Re: HIT Re: GEN: It was a dark and stormy...

[Mark Williams <mark_williams@EEE.ORG>]

Mary Ann:

The quote is positively, absolutely from Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel "Paul
Clifford", but that is only the first part of the opening sentence (which is
very long and involved -- impossible to diagram!)

It is NOT from "Last Days of Pompeii"

The annual 'Bulwer-Lytton' contest (to create the worst opening line of an
imaginary novel) has published several (4, I think -- I have 3 of them)
collections of submissions, the titles of which all involve the opening
phrase "It was a dark and stormy night".  The annual deadline for
submissions is April 15 -- so timed to coincide with another painful submission!

Several years ago, I submitted an entry:

"I was a stark and swarthy knight, and many strange things had happened to
me since my elevation to the peerage upon the death of my father; but none
stranger than the theft of all my clothes from the bench outside my tanning
booth at the Sun-Quick All Night Tanning Salon and Massage Parlour."


The collections are available in paperback.

Hope this helps!



At 09:08 AM 4/16/97 EST, you wrote:
>     Thanks to everyone for you help with my question about the origin of
>     the opening line: "It was a dark and stormy night". It was
>     Bulwer-Lytton that I was thinking of based on the annual award named
>     in his memory.
>
>     Here's the responses I received:
>
>     It comes from Bulver-Lytton's book The lasst days of Pompeii (i
>     THINK). I am sure of the author, less sure of the title of the book.
>     However, it is the first line of the novel.
>
>     It's the first line of _A Wrinkle in Time_, too.    I keep telling
>     people don't play trival pursuit with librarians.  We know a little
>     about alot of things!! ;)
>
>     It is from the 1830 novel _Paul Clifford_ by Edward George
>     Bulwer-Lytton.
>
>     I have a book entitled "It was a dark and storm night."  The
>     introduction says the Contest is the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest "a
>     bad-writing contest, one that pitted the entrants against the worst
>     literay minds in bookdom.  The goal of each entrant was tocompose the
>     worst possible opening sentence for an imaginary novel."
>
>     Snoopy? (Sorry, couldn't resist! :-) Or should I say, didn't want to
>     resist!)
>
>
>     Don't know any origin except that it is the opening line of A Wrinkle
>     in Time.
>
>     Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton is the author who first penned that starting
>     sentence.  I used to think it was from the LAST DAYS OF POMPEII but I
>     have no verification for that.  (of course Snoopy, that famous beagle
>     writer, has penned many novels starting with that phrase).
>
>
>      Mary Ann Kull, Librarian
>                        East Aurora HS
>                        E. Aurora, NY 14052
>                        Mary_Ann_Kull@eaur.wnyric.org
>
>
Mark Williams
Librarian
Colton High School
<mark_williams@eee.org>