"a dark and stormy night"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 1/17/2008 11:56 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
> > >Gale's Eighteenth Century Collections Online has the phrase
> > appearing
> > >as early as 1706.  It may have been a cliché for quite a while when
> > >Bulwer-Lytton got ahold of it.
> >
> > Will they have to rename the competition?  And, Bill, tell us
> > who the new, 1706 eponym will be!
> >
> > Joel
> >
>
>Rogers, Timothy. A discourse concerning trouble
>of mind, and the disease of melancholy. In three
>parts. ... The second edition. Corrected. By
>Timothy Rogers, ... London, 1706. 522pp.  p. 369
>
>"These are some of the sorrows that deserted
>Souls often meet withal; and indeed, but a small
>part of what they feel in this dark and stormy night."

But is this its first line?  Only then may I
insist on renaming the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction
Contest.  Except that "The Rogers Fiction
Context" might be interpreted as requiring doing
something unmentionable to literary efforts.

Joel

Joel

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