Rosefolly, I'm completely ignorant about Lord of the Rings, so I need to be informed about Sam, please. Sometimes I recognize characters of books and movies that I've never read or seen, but for some odd reason LotR characters have not penetrated my consciousness. Why do you think Sam is special and memorable?

Dickens is in a class by himself in creating characters, isn't he, Carolyn? One you didn't mention that I always think of is Magwitch in Great Expectations. Magwitch has been elevated to main character in at least one book and paid homage by Peter Carey in Jack Maggs. I'm pretty sure I've seen him used or mentioned in other novels, as well.

A British rock band of the 1970s appropriated Uriah Heep's name. That's either an insult or homage, depending on whether one likes rock music. I think the band was pretty darn good, although they in turn were spoofed in the film 'This Is Spinal Tap' which is something of a cult classic.

Rosefolly, I agree with you about Sam. I admire the work of Tolkien, which can be read on so many levels. I thought LOTR was inspiring and brilliant.

Tolkien's naming of his characters certainly is imaginative and perhaps etymologically inspired. Does anyone know anything about the derivations?

What do you all think about Boo Radley? Is he the most memorable supporting character in To Kill a Mockingbird? Apparently a lot of readers think so. Personally, I am probably reminded more often how vivid to me Calpurnia and Miss Maudie Atkinson are. Dill Harris -- the "pocket Merlin" -- is never to be forgotten, too. (I count Atticus and Jem along with Scout as main characters.)

PAM, I meant to ask if Kitty and Lev's story in Anna Karenina makes you perk up? Anna and Vronsky are such train wrecks (at first an unintentional pun on my part that I've decided to leave intact) that sometimes when I'm rereading AK I flip through it just to find Kitty and Lev.

Is anyone out there old enough to remember the series of books by children's writer Noel Streatfeild (odd spelling but correct)? I used to enjoy her work up until I was about 11-12 years old . . . we were so unsophisticated in those long-ago days . . . and will always remember in virtually every book she introduced an older character. This person was a female, often an old nurse/nanny as in Ballet Shoes, or some poor distant relation, or a friend of the Mother, 'down on her luck' or an elderly retainer who seems to have come with the property. They always add a steely backbone to the story-line, rule the children and often the parents and be full of very outdated regulations on behaviour/table manners/bedtimes etc. plus weird expressions that would have been fashionable before the Boer War.

I imagine such a person must have played a similar role in the life of Streatfeild and editors didn't want to upset her by pointing out that children of the 1950's - 60's no longer lived in such a world.

I remember seeing her books in the library but I didn't always want to read books written by "posh" authors about unfamiliar settings. Children with ponies, ballet classes, boarding schools etc. I preferred Richmal Crompton's "Just William" books. He was the brother I never had....

They got things so wrong too when they tried to write about situations I did know about. I was going to write to Enid Blyton once about mentioning that a poor girl would have a Post Office savings book but I couldn't afford the stamp!

Vee, you stirred up some memories! I have been looking on the net for authors whose books I did read as a child. As you will know, books were in short supply in the 1940s so our library carried old stock from the 1930s as well.

Books belonging to people who had them at home were lent to children who could be trusted to handle them carefully. I was given a lot of Rupert Bear Annuals during one of my many illnesses. I caught everything going around!

It has been my pleasure to give books to my granddaughter's two girls as they are great readers and are "good with books" as it used to be phrased.

Back to the topic. Although Captain Hastings was in Army Intelligence, has he been given enough credit for his input? The Poirot TV versions, especially the one with Peter Ustinov, treat him as an idiot IMHO. I know he was Poirot's Watson but honestly...

Ann, I still have all my 'William' books; the first one swapped for a quarter of sugared almonds.

I never thought about posh settings in children's stories. When young I was deeply envious of kids with ponies and although I went to boarding school run by nuns, the life there was in no way similar to those of the girls in the Angela Brazil books. No midnight feats, cocoa in the dorm, unmasking German spies, secret passages in the Headmistresses study for us cowed and underfed inmates.

And I remember that all Streatfeild's characters were poor therefore her characters had to show gumption and rise above their situations!

The only children's book of those years which dealt with 'working class life' was, I think, The Family From One End Street . . . though I don't know if the author came from a similar background.

The Family from One End Street

Vee, I read all the Noel Streitfeild books when I was a girl. My driving ambition was to be a ballet dancer. (Instead, my parents forced me to take piano lessons!)

Freida, Tolkien was fascinated by Old Norse language and literature. He was an expert on the topic. He was also an admirer of the Anglo-Saxon peoples and did not think highly of the Norman invasion.

