The Online Books Page

Character sketches

Here are entered works in prose and/or verse containing descriptive sketches of persons typifying some definite quality, vice or virtue, e.g. the miser, the busybody, the fop, etc.

See also what's at your library, or elsewhere.

• Character sketches -- Early works to 1800
• Character sketches -- Italy
• Characters and characteristics in literature

• Seven Men, by Max Beerbohm (Gutenberg texts)
• Twelve Men (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1919), by Theodore Dreiser (multiple formats at Indiana)
• The Wooden World Dissected, in the Character of a Ship of War: As Also, the Characters of All the Officers, From the Captain to the Common Sailor (seventh edition, 1760), by Edward Ward (page images at HathiTrust)
• Mars Stript of His Armour: or, The Army Displayed in All Its True Colours (London: Printed for H. Serjeant, ca. 1710), by Edward Ward
  • multiple formats at archive.org; missing pp. 11-14
  • page images at HathiTrust; includes pp. 11-14, but some other pages imperfect
• Impressions of Theophrastus Such (second edition; Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1879), by George Eliot (Gutenberg text)
• Theophrastou Charakteres: The Characters of Theophrastus (Macmillan and co., limited, 1909), by Theophrastus, John Edwin Sandys, and R. C. Jebb (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Seven men. (Heinemann, 1920), by Max Beerbohm (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Theophrastou Charaktēres. Theophrasti Characteres, seu notationes morum Atticorum, Graece ex librorum scriptorum copiis et fide interpolati et aucti, virorumque doctorum coniecturis correcti (sumtibus Friederici Frommanni, 1800), by Theophrastus, Adamantios Koraēs, Johann Jakob Hottinger, and Johann Gottlob Schneider (page images at HathiTrust)
• Characters of Theophrastus. (Macmillan and co., 1870), by Theophrastus and R. C. Jebb (page images at HathiTrust)
• Micro-cosmographie (Printed by W.S. for Ed: Blount, 1628), by John Earle, Algernon Capell Essex, William Stansby, and Edward Blount (page images at HathiTrust)
• Les caractères, ou Les mœurs de ce siècle (Morizot, 1864), by Jean de La Bruyère, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, and Theophrastus (page images at HathiTrust)
• Pensées de Bl. Pascal. (Chez Lefèvre, 1839), by Blaise Pascal and Jean de La Bruyère (page images at HathiTrust)
• Yankee notions; a medley by Timo. Titterwell, esq. (Otis, Broaders & company, 1847), by Samuel Kettell and Broaders & Co Otis (page images at HathiTrust)
• Characteres. (Lipsiae, 1858), by Theophrastus and Henry Edward Foss (page images at HathiTrust)
• Theophrasti Characteres : with notes, psychological and critical (Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1852), by Theophrastus and John G. Sheppard (page images at HathiTrust)
• Northern sketches (J. Dick, 1810), by Leonard Smith (page images at HathiTrust)
• The moral characters of Theophrastus (AMS Press, 1980), by Theophrastus and Eustace Budgell (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• The Mossback correspondence together with Mr. Mossback's views on certain practical subjects, with a short account of his visit to Utopia (D. Lothrop, 1889), by Francis E. Clark (page images at HathiTrust)
• Character sketches, or, The blackboard mirror a series of illustrated discussions depicting those peculiarities of character which contribute to the ridicule and failure, or to the dignity and success, of mankind, also, a number of moral, practical, and religious subjects ... illustrated with over fifty engravings from the original blackboard drawings (W. Briggs, 1890), by George A. Lofton (page images at HathiTrust)
• Seven men. (Heinemann, 1922), by Max Beerbohm (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Caratteri (G.C.Sansoni, 1919), by Theophrastus and Giorgio Pasquali (page images at HathiTrust)
• Microcosmography: or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters, by John Earle (Gutenberg ebook)
• Caractères. English (London : Printed for John Bullord and sold by Matt. Gilliflower ... Ben. Tooke ... Christopher Bateman ... and Richard Parker ..., 1699), by Jean de La Bruyère and Theophrastus. Characters. English (HTML at EEBO TCP)
• An armado, or nauy, of 103. ships & other vessels, who haue the art to sayle by land, as well as by sea morally rigd, mand, munition'd, appoynted, set forth, and victualled, with 32. sortes of ling, with other prouisions of fish & flesh / by John Taylor ; the names of the ships, are in the next page. (London : Printed by E.A. for H. Gosson, 1627), by John Taylor (HTML at EEBO TCP)
• The Character of a pilfering taylor, or, A True anatomy of Monsieur Stich in all his tricks and qualities (London : [s.n.], 1675) (HTML at EEBO TCP)
• Sir Thomas Ouerburie his wife with new elegies vpon his (now knowne) vntimely death : whereunto are annexed, new newes and characters / written by himselfe and other learned gentlemen. (London : Printed by Edward Griffin for Laurence L'isle, and are to bee sold at his shop at the Tigers head in Pauls Church-yard, 16[16]), by Thomas Overbury (HTML at EEBO TCP)
• Londons glory or, The histor[y] of the famous and valiant London-prentice: being an account of his parentage, birth and breeding together wi[th] many brave and heroick exploits perform'd by him throughout the course of his life; for the honour of London, and the whole ... nation. ([London : printed by W.O., sold by E. Tracy, 1700?]), by fl. 1680-1702 J. S. (John Shirley) (HTML at EEBO TCP)
• The Character of a soliciter, or, The Tricks and quillets of a petty fogger with his manifold knaveries, cheats, exhortations and other villanies. (London : Printed for K.C.I.F., 1675) (HTML at EEBO TCP)
• Fifty five enigmatical characters all very exactly drawn to the life from several [brace] persons, humours, dispositions : pleasant and full of delight / by R.F. ... (London : Printed for William Crook ..., 1665), by Richard Flecknoe (HTML at EEBO TCP)

