In her essay "The Fisherwoman’s Daughter," Ursula K. Le Guin writes, "first sentences are doors to worlds." She doesn't develop the thought further, but it is a succinct reflection on the importance of a story's opening line. The first line does not merely begin the story but rather invites the reader into the characters' world. It can set the tone of the story or captivate your imagination. A great first line can pique your curiosity or make you instantly uncomfortable. It may intentionally deceive you or foreshadow things to come. In whatever way a first line grabs your attention, it opens a door and entices you to come inside.
For the September 2022 meeting, members shared their favorite first lines. From memorable first lines of classic literature to eerie opening lines of science fiction and fantasy, most members' favorite first lines were drawn from fiction. One member, a Bible collector, shared several early English translations of the opening verses of the Gospel of John.
Fiction
"Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume
of forgotten lore—
"The Raven" (1845), Edgar Allan Poe
 |
| "The Raven" |
Poe, Edgar Allan.
"The Raven." The
American Review, Vol. 1, No. 2 (February 1845): 143-145. First appearance, published under the
pseudonym "Quarles."
"A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored
garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing
hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the
door of which was heavily timbered with oak and studded with iron spikes."
The Scarlet Letter (1850),
Nathaniel Hawthorne
 |
| The Scarlet Letter |
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.
The Scarlet Letter. Norwalk,
CT: Easton Press, 1975. Limited edition,
in red leather, with the more scare gilt design.
"The stranger came early in
February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last
snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst
railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved
hand."
The Invisible Man (1897), H. G. Wells
 |
| The Invisible Man |
Wells, H. G. The
Invisible Man. Norwalk, CT: Easton
Press, 1967. Leather-bound with gilt
decoration and "Invisible" blind stamped on front cover.
"When Caroline Meeber boarded the
afternoon train for Chicago her total outfit consisted of a small trunk, which
was checked in the baggage car, a cheap imitation alligator skin satchel
holding some minor details of the toilet, a small lunch in a paper box and a
yellow leather snap purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her
sister's address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money."
Sister Carrie (1900), Theodore Dreiser
 |
| Sister Carrie |
Dreiser, Theodore.
Sister Carrie. Unexpurgated
Version. New York: Doubleday, 1997. The New York Public Library Collector's
Edition.
"In a hole in the ground there
lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet
hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare,
sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole,
and that means comfort."
The Hobbit (1937), J. R. R. Tolkien
 |
| The Hobbit |
Tolkien, J. R. R. The
Hobbit, or There and Back Again. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1988. First
edition thus, annotated.
The footnote to this edition illuminates: "The opening
paragraph has become so widely known that in 1980 it was added to the fifteenth
edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations."
"A story has no beginning or end:
arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or
from which to look ahead."
The End of the Affair (1951),
Graham Greene
 |
| The End of the Affair |
Greene, Graham. The
End of the Affair. London: William
Heinemann, 1951. Uncorrected proof
copy.
This first line ranked #54 on the list of "100 Best
Opening Lines of Novels" by American Book Review (Volume 27, No. 2,
2006).
"There was a boy called Eustace
Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), C. S. Lewis
 |
| The Voyage of the Dawn Treader |
Lewis, C. S. The
Voyage of the Dawn Treader. New
York: Macmillan, 1952. Unstated
printing.
This first line ranked #47 on the list of "100 Best
Opening Lines of Novels" by American Book Review (Volume 27, No. 2,
2006).
"It was love at first
sight."
Catch-22 (1961), Joseph Heller
 |
| Catch-22 |
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961. First edition.
This first line ranked #59 on the list of "100 Best
Opening Lines of Novels" by American Book Review (Volume 27, No. 2,
2006).
“The sky above the port was the color
of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
Neuromancer (1984), William Gibson
 |
| Neuromancer |
Gibson, William. Neuromancer.
New York: Ace Books, 1984. First edition.
 |
| Neuromancer |
Gibson, William. Neuromancer.
West Bloomfield, MI: Phantasia Press,
1986. Signed limited edition and first
US hardcover edition.
This first line ranked #30 on the list of "100 Best
Opening Lines of Novels" by American Book Review (Volume 27, No. 2,
2006).
“The Hegemony Consul sat on the
balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp
Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway while great, green, saurian
things surged and bellowed in the swamps below.”
Hyperion (1989),
Dan Simmons
 |
| Hyperion |
Simmons, Dan. Hyperion.
New York: Doubleday, 1989. First edition.
 |
| Hyperion |
Simmons, Dan. Hyperion.
Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2013. Signed limited edition.
"In the beginning was the
nightmare, and the knife was with Saint Paul, and the circumcision was a Jewish
notion and definitely not mine."
