It was a dull and uneventful day.
Being remembered for being eminently forgettable is no virtue, but not necessarily much of a vice either. In was on this day, in 1803, that Edward George Bulwer-Lytton was born. But before anyone asks "Edward George who?", I'll of course be happy to explain. It was Edward George Bulwer-Lytton who began his novel of 1830, Paul Clifford, with that most classic of opening lines:
It was a dark and stormy night and 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.
Bulwer-Lytton had no intention of creating the ultimate literary cliche, but he seems to have succeeded, especially with the aid of Charles Schulz's Snoopy who, atop his dog house, paws perched above the keyboard of his typewriter, wrote and rewrote the first seven words of that sentence.
Bulwer-Lytton was, among other things, a member of the British parliament, and Secretary of State for the colonies. In his day he was a well known figure. Were his novels popular? Apparently yes. There are even those who report that his prose was quite a bit more than just passable (I admit I've never read him, and doubt that I will). Though almost everyone knows the phrase the pen is mightier than the sword few know its source. It too is by Bulwer-Lytton, from a play entitled Richelieu. He has been immortalized in a contest that bears his name, in which every year since 1983 contestants are invited to "compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels".
Go to: Only six clicks away.