Dictionary of literary characters

2. Dictionary of
Literary Characters
*

4. Dictionary of
Literary Characters
*
Michael D. Sollars

5. DICTIONARY OF LITERARY CHARACTERS
Copyright © 2011 by Michael D. Sollars
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Sollars, Michael David.
â•… Dictionary of literary characters / Michael D. Sollars.
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6. *
Preface vii
Entries A–Z 1
List of Authors, Titles, 2155
â•… and Characters Included
List of Titles Included 2494
List of Contributors 2525
Contents

8. vii
*
Welcome to the Dictionary of Literary Characters, an immense and unique collection of more
than 40,000 literary figures found in novels, short stories, and plays from the United States,
Great Britain, and all over the world. The literary works examined here range from ancient
Greek classics such as Euripides’ Medea and Sophocles’ Antigone to 21st-century prizewinners
such as Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex. No other reference covers so many characters in so many
different works.
This set contains all the character entries published previously in Facts On File’s Diction-
ary of American Literary Characters and the Dictionary of British Literary Characters, both of
which focused exclusively on novels. To those thousands of characters have been added many
thousands more, from British and American novels published in the last 20 years, from clas-
sics of world literature, and from short stories and plays of all periods and places of origin. The
result is a truly comprehensive collection of characters from the world’s greatest literature.
The body of this dictionary consists of literary characters listed alphabetically (letter by let-
ter) according to the character’s last name, if a last name is available. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry
Finn, for example, is listed under the Fs. Huck’s companion Jim, however, whose last name is
ambiguous, is listed under the Js. Foreign-language surnames beginning in a particle such as
“de” are filed per the convention of the language in which the work the character figures in
was originally published. Anonymous narrators are listed under the work they narrate. An
extensive appendix lists all authors included in the dictionary in alphabetical order, in addition
to the works included and the characters that have entries here. A briefer appendix lists all the
works included in the set in alphabetical order. Readers who cannot recall the exact name of the
character they wish to research can therefore easily find it by consulting these appendixes.
The development of this collection involved a commitment of many years by many schol-
ars. Choosing which authors and works to include was the first challenge, and perhaps the
greatest. We examined curriculum lists, reference works, and textbooks as well as lists of win-
ners (and even short-lists of potential winners) of such major prizes as the Nobel and Pulitzer
Prizes, National Book Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, Edgar Allan Poe Award, O. Henry Prize,
and awards outside the United States such as the Prix Goncourt and George Büchner Prize.
Some acclaimed best-selling works of popular and genre fiction were also marked for inclu-
sion. Furthermore, suggestions from our contributors, editorial advisers, and other scholarly
supporters were considered. Because a writer is included does not mean that characters from
all of his or her fictional works are included. In some instances most of an author’s works
appear, while in other instances a writer’s fiction is represented by a single major work.
Preface

9. viii Preface
A further goal was to include works from every continent and as many languages as possi-
ble. Classic works often neglected in American classrooms are included here, such as �Murasaki
Shikibu’s medieval The Tale of Genji; Shudraka’s Sanskrit play The Little Clay Cart; and the
classical Chinese play The Circle of Chalk, which spotlights the intriguing young heroine
Chang-hi-tang. Some important works that today are rarely anthologized, perhaps because of
changes in literary fashion, have been resurrected here. An example is Conrad Aiken’s “Silent
Snow, Secret Snow.”
The entries in the dictionary are brief but informative. They often include descriptions of
the significance of those characters in the plots of the works. Characters that are also historical
figures, such as Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, and Pancho Villa, are treated in the same manner
as solely fictional characters.
This compendium of characters will aid the reader in many pursuits, whether academic or
leisurely. We hope this reference will encourage readers to consider characters the primary
subject of literary works, as opposed to plot. Exploring characters is often the best way to seek
out the heart of any literary work, but too often we readers, no matter how experienced, focus
instead simply on what happens. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” for example, we
should examine first the state of mind of the mad first-person narrator, whose inner life is
so much more dramatic and thrilling even than the story’s stunning plot. Furthermore, this
collection will be of use to students and scholars in providing an overview of how an author
treats characters over the span of his or her work, or how a number of related authors treat
their characters. Finally, by providing a global perspective, this collection enables students to
explore how different authors from different backgrounds create their characters—both the
similarities and the differences can be striking. Most important of all, we hope this reference
will encourage students and general readers to return to the great works in which these char-
acters are featured.
Michael D. Sollars, Editor

10. *
Aâ•… Daughter of Nimni and Ohiro-Moldona-Fivona in Her-
man Melville’s Mardi.
“A”â•… Moribund woman at age 92, invalided, and facing
death’s door; autocratic, proud, vain, and naturally mean-
spirited nonagenarian; recalls to two other women named B
and C at her bedside her past as once a poor young girl who
married into money; life filled with expensive jewelry, riding
horses, and love affairs; lost her husband to prostate cancer;
her son seldom visits; attempts to put her will and papers in
order in Edward Albee’s play Three Tall Women
A . . .â•… Narrator’s young wife whose name is never given;
suspected by her husband of having an affair with Franck,
a neighboring plantation owner; her every gesture is
minutely described in an accusatory manner, although no
wrongdoing is ever confirmed; agitated by a centipede that
Franck crushes to death in her and her husband’s pres-
ence; travels with Franck to the port, where they remain
together for a night, raising further suspicions in the mind
of the intensely observing narrator in Alain Robbe-Grillet’s
Jealousy.
A—, Lady Louisaâ•… Aristocratic recipient of Mrs. Darn-
ford’s letters on education; she seeks to hire Mrs. Darnford
as a governess for her daughters, who are to be educated at
home in Clara Reeve’s Plans of Education.
A—, Lordâ•… Aristocratic husband of Lady A—; he once pro-
posed to Mrs. Darnford and occasionally comments on her
letters in Clara Reeve’s Plans of Education.
A—, M.â•… French Academician, who dines with Mr. Home
de Bassompierre in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette.
A—, Marquis ofâ•… Wily and successful statesman, who is a
member of the Scottish Privy Council and a kinsman to Edgar
Ravenswood; he aids Edgar in his struggle against Sir Wil-
liam Ashton in Sir Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor.
Aardvaark, Captain╇ (Aarfy)╅ Fraternity man and navi-
gator in Yossarian’s squadron; rapes an Italian chambermaid
and throws her out a window to her death to avoid a blot on
his reputation in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.
Aaronâ•… Jewish moneychanger hired by the Prior of Saint
Mary’s to testify against Hugh Woodreeve in Ann Radcliffe’s
Gaston de Blondeville.
Aaronâ•… Moorish lover of Tamora and father of her son;
orchestrates the plot to kill Bassianus and rape and mutilate
Lavinia; kills his baby’s nurse; gleefully confesses his crimes
to Lucius in exchange for his son’s life; buried up to his
neck to starve by Lucius in William Shakespeare’s play Titus
Andronicus.
Aaronâ•… Hebrew son of Amram, brother of Miriam (and
perhaps of Moses), and first high priest of the Israelites;
killed and entombed by Moses on Mount Hor in Zora Neale
Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain.
Aaron, Jimmyâ•… Young black man who is murdered when
he returns to the plantation to organize and lead his people
A

11. during the civil rights movement in Ernest J. Gaines’s The
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.
Aaronow, Georgeâ•… Past his prime in productivity as a
salesman in the high-pressure Chicago real estate office
where a group of hungry salesmen lie, cheat, bribe, and even
steal to make sales; shows a lack of confidence and hope in
front of the other men; investigated in the theft of the firm’s
sales leads and furniture in David Mamet’s play Glengarry
Glen Ross.
Aaronson, Michaelâ•… Barbara Vaughan’s Jewish cousin in
Muriel Spark’s The Mandlebaum Gate.
Aashild, Ladyâ•… Aunt of Erlend Nikulaussön and a known
witch-wife in Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter.
Abagail, Motherâ•… See Freemantle, Abagail.
Abakumov, Victor Semyonovichâ•… Zek (prisoner) engi-
neer serving his second term in the Marfino gulag prison
camp located in the Moscow suburbs in Aleksandr Solzhenit-
syn’s The First Circle.
Abarakâ•… Failed seeker after the sword of Aklis; he assists
Shibli Bagarag in finding the sword and afterward in George
Meredith’s The Shaving of Shagpat.
Abaschwili, Natellaâ•… Birth mother of the child Michael;
abandons the baby during her flight from the invaders of the
palace, as she considers clothing and jewelry more important
to her; does not search for her son afterward; later sues Gru-
sha, the young woman who has cared for the child since its
abandonment, in court and tries to prove herself the rightful
mother in the famed Caucasian Chalk-Circle; harshly pulls
her child from Grusha’s hands and out of the circle, but loses
the baby because the judge realizes that she, in willing to inflict
pain on the child to possess him, does not love him as fully as
Grusha in Bertolt Brecht’s play The Caucasian Chalk-Circle.
Abateâ•… Abbot who refuses to help Vincentio di Vivaldi in
releasing Ellena Rosalba from the clutches of the Abbess of
the San Stefano convent in Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian.
Abateâ•… Maniacal, politically ambitious abbot of the Saint
Augustin monastery, who betrays Julia de Mazzini to her
father the Marquis in Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance.
Abath (Vasidol)â•… Mety Vasidol’s daughter, who has an
affair with Robayday Anganol and later falsely testifies
against him in Brian W. Aldiss’s Helliconia Summer.
Abbé of Perigordâ•… Unctuous, impudent, fawning, gos-
sipy, this clergyman introduces Candide to a marquise of
ill-repute and cheats him out of his money and jewels in
Voltaire’s Candide.
Abbessâ•… Elqidia’s sister, who has a bad temper and is jeal-
ous of the relationship between her sister and Natura in Eliza
Haywood’s Life’s Progress Through the Passions: or, the Adven-
tures of Natura.
Abbessâ•… Religious figure in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Devil’s
Elixir.
Abbessâ•… Sadistic abbess of the San Stefano convent, who
gives Ellena Rosalba the ultimatum to become a nun, to
marry the man of Marchesa di Vivaldi’s choice, or to be
locked in the dungeon in Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian.
Abbess, Benedictineâ•… Norman aunt of Eveline Berenger;
when Eveline refuses to take her advice to break the engage-
ment to Hugo de Lacy, she withdraws her protection from
Eveline in Sir Walter Scott’s The Betrothed.
Abbess, Ladyâ•… Head of the convent to which the Lady Lucy
is taken after being attacked and abandoned by her husband;
the Abbess later spreads the story of Lucy and Lewis Augus-
tus Albertus so that all may be inspired by the example of vir-
tue and religion in Penelope Aubin’s The Life and Adventures
of the Lady Lucy.
Abbess, Ladyâ•… Isabella’s aunt, who hopes to gain Isabella’s
estate for the nunnery if Isabella takes holy orders in Aphra
Behn’s The History of the Nun.
Abbess, Theâ•… Mother Superior at Imber Abbey and spiri-
tual adviser to Michael Meade in Iris Murdoch’s The Bell.
Abbess of Ursuline Conventâ•… Prim and earnest recluse,
who shelters Isabelle de Croye and is anxious to have her
become a nun in Sir Walter Scott’s Quentin Durward.
Abbeville, Horaceâ•… Bigamist and debtor; commits sui-
cide after settling accounts with Lee Chong the grocer by
exchanging a fish-meal storage building for his debt in John
Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.
Abbieâ•… Concentration camp prisoner at Birkenau, a part of
Auschwitz; jokes that he has figured out a new way to burn
prisoners: Set fire to the children’s hair in Tadeusz Borowski’s
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Aaronow, George

