The Best of the Worst

Here are the results of the 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton was an English novelist and politician. He was quite popular in his day (his literary career began at some point in 1820) and is now most famous as the man who wrote:

"It was a dark and stormy night..."

It is the opening sentence of his novel Paul Clifford. The full opening sentence is:

"It was a dark and stormy night; 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."

Alexandre Dumas opened The Three Musketeers with the line: C'etait une nuit orageuse et sombre. Translated by Google Translate, this line comes out: It was one night stormy and dark.