“It was a dark and stormy night.” Do these words sound familiar?
This opening line was repeatedly hammered out on a typewriter by Charlie Brown’s canine companion, Snoopy. The line appeared for the first time in Schultz’s comic strip Peanuts in 1965. Schultz admits he used the line because it was commonly viewed as the standard for poor writing.
But wait. Just a few years prior, in 1962, one of my favorite authors, Madeleine L’Engle used the line to open her novel, A Wrinkle in Time. The novel won the 1963 Newbery Medal and has remained in continuous print since.
In 2019, I had the opportunity to visit Madeline L’Engle’s office space inside the library at St. John the Devine Cathedral in New York City. A native New Yorker, L’Engle became the cathedral’s volunteer librarian in 1965 and later, a writer-in-residence.
Ray Bradbury used the same words to open his 1960 mystery novel, Let’s All Kill Constance, and in 1844, before Alexandre Dumas’ wrote “Tous pour un, un pour tous”, he opened The Three Musketeers with those same dark and stormy words.
The words appeared as an opener1 for the novel Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1830, but the actual phrase was most likely first penned by Washington Irving in 1809. While not used as an opening line, Washington used the line in the 4th paragraph of the 5th chapter of A History of New York.
For some reason, this line has stayed in our collective consciousness through the years and now has become a trope for bad writing. Not a bad pick for an opening line. After all, not too many novels could open with Herman Melville’s “Call me Ishmael”.
When I asked my husband for his favorite line, his response was “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” A perfect pick (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859) from the guy who enjoys reminding me of his minor in English Literature. My youngest son’s pick isn’t an opening line, but a sentence from a novel that captured his imagination as a young person: “Remember, the enemy’s gate is down.” (Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game, 1985.)
As a writer, I collect lines I adore and I’ve adored a lot over the years.
Sometimes it’s not even a line in a book. In 2024, while traveling on I-5 in California, a car sped past with a bumper sticker that read, “The Green Coalition of Gay Loggers for Jesus.” I don’t know whether a real coalition exists, but I give them credit for their creativity.
I have collected lines from many authors, including Amor Towles, Gail Caldwell, Geraldine Brooks, Leif Enger, and others. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but one line stands out for me from Lauren Wolk’s Echo Mountain (2020). It’s six words are simple, yet convey such a beautifully strong image that I instantly fell in love with them.
“The trees wore gowns of starlight.”
Maybe you have a favorite line that has stuck with you over the years. If so, I’d love for you to leave it in a comment below.
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- The full text of Bulwer-Lytton’s first line goes further than all the reiterations. The entirety of the famous first line reads:
“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”
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Well done–loved this, Carol! 🙂 I have to agree with your husband–I’ve always loved the opening line from “A Tale of Two Cities”! But then, another favorite of mine is” “They can’t order me to stop dreaming.” – Cinderella (Ha!!!!!!!!)