"It was a dark and stormy night ""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"", also known as purple prose. The phrase was first used by Washington Irving in his 1809 ""A History of New York"". Its status as a catchphrase for bad writing comes from the opening sentence of English novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel ""Paul Clifford"": ""Writer's Digest"" described this sentence as ""the literary posterchild for bad story starters"". On the other hand, the ""American Book Review"" ranked it"
"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."" 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. It was a dark and stormy night ""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"", also known as purple prose. The phrase was first used by"
"decided to name the competition after him for entirely the wrong reasons"". The ""Peanuts"" comic strip character Snoopy, in his imagined persona as the World Famous Author, always begins his novels with the phrase ""It was a dark and stormy night."" Cartoonist Charles Schulz made Snoopy use this phrase because ""it was a cliché, and had been one for a very long time"". A book by Schulz, titled ""It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, Snoopy,"" and credited to Snoopy as author, was published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston in 1971. It is the opening line in the popular 1962"
"to capture the rapid changes in point of view, the florid language, and the atmosphere of the full sentence. The opening was popularized by the ""Peanuts"" comic strip, in which Snoopy's sessions on the typewriter usually began with It was a dark and stormy night. The same words also form the first sentence of Madeleine L'Engle's Newbery Medal-winning novel ""A Wrinkle in Time."" Similar wording appears in Edgar Allan Poe's 1831 short story, ""The Bargain Lost"", although not at the very beginning. It reads: It was a dark and stormy night. The rain fell in cataracts. Several of Bulwer-Lytton's novels"
"was a friend and contemporary of Charles Dickens and was one of the pioneers of the historical novel, exemplified by his most popular work, ""The Last Days of Pompeii"". He is best remembered today for the opening line to the novel ""Paul Clifford"", which begins ""It was a dark and stormy night..."" and is considered by some to be the worst opening sentence in the English language. However, Bulwer-Lytton is also responsible for well-known sayings such as ""The pen is mightier than the sword"" from his play ""Richelieu"". Despite being a very popular author for 19th-century readers, few people today"
"University and is named for English novelist and playwright Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, author of the much-quoted first line ""It was a dark and stormy night"". This opening, from the 1830 novel ""Paul Clifford"", continues: The first year of the competition attracted just three entries, but it went public the next year, received media attention, and attracted 10,000 entries. There are now several subcategories, such as detective fiction, romance novels, Western novels, and purple prose. Sentences that are notable but not quite bad enough to merit the Grand Prize or a category prize are awarded Dishonorable Mentions. The winning entries are"
"Because of its Romantic qualities, it has likewise become a textbook example of purple prose. ""It was a dark and stormy night"" is only the beginning of the full first sentence: 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 which 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. (Second edition (1840)) Paul Clifford Paul Clifford is a novel published in"
"Paul Clifford 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 the source of the famous opening phrase ""It was a dark and stormy night..."" ""Paul Clifford"" tells the story of a chivalrous highwayman in the time of the French Revolution. Brought up not knowing his origins and living an evil life, Clifford is arrested for theft. The love of his life is Lucy Brandon."
