Special Sub-Topic: Openings of Literary Classics Click Here To Play: Openings of Literary Classics

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

A Tale of Two Cities. By Charles Dickens.

I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up.

On the Road. By Jack Kerouac.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

The Great Gatsby. By F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming along down the road . . .

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. By James Joyce.

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

Pride and Prejudice. By Jane Austen.

Except for the Marabar Caves--and they are twenty miles off--the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary.

A Passage to India. By E.M. Forster.

One summer afternoon Mrs Oedipa Maas came home froma tupperware party whose hostess had perhaps put too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity . . .

The Crying of Lot 49. By Thomas Pynchon.

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.

Frankenstein. By Mary Shelley.

I have just returned from a visit to my landlord--the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. . . . A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us.

Wuthering Heights. By Emily Bronte.

BRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNG! An alarm clock clanged in the dark and silent room. A bed spring creaked. A woman's voice sang out impatiently: 'Bigger, shut that thing off!'

Native Son. By Richard Wright.