Vee, as an American child reading British children's books, I found many of them unbearably pretty. I wonder now if I was picking up on the fact that a lot of them were written by women who still felt most comfortable with Victorian aesthetics. Some of the male writers also seemed a bit twee to me.

As you probably know, some American writers nicked the storylines and styles of British writers (women seemed to be particularly prone of doing this) and the American 'versions' were often abominable, in my opinion. I read the British ones out of curiosity, because they seemed exotic to me, but the American-written ones made me gag. I never did learn to like most of them. :-(

Friedag, can you remember any titles of the "pretty" books? It is interesting that American writers used storylines from British books but I presume that they used American settings?

As I mentioned, we didn't have a lot of choice of books in our local library but I do recall reading some of the "Sue Barton" series.

Apparently the Chalet School series still have a following. I did read some of them. I even picked up a sewing tip from one! Don't use a thick needle on delicate fabric, I think it was, or something similar.

Annpan, ha! I knew as soon as I typed that about pretty English children's books, I should give examples but my memory wasn't cooperating. I read them so long ago that they've all blurred together. The feelings I had about them at the time have remained with me but very few of the details have.

Here are a few that I do remember, somewhat (frankly they made me, as a child, twitchy and impatient): Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter; The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame; and Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne. You probably can deduce from those that anthropomorphism was not my thing, no matter how cunning the people clothes were that the creatures wore. Heck, I never liked American versions either, such as Donald Duck.

I read several of the 'School Stories' series books -- The Chalet School series was probably among them -- and I found the English ones interesting enough, perhaps because I accepted them as reality based (what did I know about English boarding schools, etc.?), but the American-based ones made me skeptical. There were/are American boarding schools, but not many in my neck of the woods, so I was dubious of all the tea drinking and dainty liver paste sandwiches the girls consumed. American girls?!

There was an American series around a character called Elsie Dinsmore that my mother read as a child, as did my paternal grandmother when she was young. The stories about Elsie were ones that made me gag as she was so moral and pure. Some more gagworthiness were The Honey Bunch books. Honey Bunch had such 'beautiful knees'! The latter were just some of the series churned out by the Stratemeyer Syndicate -- The Bobbsey Twins (as well as Nancy Drew) books being others. Apparently the writers that Stratemeyer employed got a lot of their ideas from British writers.

I think I read just as many of the children's books and literature for boys -- Tom Brown's Schooldays and The Greyfriars series (was it Billy Bunter who appeared in those?). I thought they were all a group of fops and snobs -- one boy affected pince-nez (or was it a monocle?). But again, I didn't know any real English boys so I accepted their peculiar behavior. If American boys acted that way in any book I read, the book would get kicked under my bed.

Friedag, I think it is easier to accept things in a book when you don't know much about the subject! I get so annoyed when something untrue is in a book because it yanks me away from the world I was in!

Yes, Billy Bunter was in Greyfriars but I only saw the comics and didn't read the "boys" book. I wonder if the children's area at the public library we went to had separate sections, I can't remember!

Somehow I managed to miss the "Chalet" series. I do recall vividly the Annie Fellowes Johnson "The Little Colonel" series. These were politically incorrect, written in the days of Jim Crow, set in the state of Kentucky when the Klan flourished. They were so incredibly quaint in my view that they held my interest. (All the youth seemed to want to re-enact the Middle Ages, days of Chivalry, etc. ad infinitum. These children did not seem quite real to me -- I lived in a neighborhood of boys who played roughly, to say the least and I was a "Tomboy" myself. I think this series must be out of print by now, due to its treatment of sensitive subject matter such as "race."

My father had an old series: "Rollo." ("Rollo at School", etc. etc.) Very quaint.

Early on I became a Nancy Drew addict -- until they became so predictable and formulaic. "The Bobbsey Twins" were way too saccharine for my taste. I turned to "The Hardy Boys" then.

I read Ballet Shoes and loved it, but my favourite book by Noel Streatfeild was called A Vicarage Family and was based on her own childhood. It did contain a memorable supporting character - her cousin John who went to fight in WWI.

I also read a few of the Bobbsey Twins books and was fascinated by them being twins. I recall writing stories with sextuplets in them :)

And does anyone remember Cherry Ames? The one book we had was Cherry Ames: Dude Ranch Nurse - it always seemed very exotic to me.

I read every one of the long row of Bobbsey Twin books in my small-town library. I loved them! (I think I must have read them at a much younger age than Woodnymph - before saccharine meant anything to me.)

