Dickens wins 1859 Gasper Award for Longest Opening Sentence

Blazing Reader,

In response to my post yesterday about Henry David Thoreau's run-on sentences, Robert Vaughan of Just Right Media sent me this even longer sentence from page one of A Tale of Two Cities (if reading aloud, take a deep breath first):

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Robert Vaughan pointed out that "Creative punctuation may be to blame for this classic opening sentence," which he describes as "What a gasper!"

Nonetheless, Dickens was the winner of the 1859 Gasper Award for Longest Opening Sentence.

Of course, of its 118 words, the world remembers only the first six — which must be heartbreaking for the remaining 112.

John C.A. Manley

P.S. Earlier this year, Robert Vaughan had me on Just Right Media to discuss my novel, All the Humans Are Sleeping — which begins with a rather modest ten-word sentence. You can hear the interview at JustRightMedia.org.

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.