Opening Lines from Famous Novels

Can you name the novels whose first lines are:

1. Call me Ishmael.

2. I Am an invisible man.

3. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

4. Mother died today. Or maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure.

5. It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.

6. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

7. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

8. As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

Answers:

1. Moby Dick by Herman Melville 

2. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 

3. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 

4. The Outsider by Albert Camus 

5. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 

6. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 

8. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Best Opening Lines from Children's Books II

Can you name the books whose first lines are:

1. One sunny Sunday, the caterpillar was hatched out of a tiny egg. He was very hungry.

2. Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and his two children.

3. Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would not have given to the child.

4. There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

5. 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.

6. The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way towards the lagoon.

7. You don't know about me without you have read a book called "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but that ain't no matter.

8. Marley was dead, to begin with.

9. The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette

10. Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.

11. Once upon a time, a little girl named Laura traveled in a covered wagon across the giant prairie.

12. The pretty little Swiss town of Mayenfield lies at the foot of a mountain range, whose grim rigged peaks tower over the valley below.

13. It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.

14. Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits .......

15. In the great forest a little elephant was born .........

Answers:

1. The very Hungry Caterpillar 

2. Hansel and Gretel

3. Little Red Riding Hood

4. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

5. Anne of Green Gables

6. Lord of the Flies

7. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

8. A Christmas Carol

9. The Princess Bride

10. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 

11. Little House on the Prairie

12. Heidi

13. Matilda 

14. Peter Rabbit 

15. The Story of Babar

Best Opening Lines from Children's Books I

Can you name the books whose first lines are:

1. All children, except one, grow up.

2. "Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

2. The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in the house all that cold, wet day.

3. The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it.

4. In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.

5. The Mole has been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.

6. This is George. He lived in Africa.

7. Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong, ding-dong.

8. When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.

9. "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

10. Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy.

11. These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr. Bucket.

12. The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another his mother called him "WILD THING!"and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!" so he was sent to bed without eating anything.

Answers:

1. Peter Pan

2. Charlotte's Web

3. The Cat in the Hat

4. Madeline

5. The Wind in the Willows

6. Curious George

7. The Little Engine That Could

8. The Secret Garden

9. Little Women

10. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

11. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

12. Where the Wild Things Are