• The Character of a Jacobite, by What Name or Title Soever Dignifyed or Distinguish'd (London: Printed for the author, 1690), by A Person of quality (multiple formats at archive.org)
• The Characters of Theophrastus, by Theophrastus, trans. by R. C. Jebb (HTML at eudaemonist.com)
• Theophrasti Characteres ; Marci Antonini Commentarii ; Epicteti Dissertationes ab Arriano literis mandatae fragmenta et Enchiridion cum commentario Simplicii ; Cebetis Tabula ; Maximi Tyrii Dissertationes : Graece et Latine cum indicibus (A. Firmin-Didot, 1840), by Theophrastus, of Cilicia Simplicius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Fr. Dübner, and Maximus of Tyre (page images at HathiTrust)
• [Theophrastou ēthikoi charaktēres] = Theophrasti notationes morum (Typis Haered. Andreae Dunckeri :, 1659), by Theophrastus and Isaac Casaubon (page images at HathiTrust)
• Characteres. (Tauchnitil, 1829), by Theophrastus, Epictetus, Karl Tauchnitz, and of Thebes Cebes (page images at HathiTrust)
• Les caractères de Theophraste, avec Les caractères; ou, Les moeurs de ce siècle (G.C. Walther, 1755), by Jean de La Bruyère (page images at HathiTrust)
• Caracteres de Theophraste ; Avec les caracteres, ou, Les mœurs de ce siecle (Chez Michel-Etienne David, Quai des Augustins, à la Providence, & au roi David , 1756), by Jean de La Bruyère, Michel-Étienne David, Theophrastus, and Pierre Coste (page images at HathiTrust)
• The moral characters of Theophrastus, in the Graeca Majora, literally translated into English. To which are subjoined explanatory and philological notes. (Printed at the Codman Press by Flagg and Gould., 1826), by Theophrastus and Charles Dexter Cleveland (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Characters of Theophrastus: A Translation, with Introduction, by Theophrastus, trans. by Charles E. Bennett and William A. Hammond (Gutenberg ebook)
• The "Characters" of Jean de La Bruyère, by Jean de La Bruyère, trans. by Henri Van Laun (Gutenberg ebook)
• Selections from the Observator (1681-1687), by Roger L'Estrange, contrib. by Violet Jordain (Gutenberg ebook)
• Les caractères (in French), by Jean de La Bruyère (Gutenberg ebook)

