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I have long been in the habit, I am afraid, of judging a book by its opening line. I didn’t realize it at the moment, but I’d fallen prey to one of the true masters of the first line. I first discovered this historical novelist through the writing of another practitioner of that genre, Arturo Perez-Reverte, in whose work The Club Dumas two characters meet and exchange snippets of an opening line from one of Sabatini’s better known works, Scaramouche. I rarely find people who read him, although a large number of the forty or so books he wrote (mostly swashbuckling adventure stories) were bestsellers when published.
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I don’t know why I’ve never read Sabatini before, although the fact that he seems to have become markedly less popular now than he was a hundred years ago might have something to do with it. I’ve just come across Rafael Sabatini, and I am quite happy to report that the delight is well outweighing the chagrin. There is a curious mix of feelings that come over me when I discover that I’ve not yet encountered a writer who I am destined to be very fond of – chagrin, at my lack of education, combined with delight, at the prospect of all these new books to read. In the post below Ammon reflects words to use opening lines. His book, Reading the OED, has been published by Perigee, so go check it out in your local bookstore. Over the next few months he will be posting weekly blogs about the insights, gems, and thoughts on language that came from this experience. Ammon Shea recently spent a year of his life reading the OED from start to finish.