Chapter One

The first line of a novel can be important and memorable. The first line from Martin Cruz Smith’s novel Gorky Park has remained with me since I read it many years ago: “All nights should be so dark, all winters so warm, all headlights so dazzling.” The final sentence and the rest of the novel are also not too shabby.

Some of my other favourite first lines are:

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. - Emma by Jane Austen.

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 by Jane Austen.

There are some other fantastic first lines at the following site: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Opening_lines

As part of your holiday homework we asked you to write about the story from The Penguin Book of the Beach that you believe has the best beginning which best sets the mood. What role did the first sentence play in your decision? Which story had the best first sentence? What made it effective?

Images of Literature

I was organising all my images over the holidays. My favourite ones are both based on the play Hamlet and I have seen the originals in London. They illustrate poignant moments in the play: firstly Ophelia's rejection of Hamlet and her death.