Can you give more examples of the best first lines of English novels?

Sure. In 'Moby - Dick' by Herman Melville, 'Call me Ishmael.' This simple yet powerful line draws the reader into the story, making them curious about who Ishmael is and what his story will be. It's a very direct way to start a novel that goes on to be an epic adventure on the high seas.

Sure. The first line of 'Moby - Dick' by Herman Melville 'Call me Ishmael.' is super simple yet iconic. For the last line, in 'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley, 'When the light was gone, there was a gentle, quivering darkness, and the night - breathing of the sleeping horses in their stalls.' It creates a rather haunting image.

The ending line of 'Lord of the Flies' - 'Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.' This line sums up the entire dark journey of the boys on the island. It shows the loss of their initial innocence, the revelation of the evil that can lurk within humans, and the grief for the death of Piggy, which is a very poignant way to end the novel.

Another good one is 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.' from Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice'. This line not only gives an insight into the society of the time where marriage was a big deal for financial and social reasons but also makes the reader interested in seeing how this idea will play out in the story.

Sure. 'All children, except one, grow up.' is the first line from J.M. Barrie's 'Peter Pan'. It immediately sets a sense of mystery around the one child who doesn't grow up.

The opening of 'The Catcher in the Rye' by J.D. Salinger, 'If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.' This line gives us a very clear sense of the narrator's voice - a bit cynical and reluctant to conform to the usual storytelling norms, which is very characteristic of the whole novel.

Sure. For example, in H.G. Wells' 'The War of the Worlds', 'No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own.' This first line creates a sense of mystery and foreboding. It makes the reader wonder who these 'intelligences' are and what they are up to, while also setting the time period which adds historical context.

The opening of 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald: 'In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.' This line creates a sense of reflection and mystery. We wonder what the advice was and why it has stayed with the narrator for so long. It also gives a bit of a personal touch to the story from the very beginning.

Another example is from 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. 'In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.' This opening makes the reader curious about what that advice was. It also gives an impression of the narrator reflecting on his past, which is central to the story of Jay Gatsby and the narrator's relationship with him. The line has a certain elegance and a touch of mystery.

Sure. 'It was a time.' is a really bad first line. It's so vague that it doesn't give the reader any idea of when this 'time' is, what kind of era, or what might be significant about it. It just leaves the reader feeling lost from the very start.