Founded in 1982 at San Jose State University in California, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenged entrants to compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels.
The BLFC was the misbegotten brainchild of Professor Scott Rice. Sentenced to write a seminar paper on a minor Victorian novelist, he chose the man with the funny hyphenated name, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. Best known for The Last Days of Pompeii, his novel Paul Clifford began with the famous opener that has been plagiarized repeatedly by the cartoon beagle, Snoopy.
The Panel of Undistinguished Judges sorting entries circa 1984.
“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."
Later, Rice was to discover that the line had been around for donkey’s years before Lytton decided to have fun with it but the damage had been done. The BLFC had calumniated Lytton’s memory and rendered his name synonymous with bad writing, an author more widely read in his time than Charles Dickens.
Throughout the years the BLFC has been covered by all the major American television networks, and for decades the winners were announced by both national and international media.
After retiring in 2014, the contest continued as a labor of love for Dr. Rice and his daughter EJ for another ten years before hanging up the hat for good. ("I'm a year and a half older than Joe Biden so I think I've earned a dignified retirement." OK boomer.)
For you BLFC super fans (and/or punishment for reading this far), behold a smattering of the contest's acclaim and opprobrium from back in the day:
Scott and EJ in The Before Times
Cover of the first compilation published by Penguin