The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest is held ever year at San Jose State

Univ. by Professor Scott Rice. It is held in memory of Edward George

Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), a rather prolific and popular (in his

time) novelist. He is best known today for having written "The Last

Days of Pompeii."

Whenever Snoopy starts typing his novel from the top of his doghouse,

beginning "It was a dark and stormy night..." he is borrowing from Lord

Bulwer-Lytton. This was the line that opened his novel, "Paul Clifford,"

written in 1830. The full line reveals why it is so bad:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except

at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of

wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene

lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty

flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.