Chapter 1
Hooking the reader with mystery and mood
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Chapter 2
Setting the stage of epic worlds
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Chapter 3
Global voices and magical realism
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Chapter 4
The power of the simple sentence
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YOUR GOAL
Master of Great first lines in literature
Ch 1 · Hooking the reader with mystery and mood
schopenhauer Gothic Opening Lines
She wrote of misty Manderley while sweltering in the desert heat.
schopenhauer The Tell-Tale Heart begins with a frantic defense of the narrator's sanity.
Fun Fact
Tolstoy's draft: Leo Tolstoy rewrote the opening of Anna Karenina fifteen times before settling on the famous line about families.
schopenhauer George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 uses an unsettling clock chime to signal a distorted reality.
Glossary
mood (noun)
A temporary state of mind or feeling. Edward Bulwer-Lytton famously set this with his 1830 opening line describing a dark and stormy night.
A temporary state of mind or feeling. Edward Bulwer-Lytton famously set this with his 1830 opening line describing a dark and stormy night.
Quiz
Leo Tolstoy's 1878 novel Anna Karenina begins with a famous observation about which social unit?
BETA
schopenhauer Match famous opening lines to family secrets to learn how classic book plots unfold.
Quiz
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." begins which 1859 Charles Dickens novel set in London and Paris?
Quiz
Which 1818 novel by Mary Shelley begins with a series of letters written by explorer Robert Walton from the Arctic?
Quiz
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life..." is the opening of which 1850 semi-autobiographical Charles Dickens novel?
Quiz
What famous three-word opening line begins Herman Melville's 1851 whaling novel Moby-Dick?
Quiz
Which unusual hour do the clocks strike in the opening line of George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984?
Quiz
"True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am..." is the opening of which 1843 Edgar Allan Poe story?
Quiz
In Daphne du Maurier's 1938 gothic novel Rebecca, what is the name of the estate the narrator dreams about?