That is the line that will take over for the famous, "dark and stormy night" opening line. Who will get credit for this, or some variation of this line, as we hopefully move years and decades from this pandemic? My guess, is it will get credited to someone more famous than either you or me. But for starters, let's revisit dark and stormy. You can thank the Victorian writer and politician Sir Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, for this now-cliche phrase. In the centuries since Bulwer-Lytton used it to open his 1830 novel "Paul Clifford," it has come to symbolize overwritten, melodramatic prose — a style at which the Victorians excelled, although for them it was the height of fashion. While not necessarily the worst offender, Bulwer-Lytton wrote many such cringe-worthy openers in his
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