Bulwer-Lytton was, in his time, a best-selling author, and one wonders how well he'd be remembered now if not for the opening words of Snoopy's ever-beginning n

Bulwer-Lytton was, in his time, a best-selling author, and one wonders how well he'd be remembered now if not for the opening words of Snoopy's ever-beginning novel in the Peanuts comic strip, which (if I am not mistaken, and it likely is I am, but I don't care because this my comment) served as one of perhaps many inspirations for the opening line contest, which is of course as far as Snoopy ever got, being a better Sopwith Camel fighter pilot, vulture imitator and serial doghouse-layer uponer than he was a novelist.