12. Abbot, Marthaâ•… Officious lady’s maid at Mrs. Reed’s res-
idence, who has no kind words for Jane Eyre in Charlotte
Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Abbot, Mrs.â•… Widow after the suicide of her journal-
ist husband; she takes in two children deserted by their
father and ultimately remarries in George Gissing’s The
Whirlpool.
Abbot, Richardâ•… Down-to-earth romantic friend of Jane
Weatherby; he takes up with Liz Jennings when Jane dis-
misses him for John Pomfret in Henry Green’s Nothing.
Abbottâ•… Midshipman who fails at his duties during an
attack on a fort in C. S. Forester’s Lieutenant Hornblower.
Abbott, Carolineâ•… Conventional, agreeable, romantic
young woman, who chaperones Lilia Herriton to Italy, where
she too falls in love with Gino Carella in E. M. Forster’s Where
Angels Fear to Tread.
Abbott, Elizabeth╇ (Liz, Gillespie Emerson)╅ Wood-
carver and clock winder who reconstitutes the Emerson fam-
ily and salvages their neglected Baltimore home; as Gillespie,
becomes the wife of Matthew Emerson and the mother of
two children in Anne Tyler’s The Clock Winder.
Abbott, Hannahâ•… Hufflepuff student in Harry Potter’s
term in school; “pink-faced” with blonde hair worn in pig-
tails; worries about O.W.L. exams; sports a “Support Cedric
Diggory/Potter Stinks” badge during the Triwizard Tourna-
ment; Hufflepuff prefect; joins Dumbledore’s army; marries
Neville Longbottom and becomes the landlady of The Leaky
Cauldron in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
Abbott, Horaceâ•… Gentle husband of Sally Page Abbott;
dies of a heart attack as a result of a Halloween prank in John
Gardner’s October Light.
Abbott, Johnâ•… Pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Elling-
ton, North Carolina, and father of Elizabeth Abbott in Anne
Tyler’s The Clock Winder.
Abbott, Juliaâ•… Wife of John Abbott and mother of Eliza-
beth Abbott in Anne Tyler’s The Clock Winder.
Abbott, Sally Pageâ•… Eighty-year-old liberal who in self-
defense plans the injury or death of her brother, James Page,
until she nearly kills her niece, Ginny Hicks; widow of Hor-
ace Abbott in John Gardner’s October Light.
Abbyâ•… See Freemantle, Abagail.
Abderamesâ•… Emperor of the Moors; Julian the Apostate, as
a Spanish king, forces him into war by refusing to pay the
yearly tribute of one hundred virgins in Henry Fielding’s A
Journey From This World to the Next.
Abdulâ•… Musician with a taste for intoxicating “green honey”
in Umberto Eco’s Baudolino.
Abdul, Generalâ•… Turkish ambassador in Tunis and friend
of Aunt Augusta Bertram; he helps her with shady invest-
ment deals in Graham Greene’s Travels with My Aunt.
Abdullaâ•… Arab trader to whom Willems betrays the navi-
gation of the River Pantai in Joseph Conrad’s An Outcast of
the Islands.
Abdullamâ•… Arab merchant in Luxor who sells Jane Mal-
lory the head that looks like Jimmy Assad in John Fowles’s
Daniel Martin.
Abdul-Mickeyâ•… Cook,waiter, andproprietorofO’Connell’s
Pool House, the misnamed greasy diner frequented daily by
Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal; one of six brothers, all named
Abdul by their Muslim father so that they would learn humil-
ity in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth.
Abeâ•… Elderly government lawyer running away from cor-
rupt politics and grief over the death of his wife and son;
befriended by Anne and Phil Sorenson before plunging off a
cliff to his death in Frederick Busch’s Manual Labor.
Abeâ•… Son of Lucy; slave who is sent to sea, where he dies
trying to assist distressed sailors in John Pendleton Kenne-
dy’s Swallow Barn.
Abednego, Mosesâ•… Jewish clerk in the Independent West
Diddlesex Fire and Life Insurance Co.; his father precipitates
its collapse in William Makepeace Thackeray’s The History of
Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond.
Abednego, Uncleâ•… Elderly black man from the almshouse
who is the Birdsongs’ gardener in Ellen Glasgow’s The Shel-
tered Life.
Abel╇ (Abelito)╅ American Indian and World War II vet-
eran who is imprisoned for murder in N. Scott Momaday’s
House Made of Dawn.
Abel, Francis╇ (Frankie)â•… Jill’s older brother; son of Max,
Pearl’s second husband; twenty-seven-year-old gambler who
spends time in jail in Marge Piercy’s Braided Lives.
Abel, Francis

13. Abel, Jamesâ•… Poor Farm inmate and witch digger in Jes-
samyn West’s The Witch Diggers.
Abel, Leoâ•… Jill’s oldest brother; son of Max, Pearl’s second
husband; thirty-year-old who lives with his mother and step-
father when escaping the law in Marge Piercy’s Braided Lives.
Abel, Maryâ•… Poor Farm inmate and witch digger; sets the
fire that kills Christian Fraser in Jessamyn West’s The Witch
Diggers.
Abel, Mr. (Abel Guevez de Argensola)â•… Venezuelan
adventurer in W. H. Hudson’s Green Mansions.
Abellinoâ•… See Rosalvo, Count.
Abeloneâ•… Aunt of the protagonist Malte and with whom
the protagonist has a love affair in Rainer Maria Rilke’s The
Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.
Abenaide, Princess of Moroccoâ•… Exquisite daughter of
Sultan Abenamin of Morocco and Eloisa Clinton; her father
smuggles her out of Morocco disguised as a male page; she
marries young Harry Clinton in Henry Brooke’s The Fool of
Quality.
Abenamin, Emperor of Moroccoâ•… Rescuer of Eloisa
Clinton, whom he marries after his conversion to Christian-
ity; the father of Abenaide, he flees to England to protect his
daughter and to be among Christians in Henry Brooke’s The
Fool of Quality.
Abencerrageâ•… Rebellious son of Sultan Abenamin of
Morocco and a concubine; his threat to the throne and his
lust for his half sister Abenaide contribute to the sultan’s rea-
sons for fleeing to England in Henry Brooke’s The Fool of
Quality.
Aben-Ezra, Raphaelâ•… Rich, educated Jew, actually Miri-
am’s son; initially a troublemaker and enamored of Hypatia,
he loses all faith in human nature, gives up his wealth, and
becomes the student of his dog, Bran; he recovers some faith,
is finally converted to Christianity by Augustine, marries Vic-
toria, and tries to save Hypatia in Charles Kingsley’s Hypatia.
Aberavon, Lord Rowlandâ•… Deceased shipping mag-
nate and art patron and the maternal grandfather of both
Barbara Goring and Eleanor Walpole-Wilson in Anthony
Powell’s A Buyer’s Market. Paintings from his collection—by
Isbister, Deacon, and others—unvalued and dispersed at the
time of his death, are sought by collectors in Hearing Secret
Harmonies.
Aberdeen, Mrs.â•… Rickie Elliott’s servant at Cambridge in
E. M. Forster’s The Longest Journey.
Abernathy, Carolâ•… Wife of Hunt Abernathy and mistress
of Ron Grant; head of Hunt Hills Little Theatre and occultist
in James Jones’s Go to the Widow-Maker.
Abernathy, Huntâ•… Husband of Carol Abernathy and
friend of Ron Grant; general manager of a brick-making and
lumberyard establishment in Indianapolis in James Jones’s
Go to the Widow-Maker.
Abidagaâ•… Primary overseer in the construction of the Drina
Bridge in Ivo Andrić’s The Bridge on the Drina.
Abigailâ•… Servant in the household of Count Melvil; she is
the victim of the scheme by Ferdinand and Teresa to cheat
Mademoiselle de Melvil in Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures
of Ferdinand Count Fathom.
Abigail, Mrs.â•… Any of several maidservants in Henry Field-
ing’s The History of Tom Jones. Also see Honour Blackmore.
Abileneâ•… Pool shark, oil-well driller, and richest man (in
cash) in Thalia, Texas, in Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture
Show.
Ablewhite, Godfreyâ•… Suave lay preacher and cousin of
Rachel Verinder, to whom he becomes engaged for a while
in order to gain her fortune; he sees Franklin Blake remove a
diamond from Rachel’s room, and then he makes off with it
himself; he is murdered by Hindu priests to recover the jewel
sacred to their temple, where it originally lodged in Wilkie
Collins’s The Moonstone. A Romance.
Ablewhite, Mr.â•… Apoplectic father of Godfrey; angered by
Rachel Verinder’s refusal to marry his son, he refuses to become
her guardian as desired by the will of her late mother, Lady Julia
Verinder, in Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone. A Romance.
Ablewhite, Mrs.â•… Downtrodden mother of Godfrey and
two daughters; she escorts Rachel Verinder to London, where
she and her irascible husband intend to provide Rachel with
shelter after her mother’s death in Wilkie Collins’s The Moon-
stone. A Romance.
Ablewhite, The Missesâ•… Godfrey Ablewhite’s two giggling
sisters, dubbed the Bouncers by Gabriel Betteredge; they are
guests at Rachel Verinder’s birthday celebration, where the
yellow diamond is shown off and stolen in Wilkie Collins’s
The Moonstone. A Romance.
Abel, James

14. Abnerâ•… Arthur Abner’s son, a Jew whom Matey Weyburn
protects as a schoolboy in George Meredith’s Lord Ormont
and his Aminta.
Abnerâ•… Incompetent, disloyal shepherd employed by George
Fielding on his ranch in Australia; he leaves and is followed
and “killed” by Jacky but recovers to return and complain to
George in Charles Reade’s It Is Never Too Late to Mend.
Abner, Arthurâ•… Man who arranges for Lady Charlotte to
hire Matey Weyburn as a tutor in George Meredith’s Lord
Ormont and his Aminta.
Aboanâ•… Friend of Oroonoko; he seduces the king’s old wife,
Onahal, so that Oroonoko may see Imoinda, who is under
her guardianship, in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko.
Aboanâ•… Younger man with whom Onahal, the discarded
mistress of the king, becomes enamored; politically savvy
about the women in the king’s harem; uses Onahal’s inter-
est in him to help Oroonoko secretly see Imoinda; goes to
Onahal’s bed, a strategy allowing Oroonoko and Imoinda to
consummate their marriage in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko.
Abo of Fossanovaâ•… Benedictine monk and abbot of an
abbey in northern Italy; he asks William of Baskerville to
investigate the mysterious murders taking place, in order
to protect the good name of the abbey; dies as a victim of a
murder himself in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.
Abouâ•… Tired “aged negro with haunted sin-sick eyes” who
helps deliver bouquets for Bachir from the Duchess of Var-
na’s flower shop in Ronald Firbank’s The Flower Beneath the
Foot.
Abrahamâ•… Biblical patriarch, who almost loses his wife to
Totis, king of Egypt; he refuses gifts of Charoba, but when
he discovers she slipped jewels into his supplies, he spends
them on pious works in the appended romance “The History
of Charoba, Queen of Egypt” in Clara Reeve’s The Progress
of Romance.
Abrahamâ•… Faithful servant of Richard Annesly in Henry
Mackenzie’s The Man of the World.
Abrahamâ•… Mandelbaum’s nephew; he goes with the smug-
glers to Hungary to escape the Holocaust; however, he is
forced by the Gestapo to send a fake letter to Vladek that
says the smugglers can be trusted; Vladek meets him in Aus-
chwitz, where Abraham tells him the truth; Abraham is pre-
sumed to have died in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.
Abrahamâ•… Pious Jew and keen businessman in Lodz; stern
patriarch and father of two sons born minutes apart—Jacob
and Simcha; later considers Simcha dead because of the young
man’s scheme to steal his father’s position at the Huntze steam
mill in Israel Joshua Singer’s The Brothers Ashkenazi.
Abraham, Captainâ•… Master of the Patricia, sent to tow the
crippled Archimedes to safety after the hurricane; he resolves
an impasse over authority with Captain Edwardes by kneel-
ing to make his assurances in Richard Hughes’s In Hazard.
Abraham, Mr.â•… Young Indian Christian man who serves
as a guide for Being of the Fort St. Sebastian ruins in Madras;
assiduously elegant and recently the recipient of a master’s
degree in commerce from the University of Madras; listens
to test-match cricket from New Zealand on a transistor
radio; his deportment has a protective haughtiness in Bharati
Mukherjee’s The Holder of the World.
Abramowitz, Mrs.â•… Effusive button-shop proprietor in
Joe’s neighborhood with a knack for cheek-pinching unpar-
alleled in Wolf Mankowitz’s A Kid for Two Farthings.
Abrams, Eliotâ•… Raised by two gay men after parents’ death;
lover of Philip Benjamin; roommate of Jerene Parks; sophis-
ticated and selfish; leaves Philip and goes to Europe in David
Leavitt’s The Lost Language of Cranes.
Abrams, Mikeâ•… Lawyer; early romantic interest and later
good friend of Salley Gardens in Susan Cheever’s Looking for
Work.
Abramson, Dr. Abeâ•… Physician; older cousin and sur-
rogate father of Zeke Gurevich; patron of freethinkers in
Greenwich Village in William Herrick’s The Itinerant.
Abravanel, Davidâ•… Egyptian Jewish lawyer to Mrs. Khoury
and father of Leah Strauss; he advises Mrs. Khoury to put her
possessions in his name to avoid their confiscation by the
Egyptian government; he dies in his sleep in P. H. Newby’s
Something to Answer For.
Abrazzaâ•… Bachelor king of Bonovona in Herman Melville’s
Mardi.
Abreskov, Paulâ•… Young, elegant Russian turned Bolshevik;
he is determined to capture Princess Saskia and her jewels
and take her back to Russia; he drowns in a storm in John
Buchan’s Huntingtower.
Absolute Beginners, Narratorâ•… Open-minded, intelli-
gent teenager living and working in London in the 1950s as a
Absolute Beginners, Narrator

