100 Best First Lines

[softmoth]

For fun and motivation, I'm thinking I'll post images here of each of the 100 Best First Lines of Novels, as selected by the American Book Review. Here is #100!

 

 

I have just started practicing italic writing, using materials from http://briem.net/. I'm wanting to increase my x-height and counters (as you can see my x-height keeps regressing to my very small default), become more consistent in my ascender heights, and generally make my forms more consistent and confident.

 

Hopefully I'll both enjoy making these posts, and have a record of my improvement as I go along. I welcome your feedback or encouragement, or if you want to play along and post your versions!

 

Tim

[Newjelan]

Brilliant idea, thanks. I can’t wait for the next instalment.

[Randal6393]

 

Hi, softmoth, an Italic example for you, done in Cursive Italic. Excellent work you are doing, keep on truckin'. Briem is a good resource. Recommend you look at Italic videos on YouTube, it will help you make faster progress in your studies. Looking forward to future quotes from the list.

Edited April 6, 2018 by Randal6393

[softmoth]

Randal, thanks for the lovely contribution!

 

Tim

[inkstainedruth]

Interesting project. I went and looked at the link, and I'll admit that some of the choices were, um, odd.... I mean, *two* selections from Thomas Pyncheon? And I'm not sure I would have picked the first line from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (although, admittedly it is a doozy). I was glad they picked the first line from The Tale of Two Cities, since that's the first one I thought of when I read the topic. But they omitted what is (if not the best) probably one of my FAVORITE first lines of a novel:

"Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife."

 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[softmoth]

OK, here is #99!

 

 

Ruth, I agree the list seems odd, but I'm finding that kind of interesting on its own. There are many I'm not familiar with, and I've found with these first two anyways that writing them out a few times gets me to think about them more than I otherwise would. So far I'm enjoying it.

 

Maybe I'll add your suggestion as #98.5. Or #0!

 

Thanks,

 

Tim

 

[softmoth]

#98, the first line from Changing Places by David Lodge.

I'm happy with some of the letter forms. It seems that trying to flex the line a bit causes me to slow down and have a better rhythm at times, and I managed to make a few of my best "p" and "b" forms yet. I still tend to revert to small x-height and long descenders when I'm not paying attention, and the counters on my a/d/g shape is often more circular than I want. Lots to continue to work on!

 

The pen is a Noodler's Konrad. Its piston filler didn't thread well into the barrel, and I broke the screw when trying to fix it, so I wound up gluing it all in place with shellac. I can use it as a syringe filler, but I usually just dip it.

 

The ink is Diamine Majestic Blue diluted with roughly ⅓ water. I made the mix inside the syringe. I dripped the ink directly on the feed rather than dip it. At the top of the page, it's blended with some previous ink, so looks more black. At the end it is starting to look nice with a bit of shading.

 

Cheap 20# copy paper, with a 5mm guide sheet.

[softmoth]

#97, the first line from Orlando (1928) by Virginia Woolfe:



I recently got a basic calligraphy set from Speedball, so this is my first post using a dip pen with an actual italic nib. It's definitely fun to write with!

I was listening to a radio program while doing this, leading to some repeated words, etc.

[Bookman]

I keep a notebook of select opening lines from novels. Many of the ones in my notebook are listed in the link. Most of my favorites are there. Thanks for the thread and the link.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Good luck with your project! Please consider using a wide variety of ink colors! Asking for a friend...