It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The Best (?) from the Bulwer-Lytton Contest (Paperback)

by Scott Rice (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The fourth collection of hilarious selections taken from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the best of bad fiction. The world-famous competition seeks to find the most atrocious opening sentence to a hypothetical lousy novel. Here are entries from the past three years, plus Rice's advice on how to write in the Bulwer-Lytton mode.

Product Details

• Paperback: 16 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (December 4, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140075569
• ISBN-13: 978-0140075564
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #30,012 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars My Students Sometimes Write Like This (Unintentionally), November 3, 2001

By	Tracy Davis (California, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It was a hot and dusty night (for you see, dear review reader, I live in a desert, where the nocturnal temperatures sometimes do not go below 90 degrees -- that is in the height of summer, as when I began this humorous tome I am reviewing) when I sat down to read the submissions of frustrated Victorian 'wannabees' who have more time on their hands than American Vice Presidents (present times excluded, of course) to dish out poorly conceived sentences modeled on that paragon of forgotten 19th Century literature, Bulwer-Lytton, whose flowery prose brings to mind the brain of soap opera producers who don't know when to stop; and neither did I, because this book was so darn funny, I almost wet myself -- therefore, I highly recommend it as a pleasant diversion better than Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- and that's saying a lot.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The original collection of Bullwer-Lytton entries., February 14, 2001

By	James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The editorial review claims that this is the fourth collection; I believe that this is in error. This is the first, the original, copyright 1984, with entries from the first year of the contest.

The Bullwer-Lytton fiction contest (named for Edward George Bullwer-Lytton, who is responsible for the novel "Paul Clifford" (1830) which is famous for the opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night...", often spoofed, most famously by Snoopy in the "Peanuts" comic strip) has been an annual contest since 1983, the object of which is to write the worst possible opening sentence to a hypothetical novel. To be honest, this one isn't QUITE as funny as "Dark and Stormy; the Final Conflict", which is the only other collection that I've read yet, but it is still well worth reading if you have the particular warped sense of humor to enjoy parodies of overblown purple prose.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the funniest books I've ever read., October 2, 2000

By	James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The Final Conflict: Yet More of the Best (?) from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (Bulwer-Lytton Contest) (Paperback)

The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest is an annual contest run by Scott Rice of San Jose State University. in which he challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels; the inspiration for the contest (and the title of it) is Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who wrote the much-spoofed "Paul Clifford" in 1830, the novel that begins with the phrase, "It was a dark and stormy night...". This book is the fourth of, so far as I know, five collections of the best (most stunningly bad?) entries to that contest.