novels

Character lists in famous novels

Covers of Famous Novels

The characters in these lists are main characters and key secondary characters in these stories. In some cases there are additional secondary and minor characters not listed here. This list may be updated periodically with additional famous novels and their character lists.

The Great Gatsby Characters: 10
Nick Carraway
Jay Gatsby
Daisy Buchanan
Tom Buchanan
Jordan Baker
Myrtle Wilson
George Wilson
Owl Eyes
Klipspringer
Meyer Wolfsheim

Treasure Island Characters: 11
Jim Hawkins
Billy Bones
Black Dog
Squire Trelawney
Dr. Livesey
Captain Smollett
Long John Silver
Ben Gunn
Pew
Israel Hands
Tom Redruth

The Sun Also Rises Characters: 12
Jake Barnes
Lady Brett Ashley
Robert Cohn
Bill Gorton
Mike Campbell
Pedro Romero
Montoya
Frances Clyne
Count Mippipopolous
Wilson-Harris
Belmonte
Harvey Stone

Moby-Dick: or, The Whale Characters: 16
Ishmael
Ahab
Moby Dick
Starbuck
Queequeg
Stubb
Tashtego
Flask
Daggoo
Pip
Fedallah
Peleg
Bildad
Father Mapple
Captain Boomer
Gabriel

As I Lay Dying Characters: 16
Addie Bundren
Anse Bundren
Cash Bundren
Darl Bundren
Jewel Bundren
Dewey Dell Bundren
Vardaman Bundren
Vernon Tull
Cora Tull
Peabody
Lafe
Whitfield
Samson
MacGowan
Moseley
Armstid

To Kill a Mockingbird Characters: 18
Jean Louise “Scout” Finch
Atticus Finch
Jeremy Atticus “Jem” Finch
Arthur “Boo” Radley
Bob Ewell
Charles Baker “Dill” Harris
Miss Maudie Atkinson
Calpurnia
Aunt Alexandra
Mayella Ewell
Tom Robinson
Link Deas
Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose
Nathan Radley
Heck Tate
Mr. Dolphus Raymond
Mr. Walter Cunningham
Walter Cunningham

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Characters: 25
Huckleberry Finn
Tom Sawyer
Widow Douglas and Miss Watson
Jim
Pap (Huck’s Father)
The Duke and the King
Judge Thatcher
The Grangerford family – Bob, Buck, Charlotte, Col., Emmeline, Sophia, Tom
The Wilks family – Harvey, Joanna, Mary Jane, Peter, Susan, William
Silas and Sally Phelps
Aunt Polly

Anna Karenina Characters: 26
Anna Arkadyevna Karenina
Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin
Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky
Konstantin Dmitrich Levin
Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya (Kitty)
Stepan Arkadyich Oblonsky (Stiva)
Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya (Dolly)
Sergei Alexeich Karenin (Seryozha)
Nikolai Dmitrich Levin
Sergei Ivanovich Koznyshev
Agafya Mikhailovna
Countess Vronsky
Alexander Kirillovich Vronsky
Varvara Vronsky
Prince Alexander Dmitrievich Shcherbatsky
Princess Shcherbatskaya
Countess Lydia Ivanovna
Elizaveta Fyodorovna Tverskaya (Betsy)
Marya Nikolaevna
Madame Stahl
Varvara Andreevna (Varenka)
Yashvin
Nikolai Ivanovich Sviyazhsky
Fyodor Vassilyevich Katavasov
Landau

War and Peace Characters: nearly 600 characters

Related Reading:
Book Magazine’s The 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900
Book Magazine, now defunct, compiled a panel of 55 authors, literary agents, editors, and actors in 2002 to “rank the top one hundred characters in literature since 1900.”

Continue ReadingCharacter lists in famous novels

NaNoWriMo 2012 – Day 9

8. 13,336 – 2750 (14497, +1161)

Those are my notations for Day 8 of National Novel Writing Month.

13,336 – that’s “par for the course” or the least word count for day 8 to stay on track to “win.”

2750 – the number of words I wrote yesterday.

14497 – total word count for November 2012. I have the chapters I wrote last year, but I’m not counting them in this years’ event. Some of those will get trashed and some considerably altered when I’m finished.

+1161 – the number of words I have as a “word count cushion” over the minimum to stay on course.

