opening line "It was a dark and stormy night"
E939736
The opening line "It was a dark and stormy night" is a famously overwrought sentence from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel *Paul Clifford*, often cited as an example of florid prose and widely parodied in popular culture.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| opening line "It was a dark and stormy night" canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11699482 — 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: opening line "It was a dark and stormy night" Context triple: [Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, inspiredBy, opening line "It was a dark and stormy night"]
-
A.
La primera noche
La primera noche is a Mexican film best known for featuring acclaimed actress Ana Ofelia Murguía in a prominent role.
-
B.
The Dark Room
The Dark Room is a psychological horror video game known for its unsettling atmosphere, narrative-driven exploration, and themes of memory and trauma.
-
C.
The Night Clerk
The Night Clerk is a 2020 crime drama thriller film about a socially awkward hotel clerk who becomes entangled in a murder investigation after secretly recording guests.
-
D.
The Tavern Scene
The Tavern Scene is a genre painting by Dutch Golden Age artist Abraham Bloemaert depicting lively social life in a rustic inn.
-
E.
Wait Until Dark
Wait Until Dark is a 1967 suspense thriller film about a blind woman terrorized by criminals searching for hidden drugs in her apartment.
- 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: opening line "It was a dark and stormy night" Target entity description: The opening line "It was a dark and stormy night" is a famously overwrought sentence from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel *Paul Clifford*, often cited as an example of florid prose and widely parodied in popular culture.
-
A.
La primera noche
La primera noche is a Mexican film best known for featuring acclaimed actress Ana Ofelia Murguía in a prominent role.
-
B.
The Dark Room
The Dark Room is a psychological horror video game known for its unsettling atmosphere, narrative-driven exploration, and themes of memory and trauma.
-
C.
The Night Clerk
The Night Clerk is a 2020 crime drama thriller film about a socially awkward hotel clerk who becomes entangled in a murder investigation after secretly recording guests.
-
D.
The Tavern Scene
The Tavern Scene is a genre painting by Dutch Golden Age artist Abraham Bloemaert depicting lively social life in a rustic inn.
-
E.
Wait Until Dark
Wait Until Dark is a 1967 suspense thriller film about a blind woman terrorized by criminals searching for hidden drugs in her apartment.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
catchphrase
ⓘ
literary quotation ⓘ opening line ⓘ |
| appearsIn | Paul Clifford ⓘ |
| associatedPeriod | early 19th century ⓘ |
| associatedWith | Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest ⓘ |
| author | Edward Bulwer-Lytton ⓘ |
| criticalReception |
considered a cliché
ⓘ
often mocked ⓘ |
| culturalStatus |
widely parodied
ⓘ
widely referenced in popular culture ⓘ |
| describedAs |
florid prose
ⓘ
overwrought ⓘ |
| firstPublicationYear | 1830 ⓘ |
| firstPublishedIn | Paul Clifford ⓘ |
| genreContext | Victorian popular fiction ⓘ |
| hasForm | simple declarative sentence ⓘ |
| hasReputation | one of the most famous bad openings in literature ⓘ |
| hasSubject |
atmosphere
ⓘ
weather ⓘ |
| hasWeatherDescription |
dark
ⓘ
stormy ⓘ |
| influenced | later parody openings in fiction ⓘ |
| inspired | Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| memorability | highly recognizable ⓘ |
| narrativeFunction |
atmospheric description
ⓘ
scene-setting ⓘ |
| notableUse | opening sentence written by Snoopy in Peanuts ⓘ |
| openingOf | Paul Clifford ⓘ |
| parodiedBy | Charles M. Schulz ⓘ |
| parodiedIn |
Peanuts
ⓘ
linked to:
Peanuts comic strip
|
| quotationLength | 7 words ⓘ |
| quotationType | literary cliché ⓘ |
| regionOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| studiedIn |
creative writing pedagogy
ⓘ
discussions of style in English literature ⓘ |
| teaches | pitfalls of excessive description ⓘ |
| timeSetting | night ⓘ |
| tone | melodramatic ⓘ |
| usedAs |
cliché opening
ⓘ
example of bad writing ⓘ example of purple prose ⓘ |
| usedIn |
collections of famous first lines
ⓘ
humorous writing guides ⓘ |
| workType | novel opening ⓘ |
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: opening line "It was a dark and stormy night" Description of subject: The opening line "It was a dark and stormy night" is a famously overwrought sentence from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel *Paul Clifford*, often cited as an example of florid prose and widely parodied in popular culture.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.