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About this quote

What does it mean?
This book claims there are no prior chapters to summarize.
In plain terms
There are no previous chapters in this story.
What can you take from it?
Sometimes stories start fresh without past context.

Where it applies

  • reading new books
  • writing intros
  • discussing narrative

Putting it to work

  • writing books
  • editing intros
  • reading fiction

Questions to consider

  • Why do some stories start without history?

Another view

It is a literal statement that adds little meaning.

More from Stephen Leacock

  1. Personally, I would sooner have written Alice in Wonderland than the whole Encyclopedia Britannica.

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  2. The classics are only primitive literature. They belong to the same class as primitive machinery and primitive music and primitive medicine.

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  3. The Compleat Angler is acknowledged to be one of the world's books. Only the trouble is that the world doesn't read its books, it borrows a detective story ins…

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