QUIZ: Identify These Classic Novels From Just The First Line

We bet you won’t be able to remember all of these opening sentences without looking! Give it your best try!

Classic literature is timeless, meaningful, and beautiful. Some of the greatest books ever written have ranged from drama and romance to horror, comedy, and science fiction. You’re sure to have read at least a dozen or so of the classics, but this quiz is designed to see just how many you’ve read and — more importantly — how well you remember them!

Writers know that the opening sentence to any story has the power to either grab or lose the reader, and some of the best opening lines can be found in the classics. At the same time, not all of the great novels have well-known opening sentences. Some set the mood and tone. Others introduce characters or settings. There are opening sentences from first-person and third-person perspective. The narrator sometimes speaks to the reader in the opening lines, while other times the characters start the book with dialogue.

The point is, there are so many different ways authors have found to start their stories which would eventually become classic pieces of literature.

Take the quiz below and read 20 opening sentences from classic novels. You have to identify the correct book to which that first sentence belongs. The quiz may start out easy enough, but it will definitely get harder as you go. Good luck, readers!

</p> <section> <h2>QUIZ: Identify 20 Classic Novels By Their First Line</h2> <div>The canon of classic literature is rich with famous novels and authors, but how often do you remember the first sentence of a book? Sometimes they’re extremely memorable, but other times… maybe not? Let’s see if you can correctly identify which novel these first lines belong to!</div> </section> <section> <h2>“Call me Ishmael.”</h2> </section> <section> <h3>“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“Who’s there?”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“Who is John Galt?”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it: — it was the black kitten’s fault entirely.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“It was a pleasure to burn.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“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.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“All this happened, more or less.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the Army.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“It was love at first sight.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“On the 24th of February, 1815, the look–out at Notre–Dame de la Garde signalled the three–master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic.”</h3> </section> <section> <h3>“This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child.”</h3> </section> <section> <h2>Casual Reader</h2> <div>Looks like it’s time for you to start hitting the books! But don’t worry if you didn’t know all of these; maybe you just remember the plots more than the first lines. But look at the bright side – you have a whole world of great literature to discover or revisit now! Never stop reading!</div> </section> <section> <h3>Well-Read Individual</h3> <div>It’s obvious that you like to read and have made your way through some of the classics, but it may be time to dust some of them off and read them again. Great job getting a number of those right, though — most people couldn’t do that! Now see if your friends can do any better than you!</div> </section> <section> <h3>Book Lover!</h3> <div>Amazing job! You obviously know and love literature, so give yourself a pat on the back and then go pick up one of your favorite books as a treat. There may be a few classics that you haven’t read or forgot about, but you probably got more of these than your friends could. Share this quiz with them and find out!</div> </section> <section> <h3>Literature Expert!</h3> <div>There’s no doubt about it – you love literature and it shows! You probably have quite the library at home and you’re rarely without a book close by. That’s impressive! You would probably agree with C.S. Lewis when he said, “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”</div> <div></div> <div>Share this and see if any of your friends can do as well as you!</div> </section> <p>