Before Christmas '02, Jay Nordlinger posted a very interesting collection of readers' favourite first lines of novels or non-fiction books.    Some first lines were quite telling, others less so, and some were just plain funny.

When does one first begin to remember?  (My Early Life)

There had been a heavy shower of rain, but the sun was already shining through the breaks in the clouds and throwing swiftly changing shadows on the streets, the houses, and the gardens of the city of Laurania.  (Savrola)  [Note how the first line of SAVROLA, about the "heavy shower of rain," is repeated as WSC tells of the death of Mrs. Everest in MY EARLY LIFE.--Jim Muller]

The aspect of Mombasa as she rises from the sea and clothes herself with form and colour at the swift approach of the ship is alluring and even delicious.  (My African Journey)

The last cry of 'Any more for the shore?' had been sounded, the last good-bye had been said, the latest pressman or photographer had scrambled ashore, and all Southampton was cheering wildly along a mile of pier and promontory when at 6 P.M., on October 14, the Royal Mail steamer 'Dunbarton Castle' left her moorings and sailed with Sir Redvers Buller for the Cape.  (London to Ladysmith)

The town and cantonment of Nowshera was the base from which all the operations of the Malakand Field Force were conducted.  (The Story of the Malakand Field Force)

He who may be attracted by interest or driven by idleness to examine this book will find therein a tale of blood and war." (The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan, ed. Col. F. Rhodes, ill. Angus McNeill, 2 vols. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899))  [thanks Jim!]

The north-eastern quarter of the continent of Africa is drained and watered by the Nile.  (the abridged The Story of The River War in Frontiers & Wars) [why would someone change the first line of a book for an abridged version???]

Ladysmith, her garrison and rescuers, were still recovering, the one from the effects of long confinement, the other from over-exertion.  (Ian Hamilton's March)

It was the custom in the palmy days of Queen Victoria for statesmen to expatiate upon the glories of the British Empire, and to rejoice in that protecting Providence which had preserved us through so many dangers and brought us at length to a secure and prosperous age.  (The World Crisis, 1911-1918 - from a 1939 two-volume edition)

After the end of the World War of 1914 there was a deep conviction and almost universal hope that peace would reign in the world.  (The Second World War, Vol.1 - The Gathering Storm)

Now at last the slowly gathered, long-pent-up fury of the storm broke upon us.  (The Second World War, Vol.2 - Their Finest Hour)

Looking back on the unceasing tumult of the war, I cannot recall any period when its stresses and the onset of so many problems all at once or in rapid succession bore more directly on me and my colleagues than the first half of 1941.  (The Second World War, Vol.3 - The Grand Alliance)

This New Year of the Second World War, 1942, opened upon us in an entirely different shape for Britain.  (The Second World War, Vol. 4 - The Hinge of Fate)

Earlier volumes have led us to the point where the aggressors, both in Europe and Asia, had been driven to the defensive.  (The Second World War, Vol. 5 - Closing the Ring)

Our long months of preparation and planning for the greatest amphibious operation in history ended on D-Day, June 6, 1944. (The Second World War, Vol. 6 - Triumph and Tragedy)

In the summer of the Roman year 699, now described as the year 55 before the birth of Christ, the Proconsul of Gaul, Gaius Julius Caesar, turned his gaze upon Britain.  (A History of the English Speaking Peoples, Volume 1, The Birth of Britain)

We have now reached the dawn of what is called the sixteenth century, which means all the years in the hundred years that begin with fifteen.  (A History of the English Speaking Peoples, Volume 2, The New World)

From his earliest years the extraordinary Prince who in the general interest robbed his father-in-law of the British throne had dwelt under harsh and cruel conditions.  (A History of the English Speaking Peoples, Volume 3, The Age of Revolution)

After a generation of warfare peace had come to Europe in the summer of 1815.  (A History of the English Speaking Peoples, Volume 4, The Great Democracies)

In January 1644, a Devonshire lady, Eleanor (or Ellen), widow of Sir John Drake, alarmed by the Royalist activities in the West Country, had asked for a Roundhead garrison to protect her house at Ashe, near Axminster. (Marlborough, His Life and Times)

Many remedies are suggested for the avoidance of worry and mental overstrain by persons who, over prolonged periods, have to bear exceptional responsibilities and discharge duties upon a very large scale.  (Painting as a Pastime)

Winston Churchill was born in 1874, half way through the Victorian Era.  (Martin Gilbert -- Churchill: A Life, 1991)

The French had collapsed.  (William Manchester -- The Last Lion, 'The Lion at Bay' preamble, 1983)

On February 4, 1874 -- the year of Winston Churchill's birth -- British troops led by General Sir Garnet Wolseley entered the small African city of Kumasi, now part of central Ghana, and put it to the torch, thereby ending the Second Ashanti War and winning the general a handsome spread on the weekly page devoted to the Empire in the Illustrated London News.  (William Manchester -- The Last Lion, 1983)

