That Perfect First Line

When you open up a new book and read that first line you really want it to be life-changing. And you should want your book’s first line to be too.

You want to reel your reader in; set the tone for your tale; essentially make your book unputdownable.

We’ve compiled some of our favourite first lines of some great books for you to enjoy. We hope you'll be inspired to make the first line of your manuscript shine.

'Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.'
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)

‘I was born twice: first as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.’
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)

Once there was a tree… and she loved a little boy very, very much – even more than she loved herself.'
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (1964)

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.'
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)

'124 was spiteful. Full of Baby's venom.'
Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (1937)

‘In 18th-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.’
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind (1985)

‘"To be born again,” sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, “first you have to die.”’
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (1988)

‘All this happened, more or less.’
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)

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What are your favourite first lines? Send us your top 3.

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