| 1. Jay Gatsby
Social climber from The Great Gatsby (1925) By F. Scott Fitzgerald |
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Like Daisy, the object of Gatsby's desire, a money-conscious Zelda Sayre put off her engagement to a poor Fitzgerald. His first book made him rich, and Zelda married him a week later its publication.
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| 2. Holden Caulfield
Prep-school dropout from The Catcher in the Rye (1951) By J.D. Salinger |
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Caulfield was introduced to the American public in the 1940s in two short stories: "I'm Crazy" and "Slight Rebellion off Madison.
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3. Humbert Humbert
Licentious professor in Lolita (1955) By Vladimir Nabokov |
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Upon its publication, Nabokov's much-reviled book had only one notable champion: author Graham Greene, who called it one of the best books of 1955.
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| 4. Leopold Bloom
Ad canvasser from Ulysses (1922) By James Joyce |
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Joyce based Bloom on an acquaintance named Alfred H. Hunter, who took card of Joyce after he'd been knocked down in a fight.
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| 5. Rabbit Angstrom
Washed-up high school basketball star from Rabbit, Run (1960) and other novels By John Updike |
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"Rabbit would be distant and friendly, but I wouldn't seem very real to him. He'd recognize that I wasn't the real thing but a rabbit manque'." ---John Updike
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| 6. Sherlock Holmes
Legendary detective from The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)and other books By Sir Arthur Conan Doyld |
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"The first piece of fiction I ever wrote, when I was about ten years old, was a Sherlock Holmes story. I wrote a pastiche of Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes meeting Captain Nemo from [Jules Verne's] 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , and they teamed up to fight Professors Moriarty."----Michael Chabon, Author, the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; Wonder Boys
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| 7. Atticus Finch
Right-minded lawyer from To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) By Harper Lee |
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Finch was Lee's mother's maiden name.
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| 8. Molly Bloom
Singer from Ulysses (1922) By James Joyce |
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"I admired her earthy, sexual and lyrical qualities, her passion and her humor. I remember vividly her sensuality. And she had all of these qualities that I would try to find in women that I looked for." ---Ken Howard, Actor, Crossing Jordan
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| 9. Stephen Dedalus
Writer in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) By James Joyce |
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Stephen Dedalus was a pseudonym Joyce used for several stories before publishing Portrait .
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| 10. Lily Bart
Failing socialite from The House of Mirth (1905) By Edith Wharton |
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Wharton's characters were modeled on people she knew in high-society families in New York and Newport, Rhode Island.
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