Famous First Lines

This quiz round features 12 first lines from famous novels, and the aim is to identify the title of each novel and the authors. For example the opening line "Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy" is taken from "The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis.

While most of these first lines won't be known to many people, the content of these lines should give pointers to which novels they are from. In some cases this should be obvious, so all teams should be able to get some answers correct without too much trouble. In other cases, however, it won't be obvious which novels the first lines are from, but teams should be able to make educated guesses based on the content of these first lines. There are also likely to be a few cases where teams can identify the novel fairly easily, but may need a bit of time to come up with the name of the author.

These first lines could be used to make up standard question and answer rounds, where the quiz-master asks questions aloud, and the teams write their answers on blank answer sheets, but we recommended that they are used as a handout round. For more information on handout rounds and our recommended use for them in quizzes click here

Please note that this handout round also appears in Weekly Quiz 13. If you would prefer to purchase our pre-compiled full weekly quizzes, then click here, where you can find quizzes with a handout round, 2 rounds on general subjects, a specialist subject round, a connections round, an initial letter link round, and a stick or twist round, as well as professionally designed answer sheets and full instructions on how to run your quiz. If, however, you prefer to use your own format for your quizzes, then this handout round should help towards creating an entertaining and challenging quiz.