"It was a dark and stormy night" is an often-mocked and parodied phrase considered to represent "the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style of fiction writing", [1] also known as purple prose.
"It was a dark and stormy night" is an often-mocked and parodied phrase considered to represent "the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style of fiction writing", [1] also known as purple prose.
The status of the sentence as an archetype for bad writing comes from the first phrase of the opening sentence of English novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford : [2]
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind that swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. [3]
The opening phrase had been in existence before Bulwer-Lytton employed it, appearing in the journal of the Doddington shipwreck that was published in 1757. [4] [ non-primary source needed ]
Writer's Digest described this sentence as "the literary posterchild for bad story starters". [5] On the other hand, the American Book Review ranked it as No. 22 on its "Best first lines from novels" list. [6]
In 2008, Henry Lytton Cobbold, a descendant of Bulwer-Lytton, participated in a debate in the town of Lytton, British Columbia, with Scott Rice, the founder of the International Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Rice accused Bulwer-Lytton of writing "27 novels whose perfervid turgidity I intend to expose, denude, and generally make visible." Lytton Cobbold defended his ancestor, noting that he had coined many other phrases widely used today such as "the pen is mightier than the sword", "the great unwashed", and "the almighty dollar". He said that it was "rather unfair that Professor Rice decided to name the competition after him for entirely the wrong reasons." [7] The phrase "the almighty dollar", however, had been used earlier by Washington Irving: [8] [ non-primary source needed ]
The Peanuts comic strip character Snoopy, in his imagined persona as the World Famous Author, sometimes begins his novels with the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night." [9] Cartoonist Charles Schulz made Snoopy use this phrase because "it was a cliché, and had been one for a very long time". [10] A book by Schulz, titled Snoopy and "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" includes a novel credited to Snoopy as author, was published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston in 1971. [11]
Janet and Allan Ahlberg wrote a book titled It Was a Dark and Stormy Night in which a kidnapped boy must keep his captors entertained with his storytelling. [12]
It is the opening line in the 1962 novel A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. [13] [14] L'Engle biographer Leonard Marcus notes that "With a wink to the reader, she chose for the opening line of A Wrinkle in Time, her most audaciously original work of fiction, that hoariest of cliches ... L'Engle herself was certainly aware of old warhorse's literary provenance as ... Edward Bulwer-Lytton's much maligned much parodied repository of Victorian purple prose, Paul Clifford." [15] While discussing the importance of establishing the tone of voice at the beginning of fiction, Judy Morris notes that L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time opens with "Snoopy's signature phrase". [16]
Chapter LXV of Alexandre Dumas' novel, The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires, 1844) begins with the phrase: "C'était une nuit orageuse et sombre... (It was a stormy and dark night...)
There are a variety of recursive stories based on the quote where one character tells another character a story, which itself begins with the same opening line. An example would be "It was a dark and stormy night and the Captain said to the mate, Tell us a story mate, and this is the story. It was a dark and stormy night......etc" [17] The stories often feature a character named Antonio, and they have been in existence since at least 1900. [18]
Kerry Turner: Twas a Dark and Stormy Night, Op. 12 (1987, rev. 2019), different versions. [19]
Joni Mitchell's song "Crazy Cries of Love" on her album Taming the Tiger (1998) opens with "It was a dark and stormy night". In the December 1998 issue of Musician , Mitchell discusses her idea of using several cliche lines in the lyrics of multiple songs on the album, such as "the old man is snoring" in the title song "Taming the Tiger". Her co-lyricist, Don Fried, had read of a competition in The New Yorker to write a story opening with "It was a dark and stormy night" and was inspired to put it in the lyrics of "Crazy Cries of Love". Mitchell states:
But the second line is a brilliant deviation from the cliché: "Everyone was at the wing-ding." It's a beautiful out, but that was because it was competition to dig yourself out of a cliché hole in an original way. He never sent it in to The New Yorker, but he just did it as an original exercise. [20]
In the second season of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation , the twelfth episode "The Royale" features Enterprise crewmembers trapped in a strange hotel on a planet otherwise incapable of supporting human life. In a hotel room, they find the corpse of an astronaut along with a pulp novel entitled Hotel Royale that begins "It was a dark and stormy night..." and containing many other clichés. As the sole survivor of an accidental contamination of his starship by an unknown alien race, the aliens took pity on him and created The Royale for him, thinking the novel's story described the human way of life, whereas the astronaut found it unbearable due to the story's poor quality. [21]
In the board game It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, players are given first lines of various famous novels and must guess their origin. Originally sold independently in bookstores in the Chicago area, [22] it was later[ when? ] picked up by the website Goodreadsgames.com. [23]
The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest was formed in 1982. The contest, sponsored by the English Department at San Jose State University, recognizes the worst examples of "dark and stormy night" writing. It challenges entrants to compose "the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels." [9] The best of the resulting entries have been published in a series of paperback books, starting with It Was a Dark and Stormy Night in 1984. [24]
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton,, was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies from June 1858 to June 1859, choosing Richard Clement Moody as founder of British Columbia. He was created Baron Lytton of Knebworth in 1866.
