
Charles L. Webster and Company sold fewer than 200 copies of the papal biography.
Q 26Which Standard Oil executive rescued Twain's finances after 1893?
Henry Huttleston Rogers
Rogers had him file for bankruptcy protection and transfer his copyrights to Olivia, then managed his money until every creditor was paid.
Q 27Twain's 1895-96 round-the-world lecture tour was undertaken to do what?
Pay his creditors in full
He was no longer legally obliged to; the three months in India became the heart of Following the Equator.
Q 28Why was Twain's scheduled lecture in Honolulu cancelled during the world tour?
A cholera epidemic
He was ill much of the trip, mostly with a cold and a carbuncle, before sailing on to Fiji and Australia.
Q 29In Vienna in 1897 Twain delivered a speech, in the local tongue, titled what?
'The Horrors of the German Language'
'Die Schrecken der Deutschen Sprache' greatly amused the Concordia Press Club.
Q 30Told the Savage Club had only three honorary members including the heir to the throne, Twain replied what?
'It must make the Prince feel mighty fine'
He was in great demand as a solo humorous speaker, a forerunner of stand-up.