"new edition includes a previously unpublished interview with L'Engle as well as the text of her Newbery Medal acceptance speech. Thirteen-year-old Meg Murry's classmates and teachers see her as a troublesome and stubborn student. Her family knows that she is emotionally immature but also sees her capable of doing great things. The family includes her scientist mother Katherine, her missing scientist father Alexander, the twins Sandy and Dennys, and her five-year-old brother Charles Wallace Murry, a child genius who can sometimes read Meg's mind. The book begins with the line ""It was a dark and stormy night,"" an allusion to"
"Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, who served as Governor-General of India and British Ambassador to France, and wrote poetry under the pseudonym Owen Meredith. Bulwer-Lytton's literary works were highly popular; his novels earned him a fortune. He coined the phrases ""the great unwashed"", ""pursuit of the almighty dollar"", ""the pen is mightier than the sword"", and ""dweller on the threshold"". Then came a sharp decline in his reputation, so that he is known today for little more than the opening line ""It was a dark and stormy night"", the first seven words of his novel ""Paul Clifford"" (1830). The sardonic"
"The City of Dreadful Night The City of Dreadful Night is a long poem by the Scottish poet James ""B.V."" Thomson, written between 1870 and 1873, and published in the ""National Reformer"" in 1874, then in 1880 in a book entitled ""The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems."" Thomson, who sometimes used the pseudonym ""Bysshe Vanolis"" — in honour of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Novalis — was a thorough pessimist, suffering from lifelong melancholia and clinical depression, as well as a wanderlust that took him to Colorado and to Spain, among other places. The ""City of Dreadful Night"" that"
"Edward Dickens Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens (13 March 1852 – 23 January 1902) was the youngest son of English novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. He immigrated to Australia at the age of 16, and eventually entered politics, serving as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1889 to 1894. He died in poverty at the age of 49. Nicknamed ""Plorn"", Dickens was clearly named after Edward Bulwer-Lytton — nowadays much satirised for the famous opening line of his 1830 novel ""Paul Clifford"", ""It was a dark and stormy night"" — and educated at Tunbridge Wells"
"The Shadow of Night The Shadow of Night is a long poem written by George Chapman; it was first published in 1594, in an edition printed by Richard Field for William Ponsonby, the prestigious publisher of Edmund Spenser and Sir Philip Sidney. The poem was Chapman's first significant literary work; it is furnished with abundant notes and references to classical Greek and Roman authors (41 in total, drawn from the ""Mythologiae"" of Niccolo Conti). The title page of the first edition gives the title in both English and Greek (Σκία νυκτός, ""Skia nyktos""). The poem's reception as an important development"
"A Dark Night's Work A Dark Night's Work is an 1863 novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. It was first published serially in Charles Dickens's magazine ""All the Year Round"". The word ""dark"" was added to the original title by Dickens against Gaskell's wishes. Dickens felt that the altered title would be more striking. The story centers on a country lawyer, Edward Wilkins, and his daughter Ellinor. Edward has an artistic and literary personality, unsuited to his social position as the son of a successful lawyer who takes over his father's practice in the provincial town of Hamley. His legal representation of"
"""Mystery Scene"" magazine, and served as editor and publisher until 2002. His column, “Gormania,” continues to appear regularly in its pages. In comics, he has written for DC, Dark Horse, and most recently Short, Scary Tales, which will be publishing adaptations of his novel ""Cage of Night"" (as ""Cage of Night)"" and the short story ""Stalker"" (as ""Gut-Shot""). ""Kirkus Reviews"" has called him ""One of the most original crime writers around."" ""The Bloomsbury Review"" noted: ""He is the poet of dark suspense."" ""The Oxford Book of American Crime Stories"" said: ""His novels and stories provide fresh ideas, characters and approaches."""
"Brought before her uncle, Judge Brandon, for the robbery, it is unexpectedly revealed that Clifford is Brandon's son. That revelation complicates the trial, but Judge Brandon tries Clifford and condemns him to death. Clifford escapes from jail. With his lover and cousin, Lucy, he makes his way to America. Although ""Paul Clifford"" is rarely read among the general reading public today, it contains one of the most widely known incipits in English literary history: ""It was a dark and stormy night..."" It is frequently invoked for its atmospheric and neo-Gothic description, often in the mystery, detective, horror, and thriller genres."