Adam Cadre is an American writer active in a number of forms—novels, screenplays, webcomics, essays—but best known for his work in interactive fiction.
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC) is a tongue-in-cheek contest, held annually and sponsored by the English Department of San José State University in San Jose, California. Entrants are invited "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels" – that is, one which is deliberately bad.
Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and young adult fiction, including A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. Her works reflect both her Christian faith and her strong interest in modern science.
A Wrinkle in Time is a young adult science fantasy novel written by American author Madeleine L'Engle. First published in 1962, the book won the Newbery Medal, the Sequoyah Book Award and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and was runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. The main characters – Meg Murry, Charles Wallace Murry, and Calvin O'Keefe – embark on a journey through space and time, from galaxy to galaxy, as they endeavor to rescue the Murrys' father and fight The Black Thing that has intruded into several worlds.
Many Waters is a 1986 novel by American writer Madeleine L'Engle, part of the author's Time Quintet. The title is taken from the Song of Solomon 8:7: "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. If a man were to give all his wealth for love, it would be utterly scorned."
Lytton is a village of about 250 residents in southern British Columbia, Canada, on the east side of the Fraser River and primarily the south side of the Thompson River, where it flows southwesterly into the Fraser. The community includes the Village of Lytton and the surrounding community of the Lytton First Nation, whose name for the place is Camchin, also spelled Kumsheen.
A Wind in the Door is a young adult science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle. It is a companion book to A Wrinkle in Time and part of the Time Quintet.
In literary criticism, purple prose is overly ornate prose text that may disrupt a narrative flow by drawing undesirable attention to its own extravagant style of writing, thereby diminishing the appreciation of the prose overall. Purple prose is characterized by the excessive use of adjectives, adverbs, and metaphors. When it is limited to certain passages, they may be termed purple patches or purple passages, standing out from the rest of the work.
A Swiftly Tilting Planet is a science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the third book in the Time Quintet. It was first published in 1978 with cover art by Diane Dillon.
Paul Clifford is a novel published in 1830 by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton. It tells the life of Paul Clifford, a man who leads a dual life as both a criminal and an upscale gentleman. The book was successful upon its release. It is best known for its opening phrase "It was a dark and stormy night...", which helped inspire the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
Christian science fiction is a subgenre of both Christian literature and science fiction, in which there are strong Christian themes, or which are written from a Christian point of view. These themes may be subtle, expressed by way of analogy, or more explicit. Major influences include early science fiction authors such as C. S. Lewis, while more recent figures include Stephen Lawhead.
Ernie Santilli is an American writer, musician and performer better known under the pen name of Stately Wayne Manor. He is best known for his participation in professional wrestling as the longtime magazine columnist for Power Slam and Wrestling World.
Henry Fromanteel Lytton Cobbold, 3rd Baron Cobbold, is a British screenwriter. He is the current occupant of Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, England.
Mike Young is an American game designer, author, and founder of the first independent professional LARP publishing house, "Interactivities Ink".
The Moon by Night (ISBN 0-374-35049-3) is the title of a young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Published in 1963, it is the second novel about Vicky Austin and her family, taking place between the events of Meet the Austins (1960) and The Young Unicorns (1968), and more or less concurrently with the O'Keefe family novel The Arm of the Starfish. The book marks the first appearance of the character Zachary Gray, who dates first Vicky and then Polly O'Keefe. Although Vicky will later appear in three novels that have fantasy and/or science fiction themes, there are no such elements in The Moon By Night.
The Young Unicorns (1968), ISBN 0-374-38778-8) is the title of a young adult suspense novel by American writer Madeleine L'Engle. It is the third novel about the Austin family, taking place between the events of The Moon by Night (1963) and A Ring of Endless Light (1980). Unlike those two novels and Meet the Austins (1960), it does not center on Vicky Austin specifically, but on a family friend, Josiah "Dave" Davidson.
The opening sentence or opening line stands at the beginning of a written work. The opening line is part or all of the opening sentence that may start the lead paragraph. For older texts the Latin term incipit is in use for the very first words of the opening sentence.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night is a dark comedic play written by American playwright Tim Kelly about a number of guests who become trapped in a New England Inn. The play won the Robert J. Pickering Award for Play writing Excellence, and was first published in 1988. The title is a nod to the famous phrase written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, "It was a dark and stormy night."
Devereux is an 1829 historical novel by the British writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton, published in three volumes. It takes place during the reign of Queen Anne and partly revolves around a secret Jacobite plot to place the pretender James Stuart on the throne. He earned £1,500 for the novel from his publisher Henry Colburn, trebling his earnings from the successful silver fork novel Pelham of the previous year. He dedicated it to his friend the Canadian traveller and writer John Auldjo, then living in Naples. The story of a sibling rivalry between three brothers may have been influenced by Bulwer-Lytton's own upbringing.
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