The first lines of books have an incredibly important role – to pull the reader in and make her want to read more.
If you’ve read a lot (and you probably have since you’re here, reading this), you’ve read a lot of good first lines. Want to test your knowledge?
The following are the first lines of well-known books. Do you know the title and author?
This is the honor system. No Google!
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- It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
- Once upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs.
- Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.
- “Where’s Papa going with that axe?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
- Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids.
- “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.
- Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.
- “Tom!” No answer. “Tom!” No answer. “What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You Tom!” No answer.
- Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay out scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. {Do you need some help? Try this famous line – But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.}
- As I walk’d through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a Dream. I dreamed, and behold I saw a Man cloathed with Rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a Book in his hand, and a great Burden upon his back.
Have fun!
{Keep scrolling when you’re ready for the answers.}
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Are you ready for answers?
- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
- Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder
- A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
- Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
- Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
- Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maude Montgomery
- Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens)
- Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
- Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan
{An interesting side note: E.B. White was an English professor who wrote what writers just call “Strunk & White,” a brilliant little book actually titled The Elements of Style.}
If you’d like to read more first lines {although not so famous 😊}, check out my books page where you’ll find a link to a preview of each book.