15. freelance photographer; he is at odds with the establishment
and a defender of the independence and lifestyles of teenag-
ers and of his friends, who include prostitutes, hustlers, and
homosexuals; disgusted by racism in the city, he aids endan-
gered blacks during racial riots; he is in love with Suzette and
devoted to his father in Colin MacInnes’s Absolute Beginners.
Abstrog, Athenatâ•… Janol Angand’s personal priest who
advocates the union with Oldorando in Brian W. Aldiss’s
Helliconia Summer.
Abuelitaâ•… Aging grandmother of the young female narra-
tor; after her death, her granddaughter washes her body to
purify it in Helena María Viramontes’s “The Moths.”
Abundioâ•… Traveler who leads a string of burros and shows
Juan Preciado the way to Comala in Juan Rulfo’s Pedro
Páramo.
Abyssinia╇ (Sister ’ssinia)â•… Dressmaker who travels
with Arista Prolo as a costume designer; confides the story
of Arista’s life and death to Black Will in Carlene Hatcher
Polite’s Sister X and the Victims of Foul Play.
Acasteâ•… Wealthy young marquis who has great influence at
the king’s court in Moliere’s play The Misanthrope.
Accountant, Theâ•… One of the five men on board the Nellie
waiting for the tide to change on the Thames; listens as the
protagonist, Marlow, recounts his strange tale of traveling up
the Congo to find the mysterious Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness.
Ace, Joshâ•… Son of a team of Hollywood screenwriters from
the 1930s and lover of Isadora Wing in Erica Jong’s How to
Save Your Own Life.
Achilleâ•… See Lafitte.
Achille, M.â•… Fellow bachelor with whom Roquentin shares
an awkward moment at Camille’s bistro; is heartened by
Dr. Rogé’s overbearing self-importance; slavishly admires
Dr. Rogé’s extroversion and self-confidence; is the object of
Roquentin’s pity and contempt in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea.
Achillesâ•… Hero whose spirit the author encounters in Elysium
in Henry Fielding’s A Journey From This World to the Next.
Achillesâ•… Greek hero at Troy and lover of Helen; joins her
in Egypt in H. D.’s Helen in Egypt.
Achonâ•… Emperor Seth’s uncle who, although the legitimate
heir to the throne, has been kept prisoner for many years in
a remote monastery; when he is released by the combined
military forces of General Connolly and the Earl of Ngumo
and is crowned emperor, the strain becomes so great that he
collapses and dies in Evelyn Waugh’s Black Mischief.
Achorn, Charlieâ•… Cracker-barrel philosopher, temporary
farmhand, and resident of Pretty Pass in Peter De Vries’s I
Hear America Swinging.
Achthar, Anophelâ•… Villainous fop, who unsuccessfully
attempts to have his way with Anthelia Melincourt in Thomas
Love Peacock’s Melincourt.
Ackerman, Noahâ•… Lonely Jewish social worker whose
marriage to Hope Plowman deeply enriches his life; drafted
into the army during World War II, where he is subjected
to anti-Semitic taunts and distinguishes himself as a hero, in
Irwin Shaw’s The Young Lions.
Ackley, Robertâ•… Ill-groomed student who lives next to
Holden Caulfield at Pencey Prep in J. D. Salinger’s The
Catcher in the Rye.
Ackroyd, Floraâ•… Niece of Roger Ackroyd, whose will leaves
her £20,000 in Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Ackroyd, Lukeâ•… Intelligent working man in love with Thy-
rza Trent; he is rejected and temporarily falls into evil ways in
George Gissing’s Thyrza.
Ackroyd, Mrs. Cecilâ•… Roger Ackroyd’s widowed sister-in-
law; she and her daughter, Flora, live in financial dependence
upon him at Fernly Park in Agatha Christie’s The Murder of
Roger Ackroyd.
Ackroyd, Rogerâ•… Successful manufacturer turned country
squire; he is murdered in his study at Fernly Park in Agatha
Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Ackyâ•… Mercenary unfrocked clergyman and owner of a
“short-time” house who finds consolation for his betrayals
through his grotesque wife’s genuine affection for him in
Graham Greene’s A Gun for Sale.
Acoraciâ•… Guard at the exit from nester in Scott Spencer’s
Last Night at the Brain Thieves’ Ball.
Acorn, Lawrenceâ•… Horse thief and accomplice of John
Burrows in the murder of Farmer Trumbull in Anthony
Trollope’s The Vicar of Bullhampton.
Abstrog, Athenat

16. Acosta, Remediosâ•… Village gossip who relays information
about Americans Richard and Sara Everton to inhabitants of
Ibarra, Mexico, in Harriet Doerr’s Stones for Ibarra.
Acteâ•… Christian and a former concubine of Nero; plans
Lycia’s escape from a probable death sentence from Nero in
Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis.
Acton, Elizabeth╇ (Lizzie)╅ Guileless sister of Robert
Acton; marries Clifford Wentworth in Henry James’s The
Europeans.
Acton, Mrs.â•… Invalid mother of Robert and Lizzie Acton in
Henry James’s The Europeans.
Acton, Robertâ•… Sophisticated, well-traveled cousin of Wil-
liam Wentworth; courts Eugenia Münster in Henry James’s
The Europeans.
Actorâ•… Traveler on the wagon who intercepts the Ale-Wife’s
bottle and who mimics everyone in Charles Johnstone’s
Chrysal: or, The Adventures of a Guinea.
Actor, Theâ•… Alcoholic who hates the gambler and cheat
Satine; one of the many poor boarders in the lodging owned
by the ill-tempered landlord Kostilyoff in Maxim Gorky’s
play The Lower Depths.
Actressâ•… Traveler on the wagon who speaks in “heroicks”
and turns up her nose at everything and everyone in Charles
Johnstone’s Chrysal: or, The Adventures of a Guinea.
Adaâ•… Manager of the seedy Golden Peach Club, where
Arthur Blearney gives Charles Lumley a job as a bouncer
when he is down on his luck in John Wain’s Hurry On
Down.
Adaâ•… Servant girl; having grown up in Hilda Lessways
Clayhanger’s service, she criticizes her demanding mistress
and leaves with no notice, confirming Edwin Clayhanger’s
judgment of Hilda as an incompetent household manager in
Arnold Bennett’s These Twain.
Ada, Auntâ•… Arthur Seaton’s aunt, who tells him what to tell
a woman to do to have a miscarriage in Alan Sillitoe’s Satur-
day Night and Sunday Morning.
Adair, Aceâ•… Husband of Jewel Adair; killed by a train in
William Goyen’s Come, The Restorer.
Adair, Addisâ•… Adopted son of Ace and Jewel Adair; searches
for his biological father and becomes a saintlike figure in the
wilderness in William Goyen’s Come, The Restorer.
Adair, Azaleaâ•… Essay writer and dedicated wife from
Nashville, Tennessee; abused and driven to poverty by her
alcoholic husband, who wastes whatever money she makes;
delicate southern woman of exquisite education who lives in
a rundown house that still shows signs of its former grandeur
with a black coachman and a maid called Imp in O. Henry’s
“A Municipal Report.”
Adair, Jewelâ•… Wife of Ace Adair; seeks to fulfill her lustful
desires in William Goyen’s Come, The Restorer.
Adair, Mr.â•… Pamphlet writer on the Irish question; he is con-
ceded to be helpful to Mr. Gladstone, but is considered a bore
by the debutantes in George Moore’s A Drama in Muslin.
Adair, Walter╇ (Wat, Watty)╅ North Carolina Tory sym-
pathizer who betrays Arthur Butler; captured following the
battle of King’s Mountain; dies of a bite from a rabid wolf in
John Pendleton Kennedy’s Horse-Shoe Robinson.
Adalantaland Queenâ•… Ruler who lives no better than
her subjects; she tells Ambien II all that she knows of her
people’s history and their many laws—most of which were
given them by the Canopians in Doris Lessing’s The Sirian
Experiments.
Adamâ•… Husband of Ruma and father of Akash; often trav-
els for his work; supportive of Ruma and more relaxed than
she about asking her lonely father to live with them; cannot
fathom Ruma’s anxiety in making such a simple decision in
Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth.
Adamâ•… Old, former servant of Sir Rowland de Boys; chas-
tises Oliver for his treatment of Orlando, and warns Orlando
of Oliver’s plot against him; offers Orlando his meager life
savings and accompanies him in exile; taken in and cared for
in the forest of Arden by Duke Senior and his men in Wil-
liam Shakespeare’s play As You Like It.
Adamâ•… Texas soldier who has an affair with Miranda; dies
from influenza in Katherine Anne Porter’s Pale Horse, Pale
Rider.
Adam, Captain Jacob R. Adamâ•… Owner of the S.S. Thes-
pian, home of Adam’s Original and Unparalleled Floating
Opera, and master of ceremonies of the minstrel show in
John Barth’s The Floating Opera.
Adam, Fatherâ•… Constant companion of Dean Jocelin, who
refers to him as “Father Anonymous” in William Golding’s
The Spire.
Adam, Father

