Famous First and Last Lines

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. This is the opening line in Ethan Frome, a book by Edith Wharton, and was published in 1911. Edith Wharton was born on January 24, 1862, and died August 11, 1937. The book Ethan Frome takes place in a fictional New England town, and is written in the form of an extended flashback, with all but the prologue and epilogue being set 24 years in the past. The main character, Ethan Frome, is a man who basically never has things go his way. His wife was sickly and constantly irritated, he loved his wife's cousin, and he was forced to stay at a fairly rundown farm. When his wife decides to send her cousin away, they go on a suicide sled run, which left Ethan with a limp and her paralyzed. In a bizarre twist, at the end of the story it is her who is constantly irritated and sick and Ethan's wife who is now taking care of her.


I closed my eyes, head drooping, like a person drunk for so long she no longer knows she's drunk, and then, drunk, awoke to the world which lay before me. This is the ending line in Don Quixote, a novel by Migeul de Cervantes, and was published in 1605(part 1), and 1615(part 2). Migeul de Cervantes was born on September 29, 1547(assumed), and died April 22, 1616. For a summery of the story, click here: Don Quixote.