it was a dark and stormy night - Fri/Sat Apr 23, 2021

"It was a dark and stormy night" is an often-mocked and parodied phrase[1] considered to represent "the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style of fiction writing",[1] also known as purple prose.

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The status of the sentence as an archetype for bad writing comes from the first phrase of the opening sentence (incipit) of English novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford:[2]

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.[3]

Evaluations of the opening sentence

Writer's Digest described this sentence as "the literary posterchild for bad story starters".[4] On the other hand, the American Book Review ranked it as No. 22 on its "Best first lines from novels" list.[5]

In 2008, Henry Lytton-Cobbold, a descendant of Bulwer-Lytton, participated in a debate in the town of Lytton, British Columbia with Scott Rice, the founder of the International Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Rice accused Bulwer-Lytton of writing "27 novels whose perfervid turgidity I intend to expose, denude, and generally make visible." Lytton-Cobbold defended his ancestor, noting that he had coined many other phrases widely used today such as "the pen is mightier than the sword", "the great unwashed", and "the almighty dollar". He said that it was "rather unfair that Professor Rice decided to name the competition after him for entirely the wrong reasons."[6] The phrase "the almighty dollar", however, had been used earlier by Washington Irving.
Later usage
Literature

The Peanuts comic strip character Snoopy, in his imagined persona as the World Famous Author, sometimes begins his novels with the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night."[7] Cartoonist Charles Schulz made Snoopy use this phrase because "it was a cliché, and had been one for a very long time".[8] A book by Schulz, titled It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, Snoopy, and credited to Snoopy as author, was published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston in 1971.[9]

Janet and Allan Ahlberg wrote a book titled It Was A Dark and Stormy Night in which a kidnapped boy must keep his captors entertained with his storytelling.[10]

It is the opening line in the popular 1962 novel A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle:[11]

It was a dark and stormy night.
In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraithlike shadows that raced along the ground.[12]

L'Engle biographer Leonard Marcus notes that "With a wink to the reader, she chose for the opening line of A Wrinkle in Time, her most audaciously original work of fiction, that hoariest of cliches ... L'Engle herself was certainly aware of old warhorse's literary provenance as ... Edward Bulwer-Lytton's much maligned much parodied repository of Victorian purple prose, Paul Clifford."[13] While discussing the importance of establishing the tone of voice at the beginning of fiction, Judy Morris notes that L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time opens with "Snoopy's signature phrase".[14]