Line 1
“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”
Opening Lines #14 · Friday, 14 August 2026
Opening Lines
Five first sentences from public-domain classics. Which book does each one open?
Replaying an archived puzzle. Play today’s
Line 2
“Except for the Marabar Caves—and they are twenty miles off—the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary.”
Line 3
“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own;”
Line 4
“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife.”
Line 5
“‘The Signora had no business to do it,’ said Miss Bartlett, ‘no business at all.’”
Archive · Your stats · First lines are from works published before 1930.
A few playing notes
- How do you play Opening Lines?
Read the opening sentence and choose the novel it belongs to. Look for the narrator, setting and tone as clues. A remembered first sentence can help, but a line can also be a starting point for finding a new book to read.
- When do the daily book games change?
New puzzles arrive at midnight UTC. That may be morning, afternoon or evening in your time zone. The date on the game identifies the puzzle everyone is playing.
- Can I play without an account?
You can play the daily games as a guest. Sign in if you want to keep your streaks across devices, and use the archive links when you want an earlier puzzle. Avoid posting an answer where people who have not played will see it.