Who Said That?: The Opening Lines of Great Literature

How well--read are you? This literature quiz book will tell you. Some of those opening lines of great novels, plays, short stories and poems will be familiar, some are challenging and a few are for the most knowledgeable among us. See how well you do.

Ideally, the beginning sentence of a literary work should draw the reader in and want him or her to continue on. Authors usually devote a great deal of time to this first sentence. Indeed, there is a story, probably myth, about a writer who spend twenty years rewriting the first sentence of his novel!

Oonald J. Thomas has spent 40 years teaching language and literature, in three languages, from elementary school through college. He currently teaches foreign language in college at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Utica, NY.