17. Adam, Judgeâ•… Magistrate in the court of Huisum, a vil-
lage near Utrecht in the Netherlands; appears in court in a
disheveled and disreputable state, including lacking his cer-
emonial wig and sporting obvious bruises to his face; fears
the sudden inspection of his corrupt court by the visiting
investigator Counsellor Walter in Heinrich von Kleist’s The
Broken Jug.
Adam, Missâ•… Young lecturer in history at the women’s col-
lege that Dolores Hutton attends in Ivy Compton-Burnett’s
Dolores.
Adam, Sirâ•… Rich Jew whom Lucy, Sebastian’s mother, con-
siders marrying in Vita Sackville-West’s The Edwardians.
Adamsâ•… Coroner’s Clerk who investigates the death of
Percy Higgins in David Lodge’s Ginger, You’re Barmy.
Adamsâ•… Head boy at Dr. Strong’s school in Charles Dick-
ens’s The Personal History of David Copperfield.
Adams, Abrahamâ•… Learned country parson, whose virtue
prompts him to support the innocent or afflicted and con-
demn the hypocritical despite the consequences; he accom-
panies Joseph Andrews and Fanny Goodwill to their home
parish in Henry Fielding’s The History of the Adventures of
Mr. Joseph Andrews and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams.
He is the editor’s friend, who perused and evaluated the
manuscript that is published as A Journey From This World
to the Next.
Adams, Alice╇ (Lady Alicia, Alys Tuttle)╅ Daughter of
Virgil Adams; has a summer-long romance with Arthur Rus-
sell, but gives up her dreams of a life in high society and enrolls
in a business college in Booth Tarkington’s Alice Adams.
Adams, Amosâ•… Philosophic and idealistic editor of the
Harvey Tribune; husband of Mary Adams, father of Grant
Adams, and grandfather of Kenyon Adams in William Allen
White’s In the Heart of a Fool.
Adams, Captain Willieâ•… Boat owner who warns Harry
Morgan that Morgan’s bootlegging has been discovered in
Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not.
Adams, Carterâ•… American acquaintance who introduces
Charlie Stark to the beauty of the Hawaiian Islands in Peter
Matthiessen’s Raditzer.
Adams, Darrylâ•… Sells cocaine for Rodney Little at Ahab’s,
a fish restaurant; is cheating Rodney by selling only half of
what he is supposed to; is shot and killed by Victor Dunham
in Richard Price’s Clockers.
Adams, Dick╇ (Jack)â•… Parson Adams’s favorite child, who
is reported drowned and prompts the parson’s dispropor-
tionate grief; this behavior contradicts his admonition to
Joseph Andrews to love in moderation in Henry Fielding’s
The History of the Adventures of Mr. Joseph Andrews and of
His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams.
Adams, Dr.â•… Country physician who drives the child Lucy
Cane to take Hazel back from Nuthanger Farm to the Down
in Richard Adams’s Watership Down.
Adams, Elizabethâ•… Daughter of wealthy businessman;
meets Calvin Marshall while an exchange student at Fisk
University; becomes his lover and executive assistant; tells
Andrea Marshall Calvin’s last words were to tell Andrea he
loved her; marries Gregory Townley after Calvin Marshall’s
death in Julius Lester’s And All Our Wounds Forgiven.
Adams, Geoffreyâ•… Cousin of Elizabeth Trelone; he is an
East End preacher who befriends Sirius, broadens his expe-
rience with human nature, and allows him to sing in his
church; Adams is later killed in the World War II bombing
of London in Olaf Stapledon’s Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and
Discord.
Adams, Georgeâ•… Handiman afflicted by advancing age
and senility in Henry Green’s Concluding.
Adams, Grandfatherâ•… Grandfather of Pookie Adams; sup-
plies Pookie with Casey Ruggles comic strips in John Nich-
ols’s The Sterile Cuckoo.
Adams, Grandfatherâ•… Grandfather of Stephen Grendon;
takes Grendon’s side in arguments and teaches him that all
love is just a fight against time in August Derleth’s Evening in
Spring; also appears in The Shield of the Valiant.
Adams, Grantâ•… Father of Kenyon Adams; carpenter,
reformer, and labor organizer in love with Laura Nesbit Van
Dorn and killed by an anti-union mob in William Allen
White’s In the Heart of a Fool.
Adams, Jakeâ•… Streetwise eighteen-year-old who makes his
living in the drug underworld of St. Louis; main character in
Herbert Simmons’s Corner Boy.
Adams, Janeâ•… Striking and talented actress who escapes an
abusive marriage to find success on the hit television series
Manhattan in Danielle Steel’s Secrets.
Adam, Judge

18. Adams, Johnâ•… English sailor who escapes from Africa with
Peter Wilkins in Robert Paltock’s The Life and Adventures of
Peter Wilkins.
Adams, Johnâ•… See Smith, Alexander.
Adams, John R.â•… Major, veteran of the Philippine cam-
paign, and commander of the First Marine battalion in
France during World War I in Thomas Boyd’s Through the
Wheat.
Adams, Kayâ•… College girlfriend and later the second wife
of Michael Corleone in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.
Adams, Kenyonâ•… Illegitimate son of Grant Adams and
Margaret Müller; reared as the son of Amos and Mary
Adams; musician and artist who marries Lila Van Dorn in
William Allen White’s In the Heart of a Fool.
Adams, Marian and Bobâ•… Aunt and uncle of Pookie
Adams; their Los Angeles home is a haven for Pookie in John
Nichols’s The Sterile Cuckoo.
Adams, Mary Sandsâ•… Wife of Amos Adams and mother
of Grant Adams; with the help of James Nesbit, claims her
grandson Kenyon Adams as her own son in William Allen
White’s In the Heart of a Fool.
Adams, Mildredâ•… See Gale, Mildred Adams.
Adams, Mrs.â•… Long-suffering, self-interested wife of Par-
son Adams; she objects to his support of Fanny Goodwill
and Joseph Andrews against Lady Booby, which threatens
the welfare of Adams’s own family in Henry Fielding’s The
History of the Adventures of Mr. Joseph Andrews and of His
Friend Mr. Abraham Adams.
Adams, Mrs.â•… Wife of Virgil Adams and mother of Alice
and Walter Adams; nags her husband to start his own fac-
tory so she and their daughter can join high society in Booth
Tarkington’s Alice Adams.
Adams, Mrs. Charles Fineâ•… Elderly woman who brings
to the narrator’s library a book on growing flowers in hotel
rooms by candlelight in Richard Brautigan’s The Abortion.
Adams, Nickâ•… Veteran of World War I who bears both
psychic and physical scars from his duty at the Italian front;
returns to the northern Michigan woods where he grew up;
hikes, camps, and fishes there; regains some of the spiritual
vitality he lost overseas by practicing simple but proven
rituals for living off the land in Ernest Hemingway’s “Big
Two-Hearted River.” Also the young man who witnesses the
preparations for the assassination of Ole Andresen and, when
the victim has not shown up, goes to warn him in Ernest
Hemingway’s “The Killers.”
Adams, Old Manâ•… Father of Jake Adams; factory worker
close to retirement in Herbert Simmons’s Corner Boy.
Adams, Philâ•… Boyhood friend of Tom Bailey; teaches Bai-
ley self-defense; becomes the consul at Shanghai in Thomas
Bailey Aldrich’s The Story of a Bad Boy.
Adams, Pookie╇ (Pooks)╅ Girlfriend of Jerry Payne;
whimsical storyteller who falls in and out of love and finally
commits suicide in John Nichols’s The Sterile Cuckoo.
Adams, Robinâ•… Fiancé of Angela Crevy; he is jealous of
and disgusted by Angela’s wealthy new friends in Henry
Green’s Party Going.
Adams, Shirleyâ•… Neddy’s ex-lover whose house lies on
his pool route as he attempts to swim across the country by
going from one neighbor’s pool to the next; less than pleased
to see him arrive at her pool, tells him she will not give him
any more money or any alcohol in John Cheever’s “The
Swimmer.”
Adams, Virgil╇ (Virg)╅ Father of Alice and Walter Adams;
longtime loyal employee of J. A. Lamb who starts his own
glue factory but is eventually bought out by Lamb, in Booth
Tarkington’s Alice Adams.
Adams, Walter╇ (Wallie)╅ Son of Virgil Adams; despises
the high society his mother and sister Alice aspire to; takes
up with disreputable companions and becomes an embezzler
in Booth Tarkington’s Alice Adams.
Adamson, Gerard╇ (Gerry)╅ Chairman of the English
department at Quirn College, philosopher-poet, and hus-
band of Louise Adamson, who leaves him for Vadim Vadi-
movich in Vladimir Nabokov’s Look at the Harlequins!
Adamson, Jackâ•… Unscrupulous partner of John Caldigate
in a gold-mining venture in New South Wales; he conspires
with Timothy Crinkett to blackmail Caldigate over his
alleged bigamous marriage; he confesses to perjury in the
case in Anthony Trollope’s John Caldigate.
Adamson, Kenâ•… Attractive, well-mannered patient in
Clive Ward who is popular with other patients and the nurs-
ing staff; in the hospital because of a car accident, he is con-
cerned about his souring marriage to Maevis and his dubious
Adamson, Ken

19. involvement in the traffic accident that resulted in the death
of a motorcyclist in John Berger’s The Foot of Clive.
Adamson, Louiseâ•… Young wife of Gerry Adamson, whom
she leaves for a less than felicitous marriage to Vadim Vadi-
movich, whose third wife she becomes in Vladimir Nabo-
kov’s Look at the Harlequins!
Adamson, Maevis (Maeve)â•… Beautiful model and wife of
Ken Adamson; pampered, indolent, and self-centered, she
visits Ken only once in the hospital in John Berger’s The Foot
of Clive.
Adam the Firstâ•… Old man from the town of Deceit; he tries
to stop Faithful at the Hill of Difficulty in John Bunyan’s The
Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come.
Adare, Adelaideâ•… Red-haired Polish woman who des-
erts her three children during the depression by flying off
with stunt pilot The Great Omar; mother of Karl Adare,
Mary Adare, and Jude Miller in Louise Erdrich’s The Beet
Queen.
Adare, Dot╇ (Wallacette)╅ Stocky, willful, aggressive part-
Chippewa girl who at age 18 becomes the Beet Queen in
Argus, North Dakota; daughter of Celestine James and Karl
Adare in Louise Erdrich’s The Beet Queen.
Adare, Karlâ•… German-Polish boy deserted by his mother,
Adelaide Adare, at age fourteen; glib salesman whose life
is marked by an absence of meaningful relationships; lover
of Wallace Pfef and Celestine James; father of Dot Adare in
Louise Erdrich’s The Beet Queen.
Adare, Maryâ•… German-Polish girl deserted by her mother,
Adelaide Adare, at age eleven; foster child of Pete and Fritzie
Kozka, who takes over operation of the Kozkas’ butcher shop
in Louise Erdrich’s The Beet Queen.
Adcock (Sparks)â•… Radio operator who signs on with Cap-
tain Bennett to go on an unknown mission for good pay and
is the only person who survives the experience; he is narrator
of Alan Sillitoe’s The Lost Flying Boat.
Addams, Frances╇ (F. Jasmine, Frankie)╅ Twelve-year-
old protagonist infatuated with her brother and his bride;
disrupts their wedding in an attempt to accompany them on
their honeymoon in Carson McCullers’s The Member of the
Wedding.
Addams, Jarvisâ•… Older brother of Frankie Addams; bride-
groom in Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding.
Addams, Royal Quincyâ•… Jewelry store owner, father of
Frankie and Jarvis Addams, and employer of Berenice Sadie
Brown in Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding.
Adderly, Jackâ•… Northerton’s fellow ensign, who joins him
in teasing and insulting the new volunteer, Tom Jones, in
Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones.
Addieâ•… One of two very elderly women who share a room
at the Old Ladies’ Home; visited by the 14-year-old Mar-
ian, who has come to spend time with them as part of her
Campfire Girls’ obligation in Eudora Welty’s “A Visit of
Charity.”
Addinsell, Charlesâ•… Arthur Middleton’s oldest friend; he
becomes successively involved with Arthur’s wife, Diana;
Arthur’s younger love interest, Annabel Paynton; and Anna-
bel’s close friend, Clair Belaine; in Henry Green’s Doting.
Addison, Josephâ•… Essayist whose soul the author encoun-
ters in Elysium in Henry Fielding’s A Journey From This
World to the Next. He appears as a critic and poet in William
Makepeace Thackeray’s The History of Henry Esmond.
Addison, Judahâ•… Investor in Frank Cowperwood’s natural
gas project in Theodore Dreiser’s The Titan.
Adelaâ•… Bernarda’s youngest and most attractive daughter;
dreaming of escape and freedom from the living hell of the
house, she defies the domestic hierarchy of mother and sis-
ters to initiate an illicit relationship with Angustias’s fiancé
that will lead to her death in Federico García Lorca’s play The
House of Bernard Alba.
Adelaâ•… Emma Greatheart’s maid who says that she never
lays a finger on anything dead in Ivy Compton-Burnett’s
Mother and Son.
Adelaâ•… Josephine Napier’s maid in Ivy Compton-Burnett’s
More Women Than Men.
Adelaâ•… Nurse for Sefton and Clemence Shelley; she is kind,
trustworthy, and attached to the children in Ivy Compton-
Burnett’s Two Worlds and Their Ways.
Adelaideâ•… Mistress of Charles the Simple; she procures the
downfall of Julian the Apostate, in his incarnation as court
jester, after he makes fun of her appearance in Henry Field-
ing’s A Journey From This World to the Next.
Adèleâ•… Beautiful young daughter of the Colonel and
Mummy, although her biological father is the sinister Jacob
10 Adamson, Louise

