# Has anyone actually read the "It was a dark and stormy night" book?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734>\
**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:** 5\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/21 "2006-11-02T04:07:07Z")

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There was an entire Batman story written in cliche.

It was a dark and stormy night.

A shot rang out.

Etc. It was pretty funny.

Tris

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**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/22 "2006-11-02T05:12:48Z")

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Count me in the minority, but I think that the opening lines of _Paul Clifford_ are vivid and quite well done.

Maybe readers of post-Hemingway prose are not used to long sentences with a lot of dependent clauses. But they were tyical in 19th-century English prose; read the opening lines of Dickens novels, for heaven’s sake.

In further defense of Bulwer-Lytton, his 1859 story of the occult, “[The Haunted and the Haunters](http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14195),” is still widely reprinted in horror anthologies.

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**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/23 "2006-11-02T05:42:07Z")

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[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]  
I love the way it all comes together in the end.  
[/QUOTE]  
But what about the king?

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**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 2, 2006, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/24 "2006-11-02T15:09:08Z")

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[QUOTE=RealityChuck]  
Nothing – but it is not the only way to go.  
[/QUOTE]  
It is if you want people to buy next month’s installment. Bulwer Lytton wrote, in part, to make money.

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**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2006, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-actually-read-the-it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-night-book/378734/25 "2006-11-02T17:30:56Z")

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[QUOTE=Triskadecamus]  
There was an entire Batman story written in cliche.

It was a dark and stormy night.

A shot rang out.  
[/QUOTE]

Those are very close to the first two lines of Snoopy’s “great novel,” the entire first chapter of which I believe is:  
It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out. A door slammed. The maid screamed. Suddenly, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon. While millions of people were starving, the king lived in luxury. Meanwhile, on a small farm in Kansas, a girl was growing up.

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