Novel Characters

A Genealogy
The anxiety and the curiosity Jane Austen s narrator expresses for her favorite heroine is an anxiety and curiosity all true novels feel for their characters, however well, or however little loved they might be.
Novel Characters offers a fascinating and in-depth history of the novelistic character from the “birth of the novel” in Don Quixote, through the great canonical works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to the most influential international novels of the present day 

• An original study which offers a unique approach to thinking about and discussing character
• Makes extensive reference to both traditional and more recent and specialized academic studies of the novel
• Provides a critical vocabulary for understanding how the novelistic conception of character has changed over time.
• Examines a broad range of novels, cultures, and periods
• Promotes discussion of how different cultures and times think about human identity, and how the concept of what a character is has changed over time