George Orwell and First Lines

Take a look at these:

The clock struck half past two

(Keep the Aspidistra Flying)

As the alarm clock on the chest of drawers exploded like a horrid little bomb of bell metal Dorothy, wrenched from the depths of some complex, troubling dream, awoke with a start and lay on her back looking into the darkness in extreme exhaustion.

(A Clergyman's Daughter)

U Po Kyin, Sub-divisional Magistrate of Kyauktada, in Upper Burma, was sitting in his veranda. It was only half past eight, but the month was April, and there was a closeness in the air, a threat of the long, stifling midday hours.

(Burmese Days)

The idea really came to me the day I got my new false teeth. 

I remember the morning well. At about a quarter to eight I'd nipped out of bed and got into the bathroom just in time to shut the kids out. It was a beastly January morning, with a dirty yellowish-grey sky

(Coming up for Air)

The rue du Coq d'Or, Paris, seven in the morning. A succession of furious, choking yells from the street. Madame Monce, who kept the little hotel opposite mine, had come out on to the pavement to address a lodger on the third floor. Her bare feet were stuck into sabots and her grey hair was streaming down. 

(Down and Out in Paris and London)

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side, he lurched across the yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer from the barrel in the scullery, and made his way up to bed, where Mrs. Jones was already snoring. 

(Animal Farm)

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. 

(1984)

It is so unbelievable to note that Orwell establishes the time so definitively at the very beginning of each novel.