In fiction, it is often said that the first line of the story is the most important. I have my favorites, as I’m sure you do. As a non-fiction writer, though, I began to wonder about first lines of non-fiction. So, without having to go far, I looked up the first lines in the following works of non-fiction and thought I’d spring them on you.
His arrival in Philadelphia is one of the most famous scenes in autobiographical literature: the bedraggled 17-year-old runaway, cheeky yet with a pretense of humility, straggling off the boat and buying three puffy rolls as he wanders up Market Street.
Walter Isaacson
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
John Wilkes Booth awoke Good Friday morning, April 14, 1865, hungover and depressed.
James L. Swanson
Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer
Vatican propaganda notwithstanding, Peter was never “bishop of Rome.”
Thomas Cahill
Pope John XXIII: A Life
“I promise you four papers,” the young patent examiner wrote his friend.
Walter Isaacson
Einstein: His Life and Universe
Popular myth has it that one of the most remarkable conversations in modern literary history took place on a cool and misty late autumn afternoon in 1896, in the small village of Crowthorne in the county of Berkshire.
Simon Winchester
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
In the early nineties (it might have been 1992 but it’s hard to remember when you’re having a good time) I joined a rock-and-roll band composed mostly of writers.
Stephen King
On Writing
If the intended reader of this book should want to go beyond disagreement with its author and try to identify the sins and deformities that animated him to write it (and I have certainly noticed that those who publicly affirm charity and compassion and forgiveness are often inclined to take this course), then he or she will not just be quarreling with the unknowable and ineffable creator who–presumably–opted to make this way.
Christopher Hitchens
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
I am not all here, it’s true.
Terry Brooks
Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life
The title of this book differs by only two letters from that of a book first published in 1988.
Stephen Hawking with Leonard Mlodinow
A Briefer History of Time
In November 2008 the surviving members of the original Monty Python team, stunned by the extent of digital piracy of their videos, issued a very stern announcement on YouTube.
Chris Anderson
Free: The Future of a Radical Price
Flying into Australia, I realized with a sigh that I had forgotten again who their prime minister is.
Bill Bryson
In a Sunburned Country
What should we have for dinner?
Michael Pollan
The Omnivore’s Dilemna: A Natural History of Four Meals
Anybody else have non-fiction line they’d like to throw out?
Do any of these lines make you want to read the book? Or just the first paragraph?
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In the second century of the Christian Era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.
-Edward Gibbon- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(I think what is remarkable about this first line and of Gibbon’s style for the next 3000 pages is that the majesty of his prose is so fitting for the grandeur of the subject. And never overwritten. I think we can all learn something from Gibbon.)
Hi Andy,
Wow, what an outstanding first line! You’ve totally nailed its effectiveness as well.
Thanks!
Terisa
excellent stuff. Do you have an RSS feed? And will it be cool if I put in your feed to a site of mine? I have a blog which brings content by RSS feeds from a couple of sites and I would like to add yours, most people do not mind since I link back and everything but I like to get consent 1st. Anyway let me know if you could, thank you.