"Race"" and ""Zanoni"" in her own books. Bulwer-Lytton's name lives on in the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which contestants think up terrible openings for imaginary novels, inspired by the first line of his 1830 novel ""Paul Clifford"": 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 which 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. Entrants in the contest seek"
"of the Night"" after Chapman's poem. The Shadow of Night The Shadow of Night is a long poem written by George Chapman; it was first published in 1594, in an edition printed by Richard Field for William Ponsonby, the prestigious publisher of Edmund Spenser and Sir Philip Sidney. The poem was Chapman's first significant literary work; it is furnished with abundant notes and references to classical Greek and Roman authors (41 in total, drawn from the ""Mythologiae"" of Niccolo Conti). The title page of the first edition gives the title in both English and Greek (Σκία νυκτός, ""Skia nyktos""). The"
"who has pretty well exhausted himself as a writer and who keeps going only with the aid of three secretaries, Bernanos seems cruelly bent on guying himself. His honesty here, however, is swamped by the exacerbated preoccupation with contemporary literary names, jobs and reputations and by the arbitrary violences of behaviour of the sickly and sinister trio of secretaries. Night Is Darkest Night Is Darkest is a novel by the French writer Georges Bernanos, published posthumously in 1950. Its French title is Un mauvais rêve which means ""a bad dream"". It tells the story of a writer who is out"
"The Night Eternal The Night Eternal is a 2011 vampire horror novel by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. It is the final novel in ""The Strain Trilogy"" beginning with ""The Strain"" and continuing with ""The Fall"". Two years have passed since the vampires, led by the Master, used atomic weapons to create a nuclear winter, which blocked the sun and allowed the vampires to move freely, except for a few hours a day. The vampires restructured society as a police state. The strongest and the most influential humans were exterminated and those who were spared were made slaves. The"
"have all faced their fears of death and of life. The novel's title is drawn from Dylan Thomas' 1947 poem about his dying father, ""Do not go gentle into that good night"", which contains the lines: Do not go gentle into that good night.<br> Rage, rage against the dying of the light. It mentions a race of beings called the ""githyanki"". This name was taken from the novel for use with a much different race in the ""Advanced Dungeons & Dragons"" game. Dying of the Light Dying of the Light is American author George R. R. Martin's first novel, published"
"Horror in Literature"", wrote ""but for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality [it] would be a classic of the first water"". ""The Night Land"" (1912) is a much longer novel, written in an archaic style and expressing a sombre vision of a sunless far-future world; Lovecraft described it as ""one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written"". These works both contain elements of science fiction, although they also partake of horror and the occult. According to critical consensus, in these works, despite his often laboured and clumsy language, Hodgson achieves a deep power of expression which focuses"
"scenario being a resourceful female menaced in a gloomy castle. The Gothic tradition blossomed into the genre modern readers call horror literature in the 19th century. Influential works and characters that continue resonating with film and cinema today saw their genesis in such works as the Brothers Grimm's ""Hänsel und Gretel"" (1812), Mary Shelley's ""Frankenstein"" (1818), Washington Irving's ""The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"" (1820), Jane C. Loudon's """" (1827), Victor Hugo's ""The Hunchback of Notre Dame"" (1831), Thomas Peckett Prest's ""Varney the Vampire"" (1847), Nathaniel Hawthorne's ""The Scarlet Letter"" (1850), the works of Edgar Allan Poe, the works of Sheridan"
"night of the party. Darrell Schweitzer, ""Cline, Leonard"", in David Pringle (ed), ""St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers"". London : St. James Press, 1998, Leonard Cline Leonard Lanson Cline (11 May 1893-15/16 January 1929) was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, and journalist. Born in the United States in Bay City, Michigan, he attended the University of Michigan, was married in 1913, published his first book of poetry, ""Poems"", in 1914 and worked for ""The Detroit News"" from 1916 until 1922. In 1922 he began a job with the newspaper ""Baltimore Sun"". His writings were published"
"Spooky Stories for a Dark and Stormy Night Spooky Stories for a Dark and Stormy Night is a children's horror anthology compiled by Alice Low and illustrated by Gahan Wilson. It was published in 1994, and contains nineteen stories by various authors. A majority of the collection is based on retelling folktales from around the world, but some are completely original, such as ""Duffy's Jacket"" and ""Good-bye, Miss Patterson."" The book opens up with an introduction by Alice Low, followed by five chapters. If the titles of each chapter are read one after another, they form their own brief story:"
"Morning, Noon and Night (novel) Morning, Noon and Night is a 1995 novel by Sidney Sheldon. The Stanford family is one of the most respected in America - but behind the facade of fame and glamour lies a hidden web of blackmail, drugs and murder. When Harry Stanford, one of the wealthiest men in the world,mysteriously drowns while cruising on his yacht off the rugged coast of Corsica, it sets off a chain of events that reverberates around the globe. At the family gathering following the funeral in Boston, a strikingly beautiful young woman appears. She claims to be Stanford's"
"Published in January 1, 2018 by Catapult, Hoby's debut novel, ""Neon in Daylight"", is set in New York during the months leading up to Hurricane Sandy. The book follows the intertwining lives of a middle-aged writer, his rebellious daughter, and a newly transplanted English woman. Reviewing the novel in the ""Los Angeles Review of Books"", Bradley Babendir called ""Neon in Daylight"" ""luminous and wonderful...[Hoby's] style has a delicious, raucous quality."" In ""The New York Times"", Parul Seghal compared ""Neon in Daylight"" to Joan Didion’s ""Play It as It Lays"", saying ""precision — of observation, of language — is Hoby’s gift."
