First Line, First Pages

Overview and Issue

• Article on the importance of the first line in a novel.
• WG142

Abstract

• This article discusses the importance of the first line, first page rule in a novel to capture the attention of the reader. She illustrates the use of this talent by several authors such as Dickens, du Maurier and Austen and how these first lines became immediate identifiers of the work. The article describes how effectively Dorothy Dunnett used her opening lines in the Lymond series. However, the first line is not always the most memorable, and there is the last line of Gone with the Wind; but for Dunnett readers it is the last line of CM: We have reached the open sea, with some charts; and the firmament.

Author

Janet Kebbell

Fictional Characters

• Lymond
• Philippa Sommerville
• Austin Grey

Locations

• (none)

Literature

• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• A Christmas Carol by Chalres Dickens
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Illustrations

• Woman Reading, Rembrandt, 1606-69. Copyright Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rogers Fund, 1926

Quotes from Dunnett

• (none)