# Has anyone actually read the "It was a dark and stormy night" book? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 1, 2006, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734 "2006-11-01T15:31:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/1 "2006-11-01T15:31:10Z")
Paul Clifford (I can never remeber the author’s name). If so, is the entire book bad, or just the beginning? And as a follow-up, almost all well known novels are thought of as being at least good- what are some well known novels that are real stinkers? (I mean those that are just poorly written, not those that are well done but you didn’t like the ending, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/2 "2006-11-01T15:34:21Z")
Apparently you can read it on Gutenberg: > **[Paul Clifford — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7735)** > > Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by volunteers. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/3 "2006-11-01T15:39:30Z")
An ENTIRE Bulwer-Lytton book? You do know they didn’t name that contest after him accidentally, right? My wife did wade through all of “The Last Days of Pompeii” but I don’t think anybody has read all of “Paul Clifford” for 150 years. I suspect even the Project Gutenberg editors had to do it piecemeal. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/4 "2006-11-01T15:52:01Z")
I would like to point out that some nights ARE darker than others. Especially moonless, cloudy nights. Not that I’ll take the effort to read Bulwer-Lytton. But I’ve enjoyed works by other Victorians perhaps considered “outdated.” I devoured the H Rider Haggard collection at home when I was a kid. And there are Lovecraft fans on the board. Talk about “purple prose”! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/5 "2006-11-01T15:57:08Z")
I’d like to point out that, not only does the Bulwer-Lytton book start out that way, but so does Madelyn L’Engle’s **A Wrinkle in Time**. I haven’t read the Bulwer-Lytton book, but I’ve read A Wrinkle in Time. Back in the late 1960s they published a hardcover version of Snoopy’s **It was a Dark and Story Night** , complete with the cover he described (submarine and all). I read that one, too. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/6 "2006-11-01T16:06:56Z")
“The night was sultry.” In any case, “It was a dark and stormy night” is not automatically a bad opening line (other than a fact that it’s been tagged as such). It depends on where the story goes next. For instance, “It was a dark and stormy night on Jupiter” works pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/7 "2006-11-01T17:23:31Z")
True, but > [@](#): > > 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 house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the > lamps that struggled against the darkness. Through one of the obscurest > quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the > police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was wending his solitary > way. does not. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/8 "2006-11-01T17:31:43Z")
Tt doesn’t make for good reading I agree, but it does sort of paint a good mental picture at least. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/9 "2006-11-01T18:35:44Z")
The key to reading Vic Lit is to do it aloud. Do the asides aside, pause for commas (they are there for a reason, surprisingly enough, not randomly strewn as they appear now; think of them as stage directions), change your tone for dependent clauses, act out the characters, and, when you get to the end of a chapter, put the book away for a week, as if it were serialized. Those books were not written to be read silently. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/10 "2006-11-01T18:42:57Z")
Stephen Leacock > [@](#): > > Gertrude the Governess: or, Simple Seventeen\_ > _Synopsis of Previous Chapters:_ > _There are no Previous Chapters._ > > IT was a wild and stormy night on the West Coast of > Scotland. This, however, is immaterial to the present > story, as the scene is not laid in the West of Scotland. > For the matter of that the weather was just as bad on the > East Coast of Ireland. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/11 "2006-11-01T19:36:31Z")
> [@](#): > > In any case, “It was a dark and stormy night” is not automatically a bad opening line (other than a fact that it’s been tagged as such). It depends on where the story goes next. Right. It’s not that it’s a bad opening line; the joke is that Snoopy keeps trying to build a whole novel around that one good line. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/12 "2006-11-01T20:48:56Z")
[QUOTE=dropzone] True, but does not. [/QUOTE] But…but…I want to know about the wending of the way that night…(see? bad fiction has lots of narrative drive). heh. And hello, stranger! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/13 "2006-11-01T21:08:11Z")
Snoopy was a fabulous writer once he got past his writer’s block. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/14 "2006-11-01T22:28:06Z")
I love the way it all comes together in the end. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/15 "2006-11-01T23:03:03Z")
[QUOTE=eleanorigby] But…but…I want to know about the wending of the way that night…(see? bad fiction has lots of narrative drive). [/QUOTE] Read the rest of the book. Heck, I only quoted HALF of the first paragraph. Bulwer-Lytton could go on for VOLUMES. And what is wrong with narrative drive, Miss Modernist? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/16 "2006-11-01T23:51:33Z")
[QUOTE=dropzone] Read the rest of the book. Heck, I only quoted HALF of the first paragraph. Bulwer-Lytton could go on for VOLUMES. And what is wrong with narrative drive, Miss Modernist? [/QUOTE] Nothing – but it is not the only way to go. ---
**Author:** ![NJ\_Kef\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b487fb/32.png) [@NJ\_Kef\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NJ_Kef_1)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/17 "2006-11-02T00:28:25Z")
Many years ago, I spent several nights in my mother’s old bedroom on the second floor of her ancestral home, a simple farmhouse a mile from the northern coast of Maine. The bed and mattress were at least 60 years old, the wallpaper was faded, and there was no electricity upstairs. It was like stepping back in time. On the nightstand was _The Last Days of Pompeii_, a very old volume with yellow leaves. I read a few chapters every night by lamplight. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/18 "2006-11-02T01:04:13Z")
**NJ\_Kef** - that sounds awesome- I am jealous right now (seriously, no joke). ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/19 "2006-11-02T01:56:17Z")
[QUOTE=dropzone] My wife did wade through all of “The Last Days of Pompeii” but I don’t think anybody has read all of “Paul Clifford” for 150 years. I suspect even the Project Gutenberg editors had to do it piecemeal. [/QUOTE] Kind of like the deadliest joke in the world, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/20 "2006-11-02T03:53:36Z")
> [@](#): > > I’d like to point out that, not only does the Bulwer-Lytton book start out that way, but so does Madelyn L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. I haven’t read the Bulwer-Lytton book, but I’ve read A Wrinkle in Time. Spider Robinson also began one of his novels with the line. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734.md?page=2)