"simple matter; nor is Diana’s search for the key to understanding her legacy. Harkness submitted the novel's manuscript to her publisher in late 2011. ""Shadow of Night"" was published by Viking Press for a North American release on 10 July 2012. It debuted at number one in Hardcover Fiction on the ""New York Times"" Best Seller list, and number four in Combined Print & E-book Fiction. It landed at number four on the ""USA Today"" Best-Selling Book list. ""Shadow of Night"" was met with generally positive reviews from literary critics. Sherryl Connelly of the ""New York Daily News"" described the"
"always occurs in ""that instant when all light has failed out of the sky and it would be night save for that faint light which daygranaried leaf and grass blade reluctant suspire, making still a little light on earth though night itself has come."" The story that would eventually become the novel, started by Faulkner in 1931, was originally titled ""Dark House"" and began with Hightower sitting at a dark window in his home. However, after a casual remark by his wife Estelle on the quality of the light in August, Faulkner changed the title. All of the protagonists in"
"and Mr. Toad"", and again in 1999. Throughout the evolution of the goth subculture, classic romantic, Gothic and horror literature has played a significant role. E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822), Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), and other tragic and romantic writers have become as emblematic of the subculture as the use of dark eyeliner or dressing in black. Baudelaire, in fact, in his preface to ""Les Fleurs du mal"" (""Flowers of Evil"") penned lines that could serve as a sort of goth malediction: <poem>""C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,"" ""Il rêve d'échafauds en"
"Fire and the Night Fire and the Night is an American novel by Philip José Farmer. It was published in 1962 by Regency Books, as a paperback costing 50 cents. Unusual for Farmer, the novel contains no science fictional or otherwise fantastic themes. It was his first ""mainstream"" book, but did not attract much attention from critics or readers alike. It has been recently reprinted by Subterranean Press in the collection ""The Other in the Mirror"". ""Fire and the Night"" tells the story of a Caucasian man and an African-American woman who work at a contemporary steel mill. The man"
"peace. Described by Antonia Fraser as an ""honest and enterprising attempt to interweave the eternal and immortal longings of youth into the texture of a contemporary story"" Gnosticism. The Haunted Storm The Haunted Storm (1972) is author Philip Pullman's first book. He was only 25 at the time and it was ""published by a publisher who didn't realise it wasn't a very good book"". ""The Haunted Storm"" became joint winner of the New English Library's Young Writer's Award in 1972. Unease and suspicion divide a small village following violence and death. Matthew Cortez is physically involved in the investigation, finding"
"Alan Sillitoe Alan Sillitoe (4 March 192825 April 2010) was an English writer and one of the so-called ""angry young men"" of the 1950s. He disliked the label, as did most of the other writers to whom it was applied. He is best known for his debut novel ""Saturday Night and Sunday Morning"" and his early short story ""The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner"", both of which were adapted into films. Sillitoe was born in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, to working-class parents, Christopher Sillitoe and Sabina (née Burton). Like Arthur Seaton, the anti-hero of his first novel, ""Saturday Night and Sunday"