Page 14 | Guess the opening lines...

kinkytoes · 2026-05-14T14:02:19+00:00

Hi all, hope it's ok to start this here. Thought it might be fun and stretch the old grey matter a bit. I'll attach a shot of some opening lines and whoever guesses correctly post their own? We could all just post pics but then we might lose track. I don't mind. Let me know what you think (of the idea, and the opening lines here - hopefully started off with an easyish one but let me know if any clues are needed!) If it's being done elsewhere please someone direct me 😊

PassengerDerby · 16/05/2026 07:47

HelenaWilson · 15/05/2026 23:38

And by the way,” said Mr. Hankin, arresting Miss Rossiter as she rose to go, “there is a new copy-writer coming in today.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Hankin?”
“His name is Bredon. I can't tell you much about him; Mr. Pym engaged him himself; but you will see that he is looked after.”

Murder Must Advertise, Dorothy L. Sayers

Re-reading this at the moment and trying to spin it out to enjoy it for longer. The opening of Strong Poison which was done upthread is one of my favourites. The description of the different characters in the jury interacting is just sublime.

clary · 16/05/2026 08:04

PassengerDerby · 16/05/2026 07:47

Re-reading this at the moment and trying to spin it out to enjoy it for longer. The opening of Strong Poison which was done upthread is one of my favourites. The description of the different characters in the jury interacting is just sublime.

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Oh @PassengerDerby Iam a terrible re-reader (my bookish DD has assured me it is OK tho) and DLS is my go-to. Sadly I have read them so often that I need to take a break of a year or so!

In MMA I just think the description of office life is so exact and still so so true nearly 100 years later.

PassengerDerby · 16/05/2026 08:21

I'm an unapologetic re-reader. Once you know the plot you can appreciate the writing even more 😁. Yes, I love the depiction of office life!

Fgfgfg · 16/05/2026 08:26

AnotherEmilee · 14/05/2026 19:00

Here are 2 well know books that haven't been done yet, along with one less well know, but it is one of my favourite opening lines from one of my favourite books:

In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.
In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark Bridge, which is of iron, and London Bridge, which is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing in.
Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.

Laura drove the car off the bridge in Margaret Attwood's The Blind Assassin

pollyhemlock · 16/05/2026 08:39

HelenaWilson · 16/05/2026 00:03

another DLS fan I suspect

Yes indeed.

Last one for this evening:

In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind the College—little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly bushes, full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they were strictly forbidden, palaces of delight.

Stalky and Co?

Fgfgfg · 16/05/2026 08:40

LittleMyLabyrinth · 14/05/2026 20:37

It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed my choice on a certain Wednesday at luncheon at the Vicarage. The conversation, though in the main irrelevant to the matter in hand, yet contained one or two suggestive incidents which influenced later developments.
The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.
The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its sky-line was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild. It had been the outburst of a speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who called its architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne, apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were identical. It was described with some justice as an artistic colony, though it never in any definable way produced any art. But although its pretensions to be an intellectual centre were a little vague, its pretensions to be a pleasant place were quite indisputable. The stranger who looked for the first time at the quaint red houses could only think how very oddly shaped the people must be who could fit in to them.

3 - The man who was Thursday, GK Chesterton

pollyhemlock · 16/05/2026 08:45

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 16/05/2026 04:39

Yes! Possibly time to re-read all twelve.

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I loved and reread them so much in my twenties that I’m almost afraid to reread them in case they don’t hold up. That opening paragraph really stays in the mind.

Fgfgfg · 16/05/2026 09:13

Edward Henry Machin first saw the smoke on the 27th May 1867, in Brougham Street, Bursley, the most ancient of the Five Towns. Brougham Street runs down from St Luke's Square straight into the Shropshire Union Canal, and consists partly of buildings known as "potbanks" (until they come to be sold by auction, when auctioneers describe them as "extensive earthenware manufactories") and partly of cottages whose highest rent is four-and-six a week.

clary · 16/05/2026 09:48

Fgfgfg · 16/05/2026 09:13

Edward Henry Machin first saw the smoke on the 27th May 1867, in Brougham Street, Bursley, the most ancient of the Five Towns. Brougham Street runs down from St Luke's Square straight into the Shropshire Union Canal, and consists partly of buildings known as "potbanks" (until they come to be sold by auction, when auctioneers describe them as "extensive earthenware manufactories") and partly of cottages whose highest rent is four-and-six a week.

I am guessing Anna of the Five Towns? Many years since I read it tho.

JennyChawleigh · 16/05/2026 09:57

Fgfgfg · 16/05/2026 09:13

Edward Henry Machin first saw the smoke on the 27th May 1867, in Brougham Street, Bursley, the most ancient of the Five Towns. Brougham Street runs down from St Luke's Square straight into the Shropshire Union Canal, and consists partly of buildings known as "potbanks" (until they come to be sold by auction, when auctioneers describe them as "extensive earthenware manufactories") and partly of cottages whose highest rent is four-and-six a week.

