Context

This line was written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in the novel Paul Clifford (1830).

"It was a dark and stormy night" is a sentence (actually, just part of one) that will make English majors everywhere burst out laughing if you use it to open a story. To say that it's a cliché is an understatement.

But, in fact, its coiner, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, was actually quite financially successful as a writer in the 1800s, even though you probably won't be studying Paul Clifford with Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters in your English Literature class.

Paul Clifford actually has a neat, if pulpy premise about a man named Paul, who is an upstanding gentleman by day and a master criminal by night. It's like if Batman turned his sharp intellect and great detective skills to committing crimes instead of fighting them. But Paul doesn't really have the cool gadgets, car, and martial arts expertise, unfortunately.

Anyway, the novel is set during the French Revolution, is over 900 pages, and you probably will never read more than the first sentence of it. But what a first sentence, right?

Where you've heard it

9 out of 10 times someone uses this line, they are making fun of it. The rest of the time, they are trying to be super cool and Gothic and failing at it.

Additional Notable References:

• Edward Bulwer-Lytton will live in infamy as the namesake of a writing contest that's been going on since the 1980s for the worst first line of a novel. Let's see if we can top "It was a dark stormy night."
• "It was a dark and stormy night" is also the first line of Madeline L'Engle's highly original sci-fi novel A Wrinkle in Time. But she used it in a purposeful, slightly ironic way.
• It Was A Dark and Stormy Night is the name of the first and only Great American Novel written by the famous author and pop culture figure Snoopy. All kidding aside, Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz actually published a book by this title about Snoopy's writing process and eventual rejection by readers and reviewers. Plus there's the text of his in-universe "novel."
• And if you want a fun game for your local crew of book lovers, there is the It Was A Dark and Stormy Night board game where you identify a book's author and title by its first few sentences. It's a nerdy, tricky good time.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

This is a fun way to add some literary humor to what would be a boring old anecdote. Make sure you're using it ironically, though.