Guess the opening lines...

[kinkytoes]

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 😊

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..."

She was writing what she knew, of course. Unlike when she has Wimsey diving into the fountain, I don't know how he didn't break his neck, or at least do himself some serious damage.

And it’s the book that brings us Puddleglum
the marsh wiggle.

Yes indeed I agree about that, he would certainly have been badly injured.

And yy she was writing what she knew. Which is why she writes it so well. And just proves the point I always say that your best writing will be what you know. I would get nowhere writing a novel about the Australian outback. Otoh I would be all over a newsroom-set novel in 1980s England.

Two for this evening:

The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?" And every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said, "Oh, is this it?" But it never was, till they reached the very top of the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the gravel-pit. And then there was a white house with a green garden and an orchard beyond, and mother said, "Here we are!"

@@@@@@@

I had just finished breakfast and was filling my pipe when I got Bullivant’s telegram. It was at Furling, the big country house in Hampshire where I had come to convalesce after Loos, and Sandy, who was in the same case, was hunting for the marmalade. I flung him the flimsy with the blue strip pasted down on it, and he whistled.

The second one is John Buchan and I'm guessing either Greenmantle or The Island of Sheep.

It’s Greenmantle

“NUNC ET IN hora mortis nostrae. Amen.” The daily recital of the Rosary was over. For half an hour the steady voice of the Prince had recalled the Sorrowful and the Glorious Mysteries; for half an hour other voices had interwoven a lilting hum from which, now and again, would chime some unlikely word; love, virginity, death; and during that hum the whole aspect of the rococo drawing-room seemed to change; even the parrots spreading iridescent wings over the silken walls appeared abashed; even the Magdalen between the two windows looked a penitent and not just a handsome blonde lost in some dubious daydream as she usually was.

I think the first one is Five Children and It. Second one Greenmantle as above.

Just checked and it’s definitely Five Children and It.

Is this The Leopard?

I think the first one is Five Children and It. Second one Greenmantle as above.

Yes to both.

I much prefer Greenmantle to 39 Steps. I re-read it quite often, but rarely re-read 39 Steps.

Greenmantle is absolutely my favourite Buchan. When I was about 12
I had a massive crush on Sandy Arbuthnot.

Sandy Arbuthnot forsooth!

The girl came into the room with a darting movement like a swallow, looked round her with the same birdlike quickness, and then ran across the polished floor to where a young man sat on a sofa with one leg laid along it.

"I have saved you this dance, Quentin," she said, pronouncing the name with a pretty staccato. "You must be so lonely not dancing, so I will sit with you. What shall we talk about?"

The young man did not answer at once, for his gaze was held by her face. He had never dreamed that the gawky and rather plain little girl whom he had romped with long ago in Paris would grow into such a being. The clean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure colouring of hair and skin, the charming young arrogance of the eyes—this was beauty, he reflected, a miracle, a revelation. Her virginal fineness and her dress, which was the tint of pale fire, gave her the air of a creature of ice and flame.

"About yourself, please, Saskia," he said. "Are you happy now that you are a grown-up lady?"

Huntingtower. Enjoyable but I never liked the Dickson McCunn ones quite as much as the Hannay sequence.

I love Dickson, and the Diehards.

Is this The Leopard?

@pollyhemlock yes! one of my favourites.

When I was about 12 I had a massive crush on Sandy Arbuthnot.

Didn't everyone? 😁

I quite like Huntingtower and Castle Gay, but not House of the Four Winds. I don't enjoy the last three Richard Hannay novels so much.

Now how about this one?

‘I wonder when in the world you’re going to do anything, Rudolf?’ said my brother’s wife.

‘My dear Rose’ I answered, laying down my egg-spoon, ‘why in the world should I do anything?’

‘I wonder when in the world you’re going to do anything, Rudolf?’ said my brother’s wife.
‘My dear Rose’ I answered, laying down my egg-spoon, ‘why in the world should I do anything?’

I’ve got no idea but it sounds intriguing.

Prisoner of Zenda? Based on the name Rudolf.

Yes, Prisoner of Zenda. Rudolf is a bit of a giveaway if you’ve read the book.

Yes! (Sorry I haven’t been back, been out for the afternoon and evening)

Yes , Dickson is a great character. As are the Diehards. However, I first read Buchan at an impressionable age (11-14) and Dickson just isn’t as romantic as Sandy.

"One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century had reached one-third of its span, a young man and woman, the latter carrying a child, were approaching the large village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot. They were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick hoar of dust which had accumulated on their shoes and garments from an obviously long journey lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to their appearance just now"

Thomas Hardy. Is it the Mayor of Casterbridge?