Famous First Words

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

Yes, Jophiel’s is definitely Conan Doyle’s THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, and pluto’s is definitely Sayers’s BUSMAN’S HONEYMOON.

DA8) Heinlein; HAVE SPACE SUIT, WILL TRAVEL.

Arnold: The quote involving Mr. Whybrow is from the Thomas Burke short story, “The Hands of Mr. Ottermole.” It’s famous for being the first, or one of the first, crime stories featuring a serial killer, as well as for having a policeman as murderer.

Okay, here’s a LESS obscure crime short story, which has been called the “most anthologized” in the mystery world:

U4) “Practically all those letters remaining in the alphabet after Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen was named were afterward acquired by that gentleman in the course of a brilliant scientific career, and, being honorably acquired, were tacked on to the other end. His name, therefore, taken with all that belonged to it, was a wonderfully imposing structure.”

Uke

102

Of course, Jacques Futrelle (spelling?), “The problem of cell 13.” I remember him because his first name as the same as mine (IRL). Didn’t he die on the Titanic? Though I had no idea his story was “the most anthologized.” I used to have a book with some of his “thinking machine” stories, but lost it in a move.

103

Arnold:

Yup. “The Problem of Cell 13” was first published around 1907, and it’s still considered the last word in the “impossible crime” subgenre, the “locked-room” subgenre, and probably a couple of other subgenres, too.

I LOVE the Thinking Machine stories (TM was Professor Van Dusen’s nickname). Most people who’ve encountered “The Problem of Cell 13” aren’t aware that there are about two dozen others. Dover Publications had them out a few years ago in two different collections, both sadly now out of print.

And yes, Jacques Futrelle DID die on the Titanic.

Uke

104

I’m still waiting to hear where this one cited by Da Ace comes from:
“In five years, the penis will be obsolete,” said the salesman…

My first thought was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, but that may be just because the author’s name is Dick.

105

MTS3: Given that there aren’t that many books for the non-specialist reader by theoretical physicists, I’ll guess at A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. A book which, I have to say, is not half as easy to read as the introduction makes out (I never finished it).

DA6 = Dhalgren (?sp.), [?Simon] Delaney

DA7 = Ringworld, Larry Niven.

DA9: I remember that he was actually called Sam. I remember that the novel had a quasi-religious title. I cannot remember the title or the author. How frustrating!

106

Scanning back, it looks like nobody got:

J1 = Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

107

TomH:

That was such a good guess. It’s not A Brief History of Time however. I’ll give one more hint:

The author is popularly known for his cat.

The Sentence again:
MTS-3: “This little book arose from a course of public lectures, delivered by a theoretical physicist to an audience of about four hundred which did not substantially dwindle, though warned at the outset that the subject-matter was a difficult one and that the lectures could not be termed popular, even though the physicist’s most dread weapon, mathematical deduction, would hardly be utilized.”

108

The famous cat owner would have to be Irwin Schroedinger (sp?) but I can’t identify the work.

109

Here’s a high soft one for someone, and I can believe no one’s posted it yet:

J1: “Last night I dreamed I was at Manderly again.”

C’mon . . . it’s an easy one. :slight_smile:

Jodi

Fiat Justitia

110

The Book is What is Life? By Irwin Schrödinger.

111
112

Cristi:

It appears no one has (correctly) answered:

Which of course begins Dante’s Divine Comedy.

113

This answer may already have been given, but “Call me Jonah” is the first line in Cat’s Cradle.

114

i just found this thread. quite enjoyable, but all the ones i knew were answered by someone. oh well. here’s one for y’all…

E1-
Scene 1: A guard platform of the castle.
Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two sentinels.

-ellis

115

E1: Hamlet - Shakespeare

116

TomH guessed:

Yup, it is Dhalgren by Samuel Delany

Also quite right.

The book is by Roger Zelazny, if that helps jog your memory.

And, since we’ve got a few long-outstanding, I’ll make a few WAGs:

Fretful Porpentine, #2 (Mason City) – could this be Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon? (after I type it, it sounds like a monumentally stupid guess)

#4 (One may as well begin with Helen’s Letters to her sister.) – maybe Howard’s End by E.M Forster? (though I think that if that were it, someone would have gotten it by now)

Yue Han YH2 (The drought had lasted…) – this is sort of a cheat, since I looked at this book for possibilties of my own, and realized it had been taken while re-reading the list, but it’s 2001 by Arthur C. Clarke

pluto, I know that “Marriages: Wimsey-Vane” must be from Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey series (and pretty late in the series), but I don’t know the books at all, so I don’t know which one.

…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!

117

OK, this is kind of long, but these are all well-known books (or at least I think they are.)

AW1 Eh bien, mon prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now no more than private estates of the Bonaparte family.

AW2 If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

AW3 Many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events which have been fulfilled in our midst, precisely as those events were transmitted to us by the original eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.

AW4 It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I as wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it.

AW5 Sth, I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He feel for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going.

AW6 Mrs. Ferrars died on the night of the 16th-17th September - a Thursday. I was sent for at eight o’clock on the morning of Friday the 17th. There was nothing to be done. She had been dead some hours.

AW7 Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure.

118

Rackensack: It’s about time! I was beginning to worry, sifting through all those posts, and no one guessed. More specifically, it’s Inferno. I love that book.

“The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his ribcage.” --anonymous redhead

119

AW2) The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger.

120

Arnold, I’m obsessing over your 7th question. It’s driving me crazy! I’ve read it before…