Best Pranks in Literature

Surely the creator of Tom Sawyer must have some good pranks and hilarious anecdotes as well? Get a load of Mark Twain's sharp wit - might just come in handy when you're about to get back at someone.

The entire plot of this novel revolves around the fallout from the final prank pulled by two career pranksters — all done in the name of performance art. Siblings Annie and Buster grew up as pawns in their parent's elaborate tricks. And now with the children all grown up, the parents suddenly go missing and are declared dead. And they must decide whether to accept this a the final practical joke and amazing trick, or if something really happened.

First of all, this is a strange book. So it's not strange at all when an enormous talking cat with a soft spot for vodka, pistols, and chess, play many a joke on the unsuspecting public, including lopping the head off a critic of their magic show and only screwing it back on again when the audience protests.

Rumpelstiltskin was terrible story. We all thought when he helped the poor miller's daughter weave straw into gold it was out of goodwill, and when he set out the conditions, k, he wasn't being all nice, but he was being fair. And you know the story... in order to free the woman of her debt, he posed such a difficult riddle that obviously no one could answer (Rumpelstintskin, reALLY?!!). But of course, the farmer's daughter and now Queen spied on him, got his name and broke the contract. Now who played who?

Is there are more perfect and savage trick than turning someone into a donkey. And then making the Fairy Queen fall in love with said monster? The absurdly mischievous elf, Puck, pulls prank after prank, adding levity to Shakespeare’s five-act saga. And honestly, Puck transforming Bottom into an ass still has audiences roaring in their seats.

Neil Gaiman's novel involves gods retold and Loki Liesmith wins points for his deceitful trickery. But unlike most of the pranks on this list that are kind of fun, Loki's pranks are far from silly — in fact, he uses his power to orchestrate births, deaths and colossal, destructive battles among the gods. A true troublemaker if we ever saw one! 10/10 would not invite to parties.

Perhaps one of the more epic pranks over in this list (falling short of a full-out con). There are silly pranks involving blue hair dye and faked progress reports, but there's also the one where four students, in memory of a fellow classmate, hires a stripper during their school's speaker day. Let's just say everyone remembered that day.

You must be thinking, wait, there were pranks in Jane Eyre? Yes - and it came from no one other than the Very Serious Mr. Rochester himself. Read it again and see if you can find it. He dresses up as a peculiar gypsy woman, fooling Jane by reading her fortune and asking about himself. A harmless prank in all honesty, but perhaps emotionally scaring, especially since he asked for Jane's true thoughts about him through a guise. This is one man who has no chill.

Before Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap did the classic switcheroo, Viola and Sebastian in this classic Shakespearean tale already did it. The OG prankster duo (or maybe just Viola....) were the reigning sibling duo dressing up as one another to fool everyone they came in contact with. Of course that set up a lot of misunderstanding, but.... where's the fun if there isn't any?

The image of Tom whitewashing a fence with his infamous pals is splashed across odes to classical literautre everywhere, and we say that was one of Tom’s most memorable pranks. Convincing those pals that whitewashing the fence was fun has got to be one of the laziest, smartest and funniest pranks ever. And really when it comes to pranks, Tom has the moral high ground - never targeting old people and only harmless pranks!