I was suspicious at the start of Daniel Grogan's “Famous Last Lines: Final Sentences from 290 Iconic Books.” Are their 290 famous last lines in all of literature? I can think of famous first lines, such as "Call me Ishmael" and "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ..." But famous last lines? There's Huck Finn's line about lighting out for the territory, but not much else comes to mind.

I think the reason is that last lines require context for them to make sense. You have to have read the book, or at least be familiar with the story, to appreciate its ending. First lines, on the other hand, don't require context. Their job is enticement. They are designed to persuade the reader to move on to the next line, and then the next. Most first lines can stand alone better than most last lines. Try it yourself by reading the first line of any novel and then the last line. Which is more memorable? In most cases, I'd bet it's the first line.

Grogan's book doesn't prove my case, but neither does it prove Grogan's. Famous last lines, even familiar last lines, are few here. Many of those 290 "iconic" books cited aren't famous either. Grogan has a passion for experimental and postmodern novels and for metafiction, in other words books not likely to be read by enough people to make their last lines, or their first lines or even their titles, famous.

He gives the "famous last lines" in order of the book’s publication date, from “Don Quixote” in 1615 to “How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia” in 2013. The most notable books come in the early going. This owes a lot to the fact that only notable books from earlier centuries, including most of the 20th, are readily available to readers, including Grogan.

After putting the last line first, the author adds a paragraph that attempts to explain its context. Sometimes this will at least help the reader appreciate the line in question. Sometimes not.

Some last lines are so good one wishes they were famous. One such comes from “Them”by Joyce Carol Oates (1969): “He took his sister’s hand and kissed it and said good-by, making an ironic, affectionate bow over her with his head; it was the Jules she had always loved, and now she loved him for going away, saying good-by, leaving her forever.” That last line is so good it could be a first line. It makes you want to read the novel.

Other worthy last lines come from such novels as “In Country,” “In the Lake of the Woods” and “The Book Thief.”

Some last lines Grogan presents to us might be terrific, if only we knew what they were talking about. Still others just make you want to say, “Huh?” For instance, “Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon: “Now everybody—“ Or Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”: “Are there any questions?” Or Norman Mailer’s “Harlot’s Ghost”: “TO BE CONTINUED.” Surely there must be better, more famous last lines than these — “They lived happily ever after,” for instance. ( )