• The Joycean Monologue (revised edition, with added articles; 2010), by Constantin-George Sandulescu (PDF with commentary in Romania)
• Reading People, Reading Plots: Character, Progression, and the Interpretation of Narrative (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, c1989), by James Phelan (PDF files with commentary at Ohio State Press)
• The Transformation of Rage: Mourning and Creativity in George Eliot's Fiction (New York: New York University Press, 1994), by Peggy Fitzhugh Johnstone (HTML with commentary at NYU Press)
• Getting Inside Your Head: What Cognitive Science Can Tell Us about Popular Culture (prepublication version, 2012), by Lisa Zunshine (PDF at MLA Commons)
• The Mark and the Knowledge: Social Stigma in Classic American Fiction (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, c1979), by Marjorie Pryse (PDF at Ohio State)
• Imagined Human Beings: A Psychological Approach to Character and Conflict in Literature (New York and London: New York University Press, c1992), by Bernard J. Paris (HTML with commentary at NYU Press)
• Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century (1891), ed. by Henry Morley (Gutenberg text)
• Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown (London: L. and V. Woolf, at the Hogarth Press, 1924), by Virginia Woolf (Gutenberg text)
• Who's who in Oz (Reilly & Lee Co., 1954), by Jack Snow, Dirk Grenghuis, John R. Neill, and Frank Kramer (page images at HathiTrust)
• A Thomas Hardy dictionary : the characters and scenes of the novels and poems alphabetically arranged and described (G. Routledge and Sons, Limited ;, 1911), by F. Outwin Saxelby (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Zeḳs kharaḳṭeren in der ṿelṭ-liṭeraṭur (Rudolf Roḳer shrifṭen-ḳomiṭeṭ, 1929), by Rudolf Rocker, A. Frumḳin, and Paul Avrich Collection (Library of Congress) (page images at HathiTrust)
• La galanterie au théâtre (J. Baur, libraire-éditeur, 1875), by Ludovic Celler (page images at HathiTrust)
• Adélaide Ristori : studies and memoirs (W. H. Allen, 1888), by Adelaide Ristori (page images at HathiTrust)
• Elizabethan comic character conventions as revealed in the comedies of George Chapman (University of Michigan press, 1935), by Paul Vernon Kreider (page images at HathiTrust)
• The theory of characterization in prose fiction prior to 1740 (University of Minnesota, 1916), by Arthur Jerrold Tieje (page images at HathiTrust)
• De parasiti persona capita selecta (Trenkel, 1908), by Emilo Giese (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• The heart of Achilles : characterization of personal ethics in the Iliad (University of Michigan Press, 1994), by G. Zanker (page images at HathiTrust)
• Our puppet show; essays in life and the drama (William Heinemann, 1929), by Francis de Croisset, W. Somerset Maugham, and E. B. Osborn (page images at HathiTrust)
• Shakespeare vom Standpunkte der vergleichenden Litteraturgeschichte. 1. Die Menschen in Shakespeares Dramen (Haendke & Lehmkuhl, 1897), by W. Wetz (page images at HathiTrust)
• Types populaires créés par les grands écrivains: Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança, Tartarin, Falstaff, Panurge, Gil Blas, Figaro, Scapin, Crispin, types bourgeois, Harpagon, sots et naïfs, Rodrigue et Chimène, Gavroche (A. Colin, 1907), by M. Guéchot (page images at HathiTrust)
• Nebenrollen : ein dramaturgischer Mikrokosmos (Oesterheld, 1913), by Julius Bab (page images at HathiTrust)
• De Pathelin à Ubu, le bilan des types littéraires (Librairie Bloud et Gay, 1929), by Henri Thévenin (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Ethopoiia. (J. Murphy & co., 1892), by William Levering De Vries and William Levering Devries (page images at HathiTrust)
• Slovarʹ literaturnykh tipov (Izd-vo Slovarʹ lit. tipov, 1907), by Nikolaĭ Dmitrievich Noskov (page images at HathiTrust)
• De artis poeticae veteris parte quae est peri ēthōn. pars I (H. Steinmann, 1907), by Hermannus Steinmann (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Der Lehrer und der Geistliche im Elisabethanischen Drama (Heinrich John, 1906), by Hans Deichert (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Héros des romans ([James] Edwards, in the 1790s), by L. Dutens (page images at HathiTrust)