The Card by Arnold Bennett

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 16/05/2026 10:10

pollyhemlock · 16/05/2026 08:45

I loved and reread them so much in my twenties that I’m almost afraid to reread them in case they don’t hold up. That opening paragraph really stays in the mind.

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It certainly does, and I was reduced to tears (which admittedly is not hard to do) when I got to the end of the final book and found that we were revisiting that scene.

Fgfgfg · 16/05/2026 10:21

clary · 16/05/2026 09:48

I am guessing Anna of the Five Towns? Many years since I read it tho.

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Sorry, no but @JennyChawleigh is correct!

HelenaWilson · 16/05/2026 11:05

Stalky and Co?

Yes, Stalky. I used to find it laugh out loud funny in places, but haven't re-read in a while.

I was going to say must be Arnold Bennett. One of those very popular and prolific authors now largely forgotten. I never got into him, though my mum liked his books.

Murder Must Advertise isn't a favourite of mine because of all the nonsense of Wimsey, who is no spring chicken by that time, masquerading as Harlequin. But otoh, it does win the cricket cup for Lower IV A.

BuntyBeaufort · 16/05/2026 11:50

It is, @clary.Great book

pollyhemlock · 16/05/2026 11:50

HelenaWilson · 16/05/2026 11:05

Stalky and Co?

Yes, Stalky. I used to find it laugh out loud funny in places, but haven't re-read in a while.

I was going to say must be Arnold Bennett. One of those very popular and prolific authors now largely forgotten. I never got into him, though my mum liked his books.

Murder Must Advertise isn't a favourite of mine because of all the nonsense of Wimsey, who is no spring chicken by that time, masquerading as Harlequin. But otoh, it does win the cricket cup for Lower IV A.

MMA is one of my favourites for the reason given upthread, office life etc. Also I find the drug- fuelled parties interesting. Plus ca change. The Harlequin bit stretches credulity but one has to assume LPW keeps himself in trim. And yes, the famous throw that wins Lower IV A the cricket cup.

Terpsichore · 16/05/2026 12:01

Here’s one.

It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.

DeanElderberry · 16/05/2026 12:02

Earthly Powers Anthony Burgess

I think

TheBookShelf · 16/05/2026 18:08

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/05/2026 22:45

If only I knew what to do with you girls!’ said Dick in worried tones.

‘Oh, you needn’t worry about us!’ replied Madge.

‘Talk sense! I’m the only man there is in the family—except Great-Uncle William; and he’s not much use!’

‘Jolly well he isn’t! Poor dear! He’s all gout and crutches.’ And Madge threw back her head with a merry laugh.

The School at the Chalet

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 16/05/2026 18:12

Yes! The start of many 'merry laughs'.

TheBookShelf · 16/05/2026 18:12

clary · 15/05/2026 23:33

I don’t think anyone has said this:
Mr Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable.

It’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde which for some impenetrable reason is a GCSE set text (DD studied it in her final year of her Eng lit degree).

I’ll offer
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, but he wasn’t a bad sort

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

clary · 16/05/2026 18:15

TheBookShelf · 16/05/2026 18:12

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

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ah no. That's "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it" - which we have already had!

TheBookShelf · 16/05/2026 18:19

clary · 16/05/2026 18:15

ah no. That's "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it" - which we have already had!

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Ah, clearly I was reading too quickly, hadn't spotted it was a slightly different quote!

clary · 16/05/2026 18:22

@HelenaWilson @pollyhemlock I agree actually about the Harlequin which is a bit much as Wimsey is about 43 by then. Also the drugs stuff is a bit daft.

But I love the cricket match with Wimsey suddenly seeing red when he gets a rap on the elbow from Simmons and striding wrathfully down the wicket. Finishing with a six that breaks a bottle of lemonade.

And I can forgive DLS much when she writes like this:

"In this place, where from morning till night a staff of over a hundred people hymned the praises of thrift, virtue, harmony, eupepsia and domestic contentment, the spiritual atmosphere was clamorous with financial storm, intrigue, dissension, indigestion and marital infidelity. And with worse things—with murder wholesale and retail, of soul and body, murder by weapon and by poison. These things did not advertise, or, if they did, they called themselves by other names."

And also this :)
"Nothing makes a man see red like a sharp rap over the funny-bone, and it was at this moment that Mr. Death Bredon suddenly and regrettably forgot himself. He forgot his caution and his rôle, and Mr. Miller's braces, and saw only the green turf and the Oval on a sunny day and the squat majesty of the gas-works. The next ball was another of Simmonds' murderous short-pitched bumpers, and Lord Peter Wimsey, opening up wrathful shoulders, strode out of his crease like the spirit of vengeance and whacked it to the wide."

SabrinaThwaite · 16/05/2026 18:35

clary · 16/05/2026 18:15

ah no. That's "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb and he almost deserved it" - which we have already had!

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It’s The Silver Chair (Eustace returns!).

clary · 16/05/2026 18:40

yes indeed @SabrinaThwaite - he is much nicer after his experience being turned into a dragon :) I love that Lewis takes the same sentence and flips it.