So I’m keeping up the pace pretty well. I’m poised to do more this weekend that I hope will really put me ahead. I have a pretty clear idea of where I’m going, too, but I’m trying to be flexible enough to make sure I can make changes. As our friend Garrett says – “Know where you’re going, but use a compass and not a road map.”

I have a much more fully formed notion of setting this year than last, which really helps me add detail to scenes and paint a more interesting visual picture than last year, and helped me add detail to the action as well. And I think I have a more complete and satisfying ending in mind that I did last year, with some nice turning points to get us there.

I’m very optimistic that I can get closer to complete by the end of November, and ready to polish. My goal is to have it ready to show my editor – that would be Stephanie – by February. I have one or two other people I want to get feedback from as well. And with editing and revisions based on feedback, I’d really like to have it ready for publication by the end of April. I’m going to use Book Tango to self-publish for e-publication, I think. I don’t have an agent lined up or anything, so I don’t anticipate being able to get the attention of a traditional publisher at first. We’ll see.

Nanowrimo Participant 2012

Continue ReadingNaNoWriMo 2012 – Day 9

Books to Read Before You Die

The British librarian’s organization — “Museum, Libraries and Archives Council” — has put together a List of Books to Read Before You Die.

I have a pretty good start on the list. Of the ones I haven’t read yet, I have four on my bookshelves at home, so I’ll probably get to them someday.

  1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  2. The Bible
  3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
  4. 1984 by George Orwell
  5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  8. All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
  9. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
  10. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
  11. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  12. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  13. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
  14. Tess of the D’urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
  15. Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
  16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
  17. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
  18. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
  19. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  20. The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  21. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
  22. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
  23. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  24. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
  25. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  26. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
  27. Middlemarch by George Eliot
  28. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
  29. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  30. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn
Continue ReadingBooks to Read Before You Die

100 Best First Lines from Novels

According to the American Book Review:
1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)
2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
3. A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)
4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)
5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

Continue Reading100 Best First Lines from Novels

Time’s 100 Best Novels 1923-present

Bil asked the question: how many of Time’s list of 100 Best Novels have you read?
41 of them. Most of them in high school or college English classes. When I read the list I was disappointed at what was missing and some of the crap they included. These people can’t tell me they actually read Infinite Jest. I don’t believe it. And what the hell is “Are you there God, It’s me Margaret” doing on this list? If they needed to pick a teen novel, there are 30 better than that. I also wonder why they picked the year 1923 as the starting point. What’s significant about that year?

  1. The Adventures of Augie March
  2. Animal Farm
  3. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (what the hell?)
  4. Beloved
  5. The Blind Assassin
  6. The Bridge of San Luis Rey
  7. Catch-22
  8. The Catcher in the Rye
  9. A Clockwork Orange
  10. The Corrections
  11. Death Comes for the Archbishop
  12. The French Lieutenant’s Woman (TOTAL SUCKAGE!)
  13. Go Tell it on the Mountain
  14. Gone With the Wind
  15. The Grapes of Wrath
  16. The Great Gatsby
  17. The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
  18. Herzog
  19. Invisible Man
  20. Light in August
  21. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
  22. Lolita
  23. Lord of the Flies
  24. The Lord of the Rings
  25. Midnight’s Children
  26. Mrs. Dalloway
  27. Neuromancer
  28. 1984
  29. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  30. Portnoy’s Complaint (SUCKED!)
  31. Possession
  32. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
  33. Rabbit, Run
  34. Slaughterhouse-Five
  35. Snow Crash
  36. The Sound and the Fury (Two Faulkners listed, but not “As I Lay Dying?” Shame.)
  37. The Sun Also Rises
  38. To Kill a Mockingbird
  39. To the Lighthouse
  40. Tropic of Cancer
  41. White Noise
Continue ReadingTime’s 100 Best Novels 1923-present

A list of Post-Modern novels

A MetaFilter list of suggested “sprawling post-modern novels”.
Off the top of my head, I have these that are on their list.
delillo’s underworld
infinite jest
house of leaves
Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Ground Beneath Her Feet
Death on the Installment Plan by Celine
Neal Stephenson – Cryptonomicon
The Tin Drum

Continue ReadingA list of Post-Modern novels