Okay, time to match the famous first lines listed in It Was A Dark and Stormy Night with their respective works, although I am sure anyone who was interested has Googled the ones they did not know. It turns out the line “It was a dark and stormy night” made famous by the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, was also used as the opening line of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle.
Thank you Amaryllis, Dr. Ngo, and Nenya for your contributions.
- Call me Ishmael. Moby Dick
- Marley was dead, to begin with. A Christmas Carol
- In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis
- There’s my last duchess, painted on the wall . . . My Last Duchess, poem
- I sing of arms and the man. The Aeneid
- Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph. Exodus
- Happy families are all alike . . . Anna Karenina
- In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. The Hobbit
- "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents.”* Little Women
- To Sherlock Holmes, she is always the woman. A Scandal in Bohemia
- In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. Job
- The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville Nine that day. Casey at the Bat, poem
- The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. The Wind in the Willows
- All children, except one, grow up. Peter Pan
- My mind now turns to stories of bodies changed into new forms. Metamorphoses, Ovid
Poems contributed by Amaryllis:
- Once upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered weak and weary... The Raven
- Two roads diverged in a yellow wood... The Road Not Taken
- Because I could not stop for death... Death
- In Xanadu did Kubla Khan... Kubla Khan
- Let us go then, you and I... The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
- The went to sea in a sieve, they did... The Jumblies
- I met a traveler from an antique land... Ozymandias
- Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert... To A Skylark
- How do I love thee? Let me count the ways... Sonnet 43 Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- Oh what can ail thee, knight at arms... La Belle Dame Sans Merci
- Let me not to the marriage of true minds... Sonnet 116, Shakespeare
- When I was one-and-twenty... When I Was One-and-Twenty
- Listen, my children, and you shall hear... Paul Revere’s Ride
- So. The Spear-Danes, in days gone by... Beowolf
I must admit, I thought the line for The Jumblies belonged to Winken, Blinken, and Nod.
This one from dr ngo, which I had to Google:
- He was born with the gift of laughter, and a sense that the world was mad. Scaramouche (I was way off with my guess of Pudd'nhead Wilson.)
And finally, from Nenya:
- It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. A Tale of Two Cities
- It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Pride and Prejudice
- In the beginning was the Word... The Gospel of John
- It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. 1984
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
ReplyDeleteI know that that's 1984. But I always want to answer, The Thirteen Clocks. Which is an entirely different kettle of fish:
"Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn't go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his niece, the Princess Saralinda."
I'm surprised that I actually knew that "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen" went with 1984. It's been decades since I read it.
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