Paul Clifford
E278073
Paul Clifford is an 1830 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, best known for opening with the famously clichéd line "It was a dark and stormy night."
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Paul Clifford canonical | 13 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2551817 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Paul Clifford Context triple: [Edward Bulwer-Lytton, notableWork, Paul Clifford]
-
A.
Richard Clifford
Richard Clifford is a British actor and director known for his work in theatre and film, as well as his long-term partnership with Sir Derek Jacobi.
-
B.
Clive
Clive is a surname most famously associated with Robert Clive, the 18th-century British officer who played a key role in establishing British rule in India.
-
C.
Bartholomew Allerton
Bartholomew Allerton was a child passenger on the Mayflower and the son of Plymouth Colony settler Isaac Allerton, making him part of the early English Pilgrim community in New England.
-
D.
Henry Hall
Henry Hall is the son of American actress and comedian Julia Louis-Dreyfus and musician Brad Hall.
-
E.
John Black
John Black is a television director best known for his work on the Doctor Who spin-off special "K-9 and Company."
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Paul Clifford Target entity description: Paul Clifford is an 1830 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, best known for opening with the famously clichéd line "It was a dark and stormy night."
-
A.
Richard Clifford
Richard Clifford is a British actor and director known for his work in theatre and film, as well as his long-term partnership with Sir Derek Jacobi.
-
B.
Clive
Clive is a surname most famously associated with Robert Clive, the 18th-century British officer who played a key role in establishing British rule in India.
-
C.
Bartholomew Allerton
Bartholomew Allerton was a child passenger on the Mayflower and the son of Plymouth Colony settler Isaac Allerton, making him part of the early English Pilgrim community in New England.
-
D.
Henry Hall
Henry Hall is the son of American actress and comedian Julia Louis-Dreyfus and musician Brad Hall.
-
E.
John Black
John Black is a television director best known for his work on the Doctor Who spin-off special "K-9 and Company."
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (41)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | novel ⓘ |
| adaptedTo | stage play ⓘ |
| author | Edward Bulwer-Lytton ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| famousFor | its clichéd opening line "It was a dark and stormy night" ⓘ |
| genre |
Newgate novel
ⓘ
crime fiction ⓘ romantic novel ⓘ |
| hasCharacter |
Lord Mauleverer
ⓘ
Lucy Brandon ⓘ William Brandon ⓘ |
| hasLaterReception | often mocked for its opening line ⓘ |
| hasLegalTheme | critique of the justice system ⓘ |
| hasLoveStory | romance between Paul Clifford and Lucy Brandon ⓘ |
| hasMoralQuestion | relationship between crime and social conditions ⓘ |
| hasParody | Snoopy’s opening line in Peanuts ⓘ |
| hasProtagonistBackground | criminal raised in poverty ⓘ |
| hasProtagonistOccupation | highwayman ⓘ |
| hasReception | popular in its own time ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
class and society
ⓘ
corruption in the legal system ⓘ crime and punishment ⓘ social criticism ⓘ |
| includedIn | 19th-century English literature ⓘ |
| influenced | popular culture references to "dark and stormy night" ⓘ |
| inspired | Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (indirectly, via the author’s style) ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | Romanticism ⓘ |
| literaryPeriod | Victorian literature ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | Paul Clifford ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | third-person narration ⓘ |
| notableQuote | It was a dark and stormy night ⓘ |
| openingLine | It was a dark and stormy night ⓘ |
| openingLineStatus | prototypical example of a melodramatic opening ⓘ |
| partOf | Bulwer-Lytton’s early novels ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1830 ⓘ |
| publisher | Henry Colburn ⓘ |
| setting | England ⓘ |
| structure | three-volume novel ⓘ |
| timePeriodOfSetting | late 18th century and early 19th century England ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Paul Clifford Description of subject: Paul Clifford is an 1830 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, best known for opening with the famously clichéd line "It was a dark and stormy night."
Referenced by (13)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
opening line "It was a dark and stormy night"
subject linked to:
opening line "It was a dark and stormy night"
subject linked to:
opening line "It was a dark and stormy night"