p::first-letter background: darkblue;
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' xml:lang='en'> <head> <title>Pseudo-Element Selectors</title> <style type='text/css'> p { color: darkblue; border: 1px solid lightblue; padding: 2px; font: 14px sans-serif; } p.quote::first-letter { background: darkblue; color: white; font: 55px "Monotype Corsiva"; float: left; margin-right: 5px; } p.quote::first-line { font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 3px; } p.byline { text-align: right; font-style: italic; font-size: 10px; border: none; } </style> </head> <body> <p class='quote'> You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. this is a test this is a test this is a test this is a test this is a test this is a test </p> <p class='byline'> - Albert Einstein </p> </body> </html>