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 😊

How about this one :
’Take my camel , dear ‘ said my Aunt Dot as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.

The first one is Dune I think. The others sounds familiar but can't place them!

The Towers of Trebizond I believe.

The moment I set eyes on Jeremy West I knew I had to have him. I was sitting in Arabella’s, watching a crowd of debs and other phonies undulating round the floor and thinking they were dancing, when suddenly the bamboo curtain was pushed aside and a blond man walked in and stood looking around for a waitress.

Ten days after ….. the blind assassin

my offering …

sing to me of the man muse, the man of twists and turns

2 is Our Mutual Friend, I think.

Sounds like a Jilly Cooper..

That’s right!

"November 7th - Plant the indoor bulbs. Just as I am in the middle of them, Lady Boxe calls. I say, untruthfully, how nice to see her..."

The Provincial Lady?

The Odyssey

This is too easy I think
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again"

Edited because I said The Iliad, but someone else has already got it right - The Odyssey.

@AltitudeCheck you are correct. Nice to meet another king fan ❤️

Yes indeed!

The Peacemaker quote is a bit like Dick Francis in style. It isn't, though.

Here are two more. Character's full name will suffice for the second one.

In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.

@@@@@

A slight fall of snow during the night had covered the aerodrome of Squadron No. 266, R.F.C., with a thin white mantle, and a low-hanging canopy of indigo-tinted cloud, stretching from horizon to horizon, held a promise of more to come.

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".

Adrian Mole!

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

A Study in Scarlet.
Biggles?

That's Anne of Greene Gables!

Here's mine:
When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.

Still waiting for a response to this one 😺

It was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that indefinite season when partridges are still in security or cold storage, and there is nothing to hunt, unless one is bounded on the North by the Bristol Channel, in which case one may lawfully gallop after fat red stags.

Correct 😊

A Study in Scarlet.

A Study in Scarlet it is.

Biggles?

Full name?

A classic
**
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty that is thrown into relief by poor dress.

Another classic, but in translation

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Captain W. E. Johns was the author. No idea if Biggles even had another name!