Live from Golgotha:
The Gospel According
to Gore Vidal
(1992), Gore Vidal
 |
| Live from Golgotha |
Vidal, Gore. Live
From Golgotha: The Gospel According to Gore Vidal. New York: Random House, 1992. First edition.
"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number
four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank
you very much. They were the last people
you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they
just didn't hold with such nonsense."
Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone (1997), J. K. Rowling
 |
| Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone |
Rowling, J. K. Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. New
York: Scholastic, 1998. First
edition, 22nd printing. This copy is signed by the author on the title page.
"I was born twice: first, as a
baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then
again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in
August of 1974."
Middlesex
(2002), Jeffrey Eugenides
 |
| Middlesex |
Eugenides, Jeffrey.
Middlesex. New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2002. First edition.
This first line ranked #50 on the list of "100 Best
Opening Lines of Novels" by American Book Review (Volume 27, No. 2,
2006).
"On the morning we are to leave
for our Grand Tour of the Continent, I wake in bed beside Percy. For a disorienting moment, it's unclear
whether we've slept together or simply slept together."
The Gentleman's Guide
to Vice and Virtue
(2017), Mackenzi Lee
 |
| The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue |
Lee, Mackenzi. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. New York: Katherine Tegen Books, 2017. First edition.
The Gospel of John
One collector showed five of the earliest English translations of the Bible, from the first translation into English by John Wycliffe in 1378 through to the King James Bible printed in 1611, comparing the opening two verses of the Gospel of John.
"In the bygynnynge was the worde (that is goddis sone),
and the worde was at god, and God was the worde. This was in the bigynnynge at God."
John 1.1-2, Wycliffe (1378)
 |
| Wycliffe's New Testament |
Wycliffe, John. The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Translated out of the Latin Vulgat by John Wiclif, S.T.P. Prebendary of Aust in the Collegiate Church of Westbury, and Rector of Lutterworth, about 1378. To Which Is Praefixt: A History of the Several Translations of the H. Bible and N. Testament, etc. into English, Both in MS and Print, and of the Most Remarkable Editions of Them Since the Invention of Printing. By John Lewis, A.M., Chaplain to the Right Honourable Thomas Lord Malton, and Minister of Mergate. London: Thomas Page and William Mount and William Parker, 1731. The first letterpress printing of Wycliffe's New Testament from its manuscript form, with a frontispiece facsimile of the manuscript page of John 1.
"In the begynnynge was the word, and the word was with God,
and God was the word. The same was in
the beginninge with God."
John 1.1-2, Tyndale (1526)
 |
| Tyndale's New Testament |
Tyndale, William. The Newe Testament of Oure Saviour Jesus Christe. Faythfully Translated oute of the Greke. With the Notes and Expositions of the Darke Places therein. London: Richard Jugge, 1553. An important and rare copy of an early edition of Tyndale's New Testament with revisions by the printer and editor, Richard Jugge. This edition includes a portrait of King Edward VI on the title page; his successor, Mary I, ordered all copies of Tyndale's translation to be burned, making copies exceedingly rare.
"In the begynnyng was the worde, and the word was with
God, and God was the worde. That was in
the begynnynge with God."
John 1.1-2, Coverdale (1535)
 |
| Coverdale's New Testament |
Coverdale, Miles. The Newe Testament Both in Latine and Englyshe Eche Correspondente to the Other after the Vulgare Texte, Communely Called S. Jeromes. Faythfullye Translated by Johan Hollybushe. Southwark [London], England: James Nicolson, 1538. Diglot printing with Coverdale's English translation in parallel with the Latin text.
"In the begynnynge was the worde, and the worde was wyth
God: and God was the worde. The same was
in the begynnyng wyth God."
John 1.1-2, The Great Bible (1539)
 |
| The Great Bible |
Great Bible. The Byble in Englyshe, That Is To Saye the Content of Al the Holy Scrypture, Both of the Olde, and Newe Testament, with a Prologe Therinto, Made by the Reverende Father in God, Thomas, Archbysshop of Cantorbury. This Is the Bible Apoynted to the Use of the Churches. London: Richard Grafton, 1540. Second printing (April 1540) with illustrated title pages by Hans Holbein. The New Testament title page of this early printing includes the coats of arms identifying Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, respectively; all references to Cranmer and Cromwell, including their coats of arms on the Holbein illustration, were removed from later printings of the Great Bible upon orders from Henry VIII.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God."
John 1.1-2, The King James Bible (1611)
 |
| The King James Bible (1611) |
Authorized Version. The Holy Bible. Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall Tongues: and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised, by His Majesties Speciall Commandement. Appointed to be Read in Churches. London: Robert Barker, 1611. The first printing of the King James Bible, bound with Speed, Genealogies, 1611.