20. Hummel; a fragile spirit who spends most of her hours in the
hyacinth garden; finds the world, when its stark truths are
revealed, too bleak to live in and dies as a result in August
Strindberg’s play The Ghost Sonata.
Adeleâ•… Daughter of Lillian Beye in Anaïs Nin’s Ladders to
Fire and Seduction of the Minotaur.
Adeleâ•… Young woman and daughter of Roas Frumetl; her
mother marries the rich patriarch Meshulam Moskat to
ensure her dowry; modernized by European schools, she
finds Warsaw too “Asiatic,” and like her Jewish identity,
the city is seen as foreign and unsettling; later marries Asa,
although he still loves Hadassah; has a son, David, by him in
Isaac Bashevis Singer’s The Moskat Family.
Adelhuâ•… Heir and only son of King Oeros of Hypotosa and
the lover and husband of Eovaai; after he is exiled through
the evil machinations of Ochihatou, he disguises himself as
Ihoya and acts as protector of Ijaveo in Eovaai’s absence; he
rescues her from Ochihatou and they are happily reunited in
Eliza Haywood’s Adventures of Eovaai, Princess of Ijaveo.
Adelinaâ•… Mexican wife of Harrison; asphyxiated in Nicho-
las Delbanco’s News.
Adelineâ•… Innocent young woman abandoned to thieves by
her “father,” Louis de St. Pierre (Jean d’Aunoy); she is res-
cued by the La Mott family and remains with them in an
abandoned abbey until La Mott plans to relinquish her to the
evil Phillippe, Marquis de Montalt; captured by Montalt, she
escapes with her lover, Theodore Peyron, only to be recap-
tured by Montalt and returned to the abbey; she is released
by La Mott to escape to Savoy, where she is sheltered by the
clergyman Arnand La Luc; ultimately she testifies against
Montalt, is discovered to be his niece and heir to the Mon-
talt fortune, and marries Theodore in Ann Radcliffe’s The
Romance of the Forest.
Adelmo of Otrantoâ•… Benedictine monk; he is a young
illustrator of manuscripts; commits suicide due to his guilt for
a homosexual affair with fellow monk Berengar in Umberto
Eco’s The Name of the Rose.
Adeppiâ•… Young orphaned street singer in the Italian village
of Castiglione; befriends Nino and lives with Arsella and Pip-
istrello in John Hawkes’s The Goose on the Grave.
Adeptâ•… Alchemist who, while searching for the philoso-
pher’s stone, manages to free the spirit Chrysal from a small
portion of pure gold and records the narration of the spirit in
Charles Johnstone’s Chrysal: or, The Adventures of a Guinea.
Aderyn the Bird Queenâ•… Llewellyn’s apparent mother,
a Welsh women famous for her trained bird act in a travel-
ing circus; she is uneducated but shrewd and ambitious in
Anthony Burgess’s MF.
Adey, Maxâ•… Fabulously wealthy young man, who plans
and pays for the fog-delayed holiday of his friends; he is torn
between loving Julia Wray and Amabel in Henry Green’s
Party Going.
Adimari, Euthanasia deiâ•… Beautiful, virtuous child-
hood friend and later the lover of Castruccio Castracani
dei Antelminelli; she becomes Countess of Valperga and a
benevolent ruler; she tries unsuccessfully to maintain neu-
trality in the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict of Florence and
Lucca; an innocent idealist, she becomes disillusioned by the
corrupt power tactics of her lover and finds her love for him
changed to grief in Mary Shelley’s Valperga.
Adimari, Lauretta deiâ•… Cousin of Euthanasia dei Adimari
and wife of Leodino de Guinigi; she is consoled by Euthana-
sia at Valperga after her husband’s execution by Castruccio
dei Antelminelli in Mary Shelley’s Valperga.
Adimari, Messer Antonio deiâ•… Chief of the Guelph party
in Florence, father of Euthanasia, and a blind scholastic, who
engrains love of peace and liberty in his daughter in Mary
Shelley’s Valperga.
Ad’jibid’jiâ•… Young daughter of the protagonist and strike
leader Ibrahima Bakayoko; sneaks into a railway workers’
union meeting in Bamako where the African workers vote
to strike against the French owners of the Dakar-Niger line
of the West African Company in Ousmane Sembène’s God’s
Bits of Wood.
Adlanâ•… Supernormal being, an Egyptian who lives nearly
four hundred years and, thirty-five years after his death,
makes telepathic contact with John Wainwright, influencing
the establishment of John’s colony in Olaf Stapledon’s Odd
John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest.
Adlerâ•… Member of Ward Bennett’s crew seeking and failing
to reach the North Pole; loyally remains with Bennett after-
wards, encouraging him to make another voyage to the Arc-
tic, in Frank Norris’s A Man’s Woman.
Adler, Dr.â•… Vain physician and professor of internal medi-
cine who lives in comfortable retirement in New York’s Hotel
Gloriana; uncaring father of Tommy Wilhelm in Saul Bel-
low’s The Victim.
Adler, Dr. 11

21. Adler, Ireneâ•… Retired operatic figure who was previously
engaged to the king of Bohemia; possesses a photograph of
both Irene and the king; threatens the king by saying that
she would send the photograph to the family of the king’s
prospective wife; now engaged to and later marries God-
frey Norton, a lawyer; understands that Sherlock Holmes is
investigating to rescue the compromising photograph; leaves
England for the Continent before Holmes arrives to seize
the photo; leaves a letter for Sherlock Holmes and a different
photograph of her for the king; always referred to by Hol-
mes under the honourable title of ‘the woman’ in Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia.”
Adler, Joeâ•… American looking for a good time and finding
it with Laurie Gaynor in Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark.
Adler, Lizaâ•… Marxist who corresponds with Paul Hobbes in
John Clellon Holmes’s Go.
Adler, Myron╇ (Mike)╅ Successful and even-tempered
businessman who, out of friendship and concern, reveals
Joseph’s decline into bad temper in Saul Bellow’s Dangling
Man.
Admiralâ•… Achiever of rank through phlegmatic indolence
and servility of soul; he sells contracts to pursers at a great
profit and accepts bribes in Charles Johnstone’s Chrysal: or,
The Adventures of a Guinea.
Admiral’s Clerkâ•… Employee who keeps track of the
Admiral’s accounts and enriches himself at the same time in
Charles Johnstone’s Chrysal: or, The Adventures of a Guinea.
Admiral’s Executive Officerâ•… Active man who appeals
to his sailors’ sense of patriotism and greed before he leads
them into battle; he gives Chrysal to the sailor who first spots
land in Charles Johnstone’s Chrysal: or, The Adventures of a
Guinea.
Adolfâ•… Aging patriarch of a large Swedish family in the
remote and isolated farm in Ulvaskog; refuses to modernize
his farming methods and watches as his empire crumbles;
all but one of his children, his favorite, Mari, leave for the
city in hopes of a brighter future; ultimately murders Mari on
the eve of her departure to Stockholm in Vilhelm Moberg’s
Clenched Fists.
Adolfâ•… New medical chief at Auschwitz who recently arrived
from Dachau; possesses a pleasant nature; charged with
training new medical orderlies such as the narrator, Tadek,
and Staszek—two concentration camp prisoners; hopes that
the new orderlies will improve the health of prisoners and
morale of the camps to which they will return in Tadeusz
Borowski’s This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Adolf, Fatherâ•… Priest who is supposed to offer repentance
and support to despairing members of the congregation, but
instead instills fear of deceit in them; performs his best when
conducting funerals; gets rid of the Hussites; has his failings
as a priest, but is held in solemn respect; has supposedly met
Satan face to face and defeated him; arrests Number 44, who
is disguised as Balthasar, and escapes before being burned;
eventually gives up trying to arrest the Duplicates as well;
remains very superstitious and eager to assert his power as a
church official in Samuel Langhorne Clemens’s “The Myste-
rious Stranger.”
Adolphâ•… Servant who accompanies Swithin Forsyte on a
drive with Irene Forsyte to the site of Soames Forsyte’s coun-
try house in John Galsworthy’s The Man of Property.
Adolphe, Monsieurâ•… Perfectly attired, rosy-cheeked, cos-
mopolitan reception-manager in Arnold Bennett’s Imperial
Palace.
Adon-Aiâ•… Male spirit who is the friend and familiar of
Zanoni in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni.
Adonijahâ•… Old Jewish doctor who provides a haven for
Alonzo de Monçada after Fernan di Nunez is interred; he
makes a study of Melmoth the Wanderer and tells Alonzo
de Monçada of Donna Isadora di Aliaga (Immalee), who
was shipwrecked as an infant and grew up on an uninhab-
ited island until she was visited by the Wanderer in Charles
Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer.
Adorno, Andyâ•… Weekend guest of Celia and Quentin Vil-
liers and boyfriend of Diane Parry; he is rowdy, aggressive,
and obsessed with his macho image; a number of perverse
and violent acts, culminating in murder, are committed dur-
ing a decadent weekend in the country, and Andy turns out
to be the perpetrator in Martin Amis’s Dead Babies.
Adrasteâ•… Maid of Helen; becomes pregnant by Damastor in
John Erskine’s The Private Life of Helen of Troy.
Adrianâ•… Man involved in a brief relationship with Kate
Fletcher Armstrong in Margaret Drabble’s The Middle
Ground.
Adrianâ•… Friend of Imogene King in Isabel Colegate’s
Orlando at the Brazen Threshold. Adrian becomes Imogene’s
lover in Agatha.
12 Adler, Irene

