Surely the finest opening in any poem, novel, or drama in English is that of Rocheeester's A Ramble in St. James's Park:
Much wine had passed with grave discourse Of who fucks who and who does worse.
Probbly followed by the opening of P&P and the first paragraph of Bleak House. (A whle page without a complete sentence: all subjects followed aby innumerable adjectival or adverbial clauses or phrases, no verbs. The first sentence:
London.
The finest ending, that of The Bostonians (quoted roughly from memory):
These were not the last tears she was to shed during their married life.
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Other candidates for beginnings and endings.
Carrol
(Someone with eyes might look up the lat sentnce of the Bostonians and get it right.)