• Pictures from English literature. (Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1880), by John Francis Waller (page images at HathiTrust)
• Les caractéres de Théophraste, traduits du grec, avec Les caractéres, ou, Les mœurs de ce siècle (P. Jannet, 1854), by Jean de La Bruyère, Adrien Destailleur, and Theophrastus (page images at HathiTrust)
• Les types universels dans la littérature française (Lanore, 1928), by Jean Calvet (page images at HathiTrust)
• Les caracatères de La Bruyère (Furne, Jouvet, 1802), by Jean de La Bruyère, François La Rochefoucauld, and J. B. A. Suard (page images at HathiTrust)
• The story of Pierrot. (Herbert & Daniel, 1911), by Samuel Robinson Littlewood (page images at HathiTrust)
• Les types populaires au théâtre (Liepmannssohn et Dufour, libraires, 1870), by Ludovic Celler (page images at HathiTrust)
• Les caractères (Larousse, 1912), by Jean de La Bruyère and René Pichon (page images at HathiTrust)
• Von Nestor-Samuel bis zu Orestes-Salomo (Trèubner, 1908), by P. Jensen (page images at HathiTrust)
• Les caractères; ou, Les moeurs de ce siècle. Nouv. éd. collationée sur les textes originaux avec une notice biographique et critique sur l'auteur et sur son oeuvre (Paul Dupont, 1883), by Jean de La Bruyère (page images at HathiTrust)
• Don Juan, Casanova und andere erotsiche Charaktere; ein Versuch. (A. Juncker, 1906), by Oscar A. H. Schmitz (page images at HathiTrust)
• Moeurs de ce siècle (vve. E. Belin & fils, 1886), by Jean de La Bruyère and Theophrastus (page images at HathiTrust)
• Types et travers (Calmann Lévy, 1883), by Léon Bernard-Derosne (page images at HathiTrust)
• Essays on Shakespeare's dramatic characters of Richard the Third, King Lear, and Timon of Athens. To which are added, an essay on the faults of Shakespeare, and additional observations on the character of Hamlet. (AMS Press, 1974), by William Richardson (page images at HathiTrust)
• Bunyan characters in the Pilgrim's progress... (Oliphant, 1893), by Alexander Whyte (page images at HathiTrust)
• Great characters of fiction. (W. Gardner, 1893), by Mary E. Townsend (page images at HathiTrust)
• Types populaires créés par les grands écrivains: Don Quichotte et Sancho Pança, Tartarin, Falstaff, Panurge, Gil Blas, Figaro, Scapin, Crispin, types bourgeois, Harpagon, sots et naïfs, Rodrigue et Chiméne, Gavroche. (A. Colin, 1922), by M. Guéchot (page images at HathiTrust)
• Les caractères ou les moeurs de ce siècle (Librairie de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 1873), by Jean de La Bruyère (page images at HathiTrust)
• Contimporanii : schiţe şi portrete literare (Editura Librăriei Diecezane, 1920), by Vasile Savel (page images at HathiTrust)
• Maschere italiane (Presso l'ufficio dello Spirito folletto, 1864) (page images at HathiTrust)
• Les caractères de La Bruyère. (E. Flammarion, 1800), by Jean de La Bruyère and J. B. A. Suard (page images at HathiTrust)
• Istorī︠ia︡ russkoĭ intelligen︠t︡sīi : itogi russkoĭ khudozhestvennoĭ literatury XIX vi︠e︡ka (V.M. Sablin, 1907), by D. N. Ovsi︠a︡niko-Kulikovskiĭ (page images at HathiTrust)
• Types universels dans les littératures étrangères (F. Lanore, 1926), by Jean Calvet (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• The English comic characters (John Lane, 1937), by J. B. Priestley (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Nos marionnettes. (Les Éditions de France, 1928), by Francis de Croisset (page images at HathiTrust)
• Les caractères, ou les moeurs de ce siècle, suivis du discours a l'Acadèmie et de la traduction de Théophraste. Précédés d'une introd. (Garnier, 1923), by Jean de La Bruyère and Theophrastus (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Henry Gally : A critical essay on characteristic-writings from his translation of The moral characters of Theophrastus (1725), by Henry Gally, contrib. by Alexander H. Chorney (Gutenberg ebook)
• Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I.: With An Historical Sketch Of The Origin And Growth Of The Drama In England, by Henry Norman Hudson (Gutenberg ebook)
• A World of Disorderly Notions: Quixote and the Logic of Exceptionalism (University of Virginia Press, 2019), by Aaron R. Hanlon (JSTOR ebook)

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