22. Adrianâ•… Poetic, sensitive second Earl of Windsor, son of the
late King of England, and true friend of Lionel Verney; he
vainly loves Evadne Zaimi, assumes the duty of Lord Protec-
tor, believes in republican government, and leads the last of
mankind toward the safety of the Alps in Mary Shelley’s The
Last Man.
Adrian, Boris╇ (B., King B.)╅ Critically respected film
director who directs a pornographic movie in Terry South-
ern’s Blue Movie.
Adrianaâ•… Small, thin, but stern and resolute woman who
decides to convince her boyfriend, Mario, to accept the chal-
lenge to fight Jacob for the 500 pesos at stake, which would
allow her to marry Mario in Juan Carlos Onetti’s “Jacob and
the Other.”
Adriana, Doñaâ•… One of two owners of a bar at the Naccos
camp who are suspected by the investigator Lituma of hid-
ing the secret about the disappearance of three men in Mario
Vargas Llosa’s Death in the Andes.
Adso of Melkâ•… Son of Baron of Melk and Benedictine
novice; he is the scribe and apprentice of William of Basker-
ville; helps his mentor investigate the mysterious murders in
the abbey; as an elder monk, he writes his memories on the
events that have taken place in the monastery in Umberto
Eco’s The Name of the Rose.
Adverse, Anthony╇ (Toni)╅ Illegitimate son of Maria Bon-
nyfeather and heir of John Bonnyfeather; has many adven-
tures in his travels as he makes his fortune in Hervey Allen’s
Anthony Adverse.
Adye, Colonelâ•… Port Burdock chief of police and friend
of Dr. Kemp; he is shot by Griffin while trying to prevent
Griffin’s murder of Kemp in H. G. Wells’s The Invisible Man:
A Grotesque Romance.
A. E.â•… See George Russell.
Aearchusâ•… Parasite who ingratiates himself with the duch-
ess, Gigantilla, and has an affair with her but forsakes her
in the end in Eliza Haywood’s The Perplex’d Dutchess; or,
Treachery Rewarded.
Aegistheusâ•… Lover of Clytemnestra; conspires with her to
kill her husband and king Agamemnon; marries Clytem-
nestra and becomes the king of Argos; forces the citizens of
Argos to repent for the crime and is in turn killed by Orestes
and Electra, two children of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra,
in Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Flies.
Aegisthusâ•… Lover and husband of Clytemnestra; when his
wife hears about Orestes’ fake death, she joyfully sends for
Aegisthus and thus unwittingly lures him to his death; back
in the palace, he is slain by Orestes in Aeschylus’s The Liba-
tion Bearers.
Aegisthusâ•… Clytemnestra’s lover, Agamemnon’s cousin, and
the only surviving son of Thyestes, who was Atreus’s brother
and Agamemnon’s uncle; Atreus had killed two of Thyestes’
sons (Aegisthus’s brothers) and served them to Thyestes for
dinner; realizing the horror of having eaten his own children,
Thyestes proclaims a curse on the House of Atreus, which
Aegisthus has sworn to execute in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon.
Aegisthusâ•… Ancient Greek figure; lover of Clytemnes-
tra; conspires with her to murder Clytemnestra’s husband,
Agamemnon; killed by Orestes in John Erskine’s The Private
Life of Helen of Troy.
AEHâ•… Edwardian poet and professor of classics Alfred
Edward Housman immediately after his death at age 77; best
known for his collection A Shropshire Lad, inspired by his
unrequited love for fellow Oxford student Moses John Jack-
son in Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love.
Aehle, Missâ•… Professional music teacher who tutors the
narrator’s older sister on the piano and Richard Miles on the
violin; spinster who supports herself and her paralyzed father
in Tennessee Williams’s “The Resemblance Between a Violin
and a Coffin.”
Aelis, Dameâ•… Wife of Herbert le Gros Anisiau, a reprobate
who nearly kills his wife before his son Haguenier steps in
to defend her from his cruel father in Zoé Oldenbourg’s The
Cornerstone.
Aeore╇ (Child-Star, Riri’an)â•… Niaruna Indian warrior
who becomes a jaguar-shaman and chief rival of Lewis Moon
in Peter Matthiessen’s At Play in the Fields of the Lord.
Afanasi, Vladimirâ•… Eskimo leader of Desolation, Alaska;
builds successful community by integrating modern civiliza-
tion and native practices in James Michener’s Alaska.
Afanasyevitch, Ivanâ•… Statesman and a man of modern
political and enlightened ideas; he takes Marmeladov back
into the service on his own responsibility in Fyodor Dos-
toevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
A Few Fleasâ•… Son of Roman Diosdado and barman at the
Farolito in Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano.
A Few Fleas 13

23. Afflick, Jackieâ•… Good-humoredly vulgar owner of a coach-
tour business in Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder.
Afflock, Colonel the Right Honourable Sir Rupert,
M.P., J.P., F.R.S.â•… Eminently versatile Secretary of War;
he is humiliated by Lord Raingo and schemes to bring
about Raingo’s defensive speech in the House of Lords
which seriously taxes Raingo’s heart in Arnold Bennett’s
Lord Raingo.
Afranyâ•… Head of Procurator’s Secret Service; given orders in
a very circumvent manner by Pilate to kill Judas in Mikhail
Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita.
Africanaâ•… Somewhat physically disadvantaged kid goat
passed off as a wish-granting, magical unicorn; it becomes
the source of fantasy-play and the imaginary panacea to more
mature adult wants and aspirations in young Joe’s world in
Wolf Mankowitz’s A Kid for Two Farthings.
African Flowerâ•… See Lavoisier, Angela Williams.
African Woman, Theâ•… Described as wild and gorgeous,
an African woman whose hair is done up to look like a hel-
met and who is adorned by large layers of jewelry; appears
to have been Kurtz’s mistress and mysteriously comes to
the shore twice when Kurtz is forced to leave his African
empire by Marlow on the steamer in Joseph Conrad’s Heart
of Darkness.
Afrosinyaâ•… Drunken woman witnessed by Raskolnikov as
she unsuccessfully tries to drown herself in a canal; she had
formerly attempted to hang herself in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s
Crime and Punishment.
After Birth Tycoonâ•… See O’Leary, Salvador Hassan.
Agamemnonâ•… Ancient Greek warrior at Troy; brother of
Menelaos and husband of Clytemnestra; killed by Clytem-
nestra and her lover Aegisthus in John Erskine’s The Private
Life of Helen of Troy.
Agamemnonâ•… King of Argos and Clytemnestra’s husband;
as the older brother of Menelaus, whose wife, Helen, was
abducted by Paris, he commanded the Greek armies during
the 10-year Trojan War; in order to obtain favorable winds
for his ships, he sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to the gods;
upon victoriously returning home he is killed by his wife to
punish him for sacrificing Iphigenia; first his wife has him
blasphemously step on a crimson tapestry, then he is slaugh-
tered like an ox in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon.
Agar, Robertâ•… Specialist in keys and safecracking and an
accomplice of Edward Pierce, whom Agar turns in to the
police in Michael Crichton’s The Great Train Robbery.
Agaric, Fatherâ•… Clergyman of Penguinia on the mythical
island of Alca; seeks to restore the king of Alca to the throne
in Anatole France’s Penguin Island.
Agataâ•… Beggar woman who wanders during the winter to
collect money for a funeral in Władysław Stanisław Rey-
mont’s The Peasants.
Agateâ•… Man who barks at the taxi drivers for their lack of
backbone in striking; insults Fatt, one of the union leaders
and a suspected mole for the company; incites the drivers by
telling them that the rich are killing them off; says the “reds”
have helped in the past and not to wait for Lefty, who may
never appear; shouts “Workers of the world, unite!” in Clif-
ford Odets’s play Waiting for Lefty.
Agate, Sergeant Julianâ•… Flagrantly homosexual soldier
in Sergeant Richard Ennis’s unit; he becomes Ennis’s friend
and roommate but not lover; upbeat and irresponsible, Agate
flaunts his homosexuality in Anthony Burgess’s A Vision of
Battlements.
Agathaâ•… Beatrice’s maid and a practicing Christian who
consistently reacts to guests based on their economic class in
Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah.
Agathaâ•… Beloved of Redhead and wily waiting maid to the
queen of Utterbol; she assists Ursula to escape the evil king
of the Kingdom of the Tower in William Morris’s The Well at
the World’s End.
Agathaâ•… Orphan girl whom Elisabeth brings home; her
parents, drug addicts, committed suicide; invited into the
secret room where Paul and Elisabeth carry out their imagi-
native games and lives; becomes enamored with Paul, raising
Elisabeth’s jealousy, which leads to the death of both Paul and
Elisabeth in Jean Cocteau’s The Holy Terrors.
Agathaâ•… Wealthy spinster who, though terminally ill, super-
stitiously refuses to make a will; she expects her great niece,
Mary Whittaker, who lives with and cares for her, to inherit
in Dorothy L. Sayers’s Unnatural Death.
Agathaâ•… Beauty parlor assistant and girlfriend of Raymond;
at Raymond’s request, she visits the ailing Jake Brown in
Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem.
14 Afflick, Jackie

24. Agatha, Ladyâ•… Lord Henry’s aunt who works in the Lon-
don slums and engages in other charitable work in Oscar
Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Agatheâ•… Sister of the Austrian protagonist, Ulrich, during
the years leading up to World War I; engages in a mystical
and incestuous journey with her brother in Robert Musil’s
The Man Without Qualities.
Agatson, Billâ•… Former Harvard University student who
drinks heavily and craves excess; killed in the New York sub-
way in John Clellon Holmes’s Go.
Agaveâ•… Cadmus’s daughter, sister of Smele, aunt of Dio-
nysus, and mother of the Theban king Pentheus; joins the
Dionysian rituals and becomes a Bacchant, a female follower
of Dionysus possessed by his spirit; moved by Dionysus, she
murders and dismembers Pentheus under the impression
that he is a lion, only to realize her crime later in Euripides’
The Bacchants.
Aged Gallantâ•… Aurora’s titled and rich admirer, who lives
a life of gallantry and cannot divert himself from the pas-
sion of love in Francis Coventry’s The History of Pompey
the Little.
Agelastes, Michael╇ (Elephas, The Elephant)╅ Philoso-
pher and highly influential court wit; publicly an austere sage,
in private he is a voluptuary; though seemingly attached to
Emperor Alexius Comnenus, he secretly plots to ascend the
throne himself but is killed before succeeding in Sir Walter
Scott’s Count Robert of Paris.
Agelliusâ•… Callista’s suitor, a farmer, who first tells her of the
Christian faith; his uncle Jucundus and his brother try to dis-
suade him from it in John Henry Newman’s Callista.
Agentâ•… Go-between who arranges Her Grace’s patronage
interviews for a gift of cash in Charles Johnstone’s Chrysal:
or, The Adventures of a Guinea.
Aghaâ•… Turkish overlord of the remote village of Lycovissa in
the mountains of Anatolia; obese glutton who drinks during
the day and enjoys handsome boys at night; discusses with the
other village elders the upcoming Passion Play; refuses to help
the priest Fotis and his throng of beleaguered people who are
searching for a new homeland in Nikos Kazantzakis’s The Greek
Passion.
Agha, Abdiâ•… Tyrannical feudal landlord in a village in
Turkey; oppresses the poor; rages against Memed when he
attempts to elope with Hatche and leave the village; finally
defeated by Memed and loses his vast lands and fortune to
the peasants in Yashar (Yaşar) Kemal’s Memed, My Hawk.
Agilulf Emo Bertrandin of the Guildivernâ•… A model
knight in Charlemagne’s army who is an empty suit of white
armour. His rigid devotion to rules and regulations allows
him to maintain his existence; assigned Gurduloo as his
squire. He earned his knighthood by saving Sophronia, the
King of Scotland’s virgin daughter, but his knighthood is
contested by Sophronia’s son Torrismund, who claims that
his mother was not a virgin at the time of the deed; this accu-
sation prompts Agilulf’s quest. Before the truth about Soph-
ronia is revealed, Agilulf believes that he does not deserve
to be a knight, and leaves behind his armor for Raimbaut in
Italo Calvino’s The Nonexistent Knight.
Aglièâ•… Man who may or may not be the immortal Count
Saint-Germain in Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum.
Agloneâ•… Former slave who lives with the Pinseau family
after the Civil War as their cook and housekeeper in Grace
King’s The Pleasant Ways of St. Médard.
Agnesâ•… Aged attendant of Maud, Lady Rookwood, in Wil-
liam Harrison Ainsworth’s Rookwood.
Agnesâ•… Gilbert Imlay’s lover; a childlike street minstrel;
she laughs often and over very little in Frances Sherwood’s
Vindication.
Agnesâ•… Ill-disposed servant of Mme. Walravens; she lives
off the generosity of M. Paul Emanuel in Charlotte Brontë’s
Villette.
Agnesâ•… Lorenzo’s sister and Raymond’s lover, who finds her-
self condemned to live a life she detests, inasmuch as she has
been forced to become a nun; falls to sexual temptation and
becomes pregnant; sentenced to death for this reason; clever
and daring, she makes fun of religious superstitions and con-
vincingly argues in her defense; attempts to escape from the
convent but is imprisoned in the crypt, where her baby dies
soon after birth; her final rescue comes as the only happy end-
ing in the story in Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk.
Agnesâ•… The Heriots’ under-housemaid who fell because of
the broken back steps in Ivy Compton-Burnett’s The Last and
the First.
Agnes, Sisterâ•… See Udolpho, Laurentini di.
Agnewâ•… Mortuary superintendent who helps Morgan
perform the autopsy on the body of Lady Ashbrook in C. P.
Snow’s A Coat of Varnish.
Agnew 15

