What are your favorite first lines?

We all know memorable first lines from famous novels. There's, of course:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

And there's also:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Children's lit has its classic lines, too. Like:

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug." - Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

But there are very many novels out there. And, while they do not provide modern-day writers with material to manipulate and, in some cases, abuse (I'm thinking, the kick-off to Austen's novel), they do have some pretty good openers. One that I like particularly comes from another kids' book, C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I chuckle whenever I read it and like to fancy that I'll one day have the opportunity to read it aloud at some storytime hour somewhere. It so would make a great spoken sentence. As a matter of fact the whole first paragraph is stellar and with it Lewis paints an enviable character sketch of a main character; you get the feeling you know who you're dealing with when you've read the first page.

"There once was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

I can just imagine that avuncular Lewis telling this story beginning to the neighborhood kids. And do you ever hear of anyone talking about it? At least the negative answer to that question means that the sentence has survived untainted by the overuse of writers looking for a cutesy, "clever" way to open their own stories. I might mention again poor Jane Austen's first line to end all first lines.

I suppose that my love of this line is unique and explains why no one has pinched it to use it in their own way. Lewis's line is unassuming, it doesn't try too hard. And perhaps it plays to a childlike sense of humor. But how many subtle lines can send a kid into hysterics? Granted I have yet to witness this but I haven't tested the theory yet. And if my inner gauge is correct I am sure that I would have been rolling on the floor as a kid and reading this line out to adults while waiting to see them collapse into fits of laughter. (I used to do this - read from my books, look up after I'd read the good part, and wonder why my family wasn't chortling heartily. But that's a story for another day.)

So this is my nomination for the best first lines list. It's not Austen or Dickens but just think what a great theater-trained actor could do with it, reading the first clause matter-of-factly, raising his head and stating slowly and viciously "and he almost deserved it," with eyes narrowing at the poetic justice implied.

Now, what's your nomination?

How d'ya like them apples an' oranges?

It seems some screenwriter has taken the lovely Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and based a fantasy called Lost in Austen on it. Now, I'm straying a bit, just a bit, from the topic of books because Lost in Austen is a television program; but, with its literary roots it seems an appropriate tangent to explore.

After thinking so much about the unfortunate-but-oddly-fun-at-the-same-time Lost in Austen, I thought back on the book Austenland by Shannon Hale. They're really quite similar (a romance in a regency-esque environment) as so many JA knock-offs tend to be, but I recently blogged about its relatively good taste.This stands in such dire contradiction to some aspects of the new Lost in Austen that I selfishly thought I'd ask JA lovers and readers a question or two: How do you compare or contrast the arguably more innocent Austenland (which has had its own criticisms of being too tame) and the arguably racier Lost in Austen?

Granted, I realize this is an apples and oranges situation, with one being a television production and one a novel, but as they are both related works of writing I thought, why not?

Is Austenland too innocent to be believable? Is Lost in Austen a bit vulgar at times?