At the age of twenty-four, Winston Churchill was already a seasoned campaigner.  (Celia Sandys -- Churchill: Wanted Dead or Alive, 1999)

If you know a child who has poetry in its heart but a tongue distorting the words it tries to utter, whose muscles refuse to obey and fingers drop what it would grasp, whose infantile achievements wither from lack of encouragement; let it listen to the story of young Winston's boyhood and learn to believe there is always hope, and never, never give up."  (Peregrine Churchill, in the Foreword to Celia Sandys' The Young Churchill)

If the child born at Blenheim Palace a hundred and twenty years ago had not, against all odds, survived his early years, the world we live in today would be a very different place. (Celia Sandys' The Young Churchill, Introduction)

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace on 30th November 1874. (Celia Sandys' The Young Churchill, Chapter 1)

I met Winston Churchill in the early summer of 1906 at a dinner party to which I went as a very young girl.  (Violet Bonham Carter -- Winston Churchill: An Intimate Portrait, 1965)

Winston Churchill was born, two months prematurely, on 30 November 1874 at Blenheim Palace.  (Piers Brendon -- Winston Churchill: A Brief Life, 1984)

Spanked into life like the rest of us, Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was born on Monday, November 30, 1874, in Blenheim Palace.  (Churchill: Young Man in a Hurry, 1874-1915 by  TED MORGAN, (SIMON AND SCHUSTER), NEW YORK, 1982)

When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 10 May 1940, he was over sixty-five years old, already qualified for an old-age pension.  (Winston Churchill and His Inner Circle by  JOHN COLVILLE,  (WYNDHAM BOOKS) NEW YORK, 1981)

In the year 1940 Easter fell very early.  (John Lukacs -- The Duel, 1990)

This book attempts to reconstruct the history of five days that could have changed the world.  (John Lukacs -- Five Days In London, May 1940, 1999)

In the course of my life as a journalist, I have lived through some periods of tension which, with the inner knowledge of affairs one inevitably has, have borne heavily on the mind and body.  (Guy Eden -- Portrait of Churchill, 1945)

Churchill's provenance was aristocratic, indeed ducal, and some have seen this as the most important key to his whole career.  (Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography, 2001)  [Note: the next line is "That is unconvincing."]

England in 1874 stood on the threshold of the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century.  (Philip Guedalla, Mr. Churchill, 1942)

For many years Winston Churchill's political opponents referred to him as "a young man in a hurry".  (V.G. Trukhanovsky -- Winston Churchill, 1978)

On an afternoon late in July of 1942, Captain Bill Vanderkloot was sitting in his room in London's Savoy Hotel contemplating his sedate surroundings.  (Bruce West -- The Man Who Flew Churchill, 1975)

There they were, Winston Churchill, Harry Hopkins and Lord Halifax.  Three men in a mine sweeper - with Harry Hopkins getting sicker every minute and Halifax not feeling so well himself.  (Paul Manning & Milton Bronner -- Mr. England) [okay, two lines]

Many a boy knows just how Churchill felt.  (Frank Brennand -- The Young Churchill, 1965)

Churchill was a soldier.  (John Keegan's introduction to Churchill's Generals, 1991)

The Churchills have always served their King and Country.  (Sir Arthur Salusbury MacNalty -- The Three Churchills)

Another book on Churchill?  Can there be anything new to say?  The answer is, emphatically, yes.  Churchill waged the Second World War twice over - as Prime Minister steering his country from disaster in 1940 to victory in 1945, and again as the conflict's principal historian, with six volumes of memoirs published over the subsequent decade.  (David Reynolds -- In Command of History, Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (intro), 2004)

In 1963, in a message sent when he was eighty-eight years old, Churchill remarked with pride to President John F. Kennedy that the story of his association with the United States went back nearly ninety years, "to the day of my father's marriage."  (Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill and America, 2005)

Parliamentary democracy is an easy concept to grasp but a difficult one to sustain.  (Sir Martin Gilbert, The Will of the People: Winston Churchill and Parliamentary Democracy, 2006)

The future Lieutenant Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born on 30 November 1874 into the privileged world of the English aristocracy, the traditional source of the officer class of the British army.  (Douglas S. Russell, Winston Churchill - Soldier: The Military Life of a Gentleman at War, 2005)

The lives of Winston Churchill are endless.  (John Davenport and Charles Murphy -- The Lives of Winston Churchill, 1945)

My Thanks to Churchill listserv'ers for their assistance: Earl W. Wolfe; Dan & Eileen Myers; Chris Dunford; Tom Vanderford; James Muller; Bob Caputi; Bob Martin; and, Dave Turrell.

For more info, check out the official website of The Churchill Center. 

Here is what's in my own Churchill library.