25. Agni, Roland╇ (Rollie)╅ Talented rookie outfielder forced
to play on the worst team in the Patriot League and bat
eighth all year; reminds Angela Whittling Trust of her only
true love, Luke Gofarmon, in Philip Roth’s The Great Ameri-
can Novel.
Agni of the Daylingsâ•… Warder of the Thingstead or holy
place of the Markmen, where Thiodolf and Otter are cho-
sen as war-dukes to lead the Gothic clans in their resistance
against the Romans in William Morris’s A Tale of the House
of the Wolfings.
Agocho╇ (Agocho Koh Tli-chu, Fig Tree John, John,
Red Fire Bird)â•… Apache Indian who seeks revenge on all
whites for his wife’s murder in Edwin Corle’s Fig Tree John.
Agonâ•… Tall, aquiline-featured, white-bearded and vindictive
high priest of the Zu-Vendi people; he fiercely hates Allan
Quatermain and his English party; he joins General Nasta
in rebellion against Queen Nyleptha and is killed by Umslo-
pogaas in H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain.
Agoropoulos, Mme.â•… Woman kept from the social gath-
erings of the Cabala; honored when Alix d’Espoli accepts her
invitation in Thornton Wilder’s The Cabala.
Agravaineâ•… Brother of Gawaine in Thomas Berger’s Arthur
Rex.
Agrippaâ•… One of Octavius Caesar’s officers; proposes that
Antony marry Caesar’s sister Octavia in order to strengthen
the bond between the two men; at one point orders Caesar’s
troops to retreat from a resurgent Antony in William Shake-
speare’s Antony and Cleopatra.
Agrippa, Meneniusâ•… Roman patrician, friend to Corio-
lanus and the hero’s fatherlike figure, his relationship with
Martius is quasi-paternal; seen as persuasive and wise; his
apologetic speech on the parts of the body displays his rhe-
torical art, which he uses to avoid class conflict; unable to
convince Coriolanus that he should not fight against the
Romans in William Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus.
Agrippineâ•… Ambitious widow of Emperor Claudius and
omnipresent, possessive, and doting mother of Néron, the
son of her former marriage to Domitius Ahenobarbus; pos-
sibly played a role in Claudius’s death, which made Néron
Caesar; fearing for her continued domination over Néron,
especially after her adviser, Pallas, is banished, she plots to
make Britannicus, Néron’s stepbrother, emperor; after Bri-
tannicus’s assassination, Agrippine knows that she will be
Néron’s next victim in Jean Racine’s play Britannicus.
Agrippinillaâ•… Claudius’s niece and mother of Nero; after
marrying Claudius, she rules Rome in his stead, finally
poisoning him to make way for Nero’s accession in Robert
Graves’s Claudius, the God and His Wife Messalina.
Agronomist, Theâ•… Friend of the Colonel; given custody
of the Cartographer ostensibly because of his horticultural
skills, he sets him free to spare the Colonel the difficulty of a
trial at which the Cartographer was to be the principal wit-
ness in Nigel Dennis’s A House in Order.
Agua, Dr. Pedro delâ•… Royal doctor ordered to mummify
deceased husband with heart intact in Carlos Fuentes’s Terra
Nostra.
Aguecheek, Sir Andrewâ•… Cowardly fool who plots to
regain his riches by marrying Lady Olivia; assisted in his mat-
rimonial scheme by Sir Toby Belch, Olivia’s uncle; decides to
abort his plan but is pressured by Sir Toby to pursue the mar-
riage plot in William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night.
Aguedaâ•… Old servant and only companion to the elderly
Sophie; suddenly dies, leaving Sophie alone in the sprawling
hillside home with her cat and the young male celestial angel
in Dora Alonso’s “Sophie and the Angel.”
Aguerra, Monsignorâ•… Investigator sent by the church to
studyLeibowitztodeterminethetrajectoryofhis �canonization;
plays the role of God’s Advocate in the process, which ulti-
mately leads to Leibowitz’s canonization in Walter M. Miller,
Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz.
Aguirre, Joeâ•… Foreman of a ranch where Jack Twist and
Ennis del Mar work with sheep on Brokeback Mountain in
Arizona; spots the two men in a homosexual embrace while
they are guarding the sheep herd, but does not mention it
to the two men at that point in Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback
Mountain.”
Ahabâ•… Captain of the Pequod whose pursuit of Moby-Dick
leads to the death of everyone aboard the ship except Ishmael
in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
Ahab, Gilâ•… Night-shift worker whose truck is used to trans-
port workers to the Past Bay Manufacturing Company fac-
tory during the strike; religious fanatic in Robert Cantwell’s
The Land of Plenty.
Ahearn, Mickeyâ•… Unmarried mother of a child she calls
Willy and sends via railroad freight to Will Brady in Wright
Morris’s The Works of Love.
16 Agni, Roland

26. Ah Fongâ•… Chinese baker on Manukura who dies in the
hurricane before he can return to China in Charles Nordhoff
and James Norman Hall’s The Hurricane.
Ahineev, Serge Kapitonichâ•… School’s writing master who
gives a party for the wedding of his daughter; object of a joke,
rumor, and slander, fostered by Vankin, an assistant usher at
the ceremony, that he kissed the cook, Marfa, at the nuptial
feast; becomes increasingly embarrassed as the tale spreads
to the other wedding guests; the story grows, and the two are
now rumored to be having a love affair; confronts Vankin,
who denies that he has told anyone the rumor in Anton
Chekhov’s “A Slander.”
Ahineev’s Wifeâ•… Wife of the school’s writing master, who
believes the rumors that her husband has started an affair
with their cook, Marfa, and turns angry toward him in Anton
Chekhov’s “A Slander.”
Ahmedâ•… Male name given to a baby girl born to hajji Suley-
man, a tyrannical figure emblematic of the Moroccan male-
dominated society; raised as a boy and then a man, even
though female, for 20 years in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s The Sacred
Night.
Ahmedâ•… Turkish man working at the hotel in Istanbul
where the Global Foods conference is going on; assigned
to assist Kate Brown, he innately understands her role as
“nanny” and its similarity to his own role in Doris Lessing’s
The Summer Before the Dark.
Ahmedâ•… Zahra’s brother, favored as a child and given the
choicest food; his family’s ambitions for him remain unful-
filled in the context of war, and he joins a militia group
and loots the homes of those he helps or kills in Hanan Al-
Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra.
Ahmed, K. Y.â•… See O’Leary, Salvador Hassan.
Ahmoseâ•… One of the protagonists and third of three pha-
raoh kings in a line of succession during the end of the 17th
and start of the 18th dynasties in Egypt; one of three kings to
lead his armies in a battle to regain Thebes and Egypt from
the Hyskos king Apophis; only one of the three defending
kings to survive the lost battle; years later returns to drive out
the invaders in Naguib Mahfouz’s Thebes at War.
Ah-Siuâ•… First wife and a barren woman of the wealthy tax
collector; she becomes jealous that her husband’s second wife,
Chang-hi-tang, has borne him a son; plots to kill her hus-
band, blames Chang-hi-tang for the murder, and claims the
child as her own; later loses the child to its rightful mother
in a test of true love for the infant in Li Hsing-tao’s play The
Circle of Chalk.
Ah Wing╇ (Ah Sing)╅ Chinese cook of the Flying Scud,
wounded and buried alive at sea by the crew of the Currency
Lass; his place is taken by Joseph Amalu in Robert Louis Ste-
venson’s The Wrecker.
Aidaâ•… Neighbor who helps Noumbe in Sembene Ousmane’s
“Her Three Days.”
Aigredoux, Mme.â•… Pauline Home’s former schoolmistress,
who did not like Mr. Home constantly in her school in Char-
lotte Brontë’s Villette.
Aiken, Forneyâ•… Alcoholic photographer who darkens his
skin while researching his latest book on black life in the
South in Walker Percy’s The Last Gentleman.
Ailwyn, Godfreyâ•… Priest who notifies Lewis and Marga-
ret (Hollis) Eliot that Maurice Hollis plans to marry in C. P.
Snow’s Last Things.
Aimataâ•… See Pomaree Vahinee I.
Aimeeâ•… Daughter of Iris and Alex Thomas and Sabrina’s
mother; grows estranged from her mother and does not know
her father’s identity in Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin.
Aimorâ•… Rebellious Jamaican slave, who protects Matilda
from his hostile compatriots in Sophia Lee’s The Recess.
Aingerâ•… Sometimes facetious butler to the Middletons;
he gossips and eavesdrops on the family in Ivy Compton-
Â�Burnett’s The Mighty and Their Fall.
Ainger, Alfredâ•… Butler to the Clare family; he identifies
with Cassius Clare, the master, and advises the family not to
call for a doctor when Cassius seems to be making a second
pseudo-suicide attempt in Ivy Compton-Burnett’s The Pres-
ent and the Past.
Ainley, Mary Annâ•… Ugly, unselfish old maid, whose good
works Caroline Helstone takes as a model but finds too dif-
ficult to follow in Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley.
Ainnleâ•… Brother of Naisi and Ardank who defies the dic-
tates of Conchubor, the high king of Ulster; murdered along
with his brothers by Conchubor in John Millington Synge’s
play Deirdre of the Sorrows.
Ainslie, Earl ofâ•… High-principled father of Lady Muriel
Orme; he has an interest in science, particularly botany, in
Ainslie, Earl of 17

27. Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno. He appears in Sylvie and
Bruno Concluded.
Ainslie, Mollieâ•… Massachusetts teacher who becomes a
major landowner in Kansas; marries Hesden Le Moyne in
Albion W. Tourgee’s Bricks Without Straw.
Ainslie, Oscarâ•… Brother of Mollie Ainslie; makes Mollie
promise, as he is dying of consumption, that she will remain
in a healthful Southern climate in Albion W. Tourgee’s Bricks
Without Straw.
Aiolfoâ•… Father of Medardo who gave up his title for his
son; spends his time looking after the aviary; after Medar-
do’s “bad half” rips a beloved bird in half when Aiolfo sends
it up to see how his son is doing, the old man stays in his bed
located in the aviary and dies in Italo Calvino’s The Cloven
Viscount.
Aire, John deâ•… Calais citizen who urges Eustace St. Pierre to
sacrifice his kinsmen to English conquerors in a parable told
by Charles Meekly in Henry Brooke’s The Fool of Quality.
Airish, Missâ•… Loose lady of the town in Eliza Haywood’s
The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless.
Airman, Noel╇ (Saul Ehrmann)╅ Songwriter with a
crooked arm who is the social director and head of the enter-
tainment staff at South Wind, an adult camp; love of Marjo-
rie Morningstar in Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar.
Airport Check-In Agentâ•… Jamaican female worker who
reiterates to Oliver that he must substitute his additional lug-
gage with cardboard boxes due to airport codes that deny
passengers onboard with overweight, multiple luggage,
unless they pay in Oliver Samuel’s play Airport.
Air Vice Marshallâ•… Structured, determined, controlling
speaker; glimpses of humanity show through his intimidat-
ing exterior in Rex Warner’s The Aerodrome: A Love Story.
Aisgill, Aliceâ•… Handsome, passionate, affectionate, empty
woman, whose husband no longer loves her but will not
divorce her; she is lonely until she meets Joe Lampton; their
breakup results in her suicidal death by auto “accident” in
John Braine’s Room at the Top. She is the subject of talk in
Life at the Top.
Aisgill, Georgeâ•… Controlling, conservative, sarcastic wool-
man; he does not like his wife Alice’s friends and does not
love her in John Braine’s Room at the Top. He is an upstand-
ing and strange man in the community in Life at the Top.
Aishaâ•… Member of a middle-class Muslim family in Cairo,
headed by al-Sayyad and his wife, Amina; marries and nearly
loses her entire family to typhoid in the 1920s in Cairo;
becomes an old woman at 34 and has taken to smoking in
Naguib Mahfouz’s The Cairo Trilogy.
Aissaâ•… Malay mistress of Peter Willems; she murders him
out of jealousy over his wife in Joseph Conrad’s An Outcast
of the Islands.
Aitken, Mr.â•… Scots landing agent for a mining firm in
Africa; he helps subdue the native uprising and finds the dia-
mond pipe in John Buchan’s Prester John.
Aitken, Robertâ•… Philadelphia printer who hires Thomas
Paine to start the Pennsylvania Magazine, only to fire him
when Paine starts writing too plainly about American inde-
pendence, in Howard Fast’s Citizen Tom Paine.
A. J.╇ (Merchant of Sex)╅ Financier of Islam Inc.; interna-
tional playboy and practical joker in William S. Burroughs’s
Naked Lunch; sponsor of Homer Mandrill for president in
Exterminator!; also appears in The Soft Machine and The
Wild Boys.
Ajaliâ•… Store clerk in Sergeant Gollup’s General Store who
likes and at the same time despises Johnson; he is a witness
against Johnson in the murder of Gollup in Joyce Cary’s Mis-
ter Johnson.
Ajaxâ•… See Jacks, Albert.
Akakievich, Akakiyâ•… Poor government clerk and copyist
in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg; dedicated employee
who becomes the butt of office jokes because his overcoat
is threadbare; starves himself to pay for a fine new coat,
soon stolen by robbers; finds no help from the authorities;
falls sick with fever and dies. His ghost goes on to haunt St.
Petersburg in search of his overcoat in Nikolai Gogol’s “The
Overcoat.”
Akashâ•… Three-year-old son of Ruma and Adam; a proper
American child in language and habits; often resistive, pre-
saging for his apprehensive mother the rift that will inevita-
bly develop as he grows; learns to love his grandfather during
his short stay and enjoys his time outside as his “Dadu” is
busy gardening in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth.
Aked, Adelineâ•… Small, dark-haired, grey-eyed orphan; her
solitary youth and her inheritance from an uncle give her an
independence of mind which surprises Richard Larch when
he fails her test of love in Arnold Bennett’s A Man From the
North.
18 Ainslie, Mollie

28. Aked, Richardâ•… Elderly, thin, intense former solicitor’s
clerk and uncle of Adeline Aked; his erratic enthusiasms fire
Richard Larch’s literary ambitions until Larch recognizes
that neither the old man nor he will ever achieve significant
authorship in Arnold Bennett’s A Man From the North.
Akerman, Mr.â•… Keeper of Newgate Prison in Charles
Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge.
Akibaâ•… Religious fanatic who has a mania for constant reli-
gious purification, even declining to touch his wife, Gina, in
Isaac Bashevis Singer’s The Moskat Family.
Akikoâ•… Wife of Nobutoshi and daughter-in-law of Shigezō;
cares for Shigezō after his wife’s death; confronts the difficul-
ties both the elderly and caregivers of the elderly face; grows
to love Shigezō dearly and grieves for him after his death in
Sawako Ariyoshi’s The Twilight Years.
Akissiâ•… African woman with whom the protagonist Clar-
ence is living in Camara Laye’s The Radiance of the King.
Aksiniaâ•… Married to Stepan, but the mistress of Eugene
Listnitsky, a rich Cossack in the Ukraine district; finds her-
self tossed aside when her lover marries Olga in Mikhail
Sholokhov’s The Don Flows Home from the Sea.
Akuebueâ•… Best friend of Ezeulu, the chief priest, and a wise
man who is always trying to push Ezeulu in the right direc-
tion in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God.
Akukaliaâ•… Emissary from the Nigeria region of Umuaro,
who is sent to Okperi to announce the war in Chinua
Achebe’s Arrow of God.
Akulínaâ•… Young woman waiting in the woods for her lover,
Viktór Alexandrovitch; lacks education and social position;
begs the man for an endearing word before he leaves for a
lengthy trip abroad with his master; finds it unbearable that
he will not offer a word of encouragement, not to mention
marriage or love, in Ivan Turgenev’s “The Tryst.”
Akunnaâ•… One of the respected elders of Umuofia; engaged
in amicable discussions with Mr. Brown about their different
religious beliefs in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
Alâ•… One of the two mafia hitmen sent to kill Ole Andresen
in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Killers.”
Alabaster, Professorâ•… Art critic who plans to write a biog-
raphy of Gulley Jimson in Joyce Cary’s The Horse’s Mouth.
Alacran, Rosario “Baby”â•… Homely, sickly daughter of the
wealthy, well-connected Alacran family who is considered a
burden by her parents; lonely, unloved, apolitical teenager
who quits high school and elopes with Pepe Carreon in Jes-
sica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters.
Alacran, Severoâ•… Wealthy head of the leading business
conglomerate in the Philippines; charismatic womanizer
who frequently argues with his wife; neglectful husband
and father; father of Baby Alacran in Jessica Hagedorn’s
Dogeaters.
Alamanack, Jackâ•… Former wealthy textile designer who
chooses to become a street philosopher and is befriended by
Michael Cullen in Alan Sillitoe’s A Start in Life.
Alamoâ•… Lead steer of the Del Sol trail herd that travels from
Texas to Abilene in Emerson Hough’s North of 36.
Alanâ•… Honest hand on the Hispaniola who won’t join the
mutiny; he is killed by Long John Silver in Robert Louis Ste-
venson’s Treasure Island.
Alanâ•… Husband of Sabina in Anaïs Nin’s A Spy in the House
of Love.
Alan, Catharineâ•… Elderly spinster who travels to Italy with
her sister, Teresa, in E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View.
Alan, Teresaâ•… Elderly spinster who travels to Italy with her
sister, Catharine, in E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View.
Alancon, Chevalier deâ•… Father of the young nobleman
Katherine de Maintenon loves; he gives her and Belinda
(Madam de Beaumont) shelter when they run away from
their convent in Penelope Aubin’s The Life of Madam de
Beaumont.
Alancon, Colonel deâ•… Young nobleman loved by Kather-
ine de Maintenon; she runs away from her convent to marry
him in Penelope Aubin’s The Life of Madam de Beaumont.
Alannoâ•… Chief of Hio-Hio who criticizes King Bello in Her-
man Melville’s Mardi.
Alanthus╇ (Formator)╅ Hero who rescues Amoranda and
falls in love with her immediately; he disguises himself as
the elderly guardian Formator in Mary Davys’s The Reform’d
Coquet.
al-Araj, Ahmadâ•… Son of al-Shareef Saadi and Hasan’s
schoolmate in Fez; suffers from alienation because of his
al-Araj, Ahmad 19

29. physical impairment; establishes a small army of fighters
in the south of Morocco to attack the Portuguese; relies on
Hasan in his negotiations with the sultan of Fez in Amin
Maalouf’s Leon the African.
Alarcon, Arthurâ•… Los Angeles Superior Court judge who
replaces Alfred Peracca in the second trial of Gregory Powell
and Jimmy Smith in Joseph Wambaugh’s The Onion Field.
Alasco, Demetrius╇ (Dr. Doboobie)╅ Evil alchemist and
astrologer, who poisons Thomas Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex,
tries to poison Amy Robsart Dudley, plays on the fears and
ambitions of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, with his astro-
logical forecasts, and dies from inhaling his own concoction
in Sir Walter Scott’s Kenilworth.
Alastair (“Long Al”)â•… Charlie’s alcoholic, chauvinistic
lover, who physically and mentally abuses her and is mys-
teriously summoned back to England by an Israeli device so
that Gadi Becker can entice Charlie away from her theatrical
family in John le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl.
Alasterâ•… Rob Roy MacGregor’s minstrel in Sir Walter Scott’s
Rob Roy.
Albaâ•… Narrator and granddaughter of Esteban Trueb; pro-
fesses her progressive and radical social attitudes in modern
Latin America, in contrast to her grandfather Esteban Trueb’s
traditional aristocratic views in Isabel Allende’s The House of
the Spirits.
Alba, Bernardaâ•… Odiously authoritarian domestic tyrant;
twice widowed with five daughters whom she abuses verbally
and physically; her power lies in rigid conformism and local
gossip; unable to avenge herself on Pepe el Romano, and
faced with Adela’s suicide, she fatuously proclaims Adela’s
virginity and demands silence to maintain the family reputa-
tion in Federico García Lorca’s play The House of Bernarda
Alba.
Alban, Frankâ•… Jacqueline Armine’s brother; he leaves his
slum parish in Birkpool for a pulpit guaranteed to make
him an “important figure in the Church” in John Buchan’s A
Prince of the Captivity.
Albanyâ•… Husband of Goneril, compassionate and honor-
able; chides Goneril over her treatment of her father and is
criticized by her for his “milky gentleness”; rebukes his wife
as a fiend for turning Lear out and having Gloucester blinded;
marshals his troops to defend from the French invasion, but
is alerted by Edgar of his wife’s courtship of Edmund; arrests
Edmund and Goneril for treason in Shakespeare’s play King
Lear.
Albanyâ•… Misanthrope born in Jamaica who haunts Cecilia
Beverley to burden her conscience as a rich woman; he takes
her to people who need her assistance and tells her his life
story of disappointed love in Frances Burney’s Cecilia.
Albany, Bertâ•… Former miner who works in Zar’s saloon;
courts and marries a prostitute, with whom he leaves Hard
Times when Clay Turner returns to raze the town, in E. L.
Doctorow’s Welcome to Hard Times.
Albany, Duke of╇ (Robert Stewart)╅ Younger brother of
King Robert III and uncle of the Duke of Rothsay; he con-
spires with John Ramorny in the murder of Rothsay in Sir
Walter Scott’s The Fair Maid of Perth.
Albemarle, Earl ofâ•… Host of the masquerade at which
young Harry Clinton displays his dancing skills and parries
the flirtations of several women in Henry Brooke’s The Fool
of Quality.
Albemarle, Lordâ•… Elderly and paralytic noble gentleman
in London in 1872; remains the only advocate who believes
that Phileas Fogg can succeed in his circumnavigation of
the world in 80 days; wagers £5,000 on Fogg in Jules Verne’s
Around the World in Eighty Days.
Alberic, Captainâ•… Estranged husband, a reported “wrong
’un,” of Eustace Cherrington’s old friend, Nancy Steptoe,
from whom she is separated when Eustace meets her again
in Venice in L. P. Hartley’s Eustace and Hilda.
Alberic de Montemarâ•… Duke Richard of Normandy’s
young vassal, who becomes his trusted friend and advisor in
Charlotte Yonge’s The Little Duke.
Albertâ•… Older son of Lionel Verney and Idris in Mary Shel-
ley’s The Last Man.
Albertâ•… Friend of Cecil Braithwaite in John Edgar Wide-
man’s Hurry Home.
Albertâ•… Husband of Celie; marries her to provide a house-
keeperforhischildrenwhenhiswifedies;beatsher;hidesletters
sent to her by Nettie; lover of Shug Avery; comes to understand
himself and modifies his behavior as a result of Celie’s growing
independence in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.
Albertâ•… Government employee and husband of Lotte; his
practical mindset and the rival for Lotte’s love make him
20 Alarcon, Arthur