A writing guide · updated 8 November 2026

Famous first lines, and why they work

Ten famous opening lines from books in the public domain, and the trick behind each: a voice, a claim, a strange rule, a death, a contrast. Use them to find the right start for your own story.

By the Feldar team

Famous first lines, and the trick each one uses

Every line here is from a book old enough to be in the public domain in the United States, so you can study it freely. Read each one for what it makes you ask. Many famous modern openings are still under copyright, so study those in the books themselves.

"Call me Ishmael."

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

A direct address. The narrator chooses what to be called, which hints that it may not be his real name.

"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 (1813)

Irony. The "truth" is really about what mothers of daughters want, and the whole novel tests it.

"Marley was dead: to begin with."

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843)

An ending used as a beginning, plus a wink: "to begin with" promises that he will not stay that way.

"All children, except one, grow up."

J. M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy (1911)

A universal rule with one exception. The exception is the story.

"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day."

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847)

Confinement. The first thing we learn about Jane is what she is not allowed to do.

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1878, translated by Constance Garnett)

A claim about everyone that narrows to one family, and promises we are about to meet an unhappy one.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

Contrast, repeated until it becomes rhythm. A divided era for a book about two cities.

"You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter."

Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

Voice before anything else. The grammar tells you who Huck is faster than any description.

"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

A narrator looking back. The reader wonders what happened that made the advice matter.

"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do."

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Boredom as a launch pad. A character with nothing to do is a character ready to follow a white rabbit.

What the best first lines have in common

They raise a question. Who is calling himself Ishmael? Why is Marley's death only the beginning?
They have a voice. You could not move any of these lines into another book.
They are short, or they have rhythm. Either one quick hit, or a long sentence that swings.
They point at the whole book. Austen's line is the novel's subject. Barrie's is Peter Pan's.

Want to try it with your own story? The first line generator writes five openings for your idea, each using a different technique.