Do you know of any long opening sentences - in novels? (See my answer for one that has a whopping 149 words)
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debtahals wears a curiosity COAT
ANSWERS: 3
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First sentence - 149 words (if I counted correctly) - from "Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery. This is a direct quotation - her opening sentence: << Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof. >>
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Since I couldn't find any novels by William Faulkner (I know I have a couple of them) to count the number of words in the opening sentence, I had to look for the next novel I could think of, "A Tale of Two Cities," which has 119 words in the opening sentence. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
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http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/15/reviews/marque-autumn.html
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