Huckster: First Lines Of Classic Novels, Written As If Their Authors Had Worked In Advertising

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of opening a job, it was the age of closing the job, followed by reopening the job, but with a tighter deadline. It was the epoch of being given the specs, it was the epoch of being given the wrong specs. It was the season of a job being written, it was the season of a job being rewritten. It was Saturday, and we were all working late. — Charles Dickens, A Tale Of Two Cities

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. Wait. Wait, now I remember. I was interviewing for a position at Ogilvy. Yep, that’s it. I guess the whole “electrocution of the Rosenbergs” thing clouded my memory. But now I remember: Ogilvy. — Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, opener of jobs with budgets and time. — Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

Mother died today. Banner ad. — Albert Camus, The Stranger

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself, proving that Janet’s marketing strategy was dead-on: the target market for those flowers was women, ages 25 to 54. — Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish, despite the fact that the brochure advertised how you were guaranteed a worthy fish by day 83. Had the advertiser exaggerated? — Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

Call me Ishmael. No, wait: call me Donovan. Yeah, Donovan. No, Charlie. Call me Charlie. Chuck. No, Charlie. Charlie or Chuck? You know what: let’s just go back to my original thought: call me Ishmael. — Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. He liked to get good and shaved before doing his timesheets. — James Joyce, Ulysses

I am an invisible man. Not to be confused with an invincible man. Big difference. Found that out the hard way at last week’s client meeting. — Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, this end-of-year review must show. – Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

I have never polished a terd with more misgiving. – W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

It was love at first sight. But the idea was killed on second glance. — Joseph Heller, Catch-22

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since: “Advertising? Why don’t you just go to med school.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

They wanted to fit “I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho’ not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull; He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called, nay we call our selves, and write our Name Crusoe, and so my Companions always call’d me” in a 15-second TV spot. — Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

It was a pleasure to burn. — Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451