Most people will recognize the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night” from the Peanuts comics, with Snoopy typing this sentence on his typewriter. Snoopy’s creator Charles M. Schulz, however, referred to a famous first sentence of a nineteenth-century novel written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The sentence even has its own Wikipedia page. The sentence is famous because it is seen as the ultimate example of what is often considered a bad style of writing. And this in itself contradictory situation makes it a perfect illustration for the project The Riddle of Literary Quality. The illustration was designed by communication expert Johan Kwantes.

The project The Riddle of Literary Quality officially started at January 15th 2012. The kick-off meeting with all project members and a communication expert was held at Huygens ING in The Hague on Wednesday 18 January 2012. The press release from the 19th resulted in a couple of reactions in Dutch blogs.