Astrokath, I do remember reading the Cherry Ames series. Were any of you awarded books as prizes for which student had read the most books during summer vacation? I recall winning a Nancy Drew mystery and I had to show copies of library cards of all the books I had checked out from our Carnegie library in Atlanta. (Funnily, most of the books I'd read were Nancy Drew mysteries!)

My daughter had a row of Cherry Ames books on the bookshelf in her bedroom. I read and loved Sue Barton from my school library, but she read them, too, from the public library I suppose. She is a nurse now.

Frieda,

Your question forces me to confess that it has been many years since I have read AK so I am no longer able to comment. But I LOVE your pun. Perhaps it is time for a re-read? (I am also rather convinced a Crime and Punishment re-read is in order. Many dislike the book, but I think Roskolikov one of the most complex characters I have ever come across.)

Have you ever read Trilby? I think that I must... just to get a firm understanding of Svengali. I picture him as Rasputin-esque. But I am guessing. Sorry all... tangent.

PAM

How about Chet Morton, the "sidekick" of the Hardy Boys? I always did find him interesting -- not the most athletic nor the most brilliant but a solid, reliable, and dependable chum. Without good supporting characters, the heroes don't shine as brightly.

Personally my favorite supporting character ever would be Steve Dallas from the Bloom County cartoon strips. Arguably, the main character is Opus the penguin but Steve's fratboy lawyer character just has so much more opportunities for hilarity. (I don't know if you guys read cartoon strips. Another great supporting character is Uncle Duke from Doonesbury. I LOVE that guy!)

Supporting characters are, I think, a very put upon class. They rarely get the girl, they rarely solve the mystery, they rarely get the bad guy. Yet, without them, the hero is less brilliant, less dashing, less.... heroic. It's as if the supporting character is a lighting umbrella that serves to reflect more light to the hero. In some cases, the supporting character is more of the reader's representative in the narrative -- we see through the supporting characters' eyes, we feel through their reactions, and we bask in the triumph of the hero through the supporting characters' adulation of the hero. And yet, without the supporting character ....

What would Batman be without Alfred there to patch him up and serve him his meals? Superman wouldn't be as super if Jimmy Olsen wasn't there to fawn over him or if Lois Lane wasn't there to be saved. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, McMurphy isn't as great if The Chief wasn't there. I guess supporting characters can also be used to humanize the main character, to bring out the main character's flaws, strengths, and/or weaknesses. Nero Wolfe isn't as petulant and peevish if Fritz Brenner isn't put upon to bring more beer or admonished for some imagined shortcoming for a recipe. (Archie Goodwin isn't really a supporting character -- he's a main character masquerading as a supporting character.) Dumbledore provides not just plot devices to move the story forward but is also an authority/adult figure that Harry rebels against in the Harry Potter books.

Anyway ... good supporting characters are as important to the narrative (if not, at times, MORE important) as the main character. They're like the drummer in a band or a rhythm guitarist that provides the beat to be followed by the vocalist or the lead guitar. Kurt Cobain may not have been as great without Dave Grohl .... And Paul McCartney and John Lennon may not have sounded as good without Ringo Starr. (Wait, wait. Who am I kidding? Paul McCartney would have sounded AS awesome regardless of who was on drums. But SOMEONE has to be on drums)

PAM, I'm due for another read of Crime and Punishment myself. Raskolnikov certainly is a complex character, one of a type perhaps only a Russian writer could have created -- I mean beyond the fact of the writer's and his protagonist's nationality.

Yes, I read Trilby years ago, but mostly because George du Maurier was Daphne's grandfather. As I recall, it was rather too melodramatic for my taste. And the Svengali of the book is rather different from the way he is often portrayed in plays and films. I can't recall enough to tell you what the differences are, however. Hmm, there is a Svengali-aspect to Rasputin -- I'll put it that way because Svengali became famous before Rasputin did -- at least in historical chronology outside Russia and perhaps even within most of Russia -- in St. Petersburg, particularly. By coincidence I've been reading about Rasputin and how he was able to help Tsarevich Alexei, perhaps by hypnosis, among other ways.

I love tangents, PAM. :-)

Hey! Good to see you, dynomutt. You are the original RP dynomutt, aren't you?

You've written such an interesting post, chock full of characters, that I will have to take some time to digest it before I can respond even halfway intelligently! Let me get back to ya. :-)

Yep! C'est moi! It's been .... what? 7? 8 years? Time flies ..... I was looking through an old computer and found a bookmark to RP. I decided to see what was going on over here and .... talk about quite a few changes. Then again .... many things HAVE changed. Eight years is a long time.... (I don't think I have any white hairs on my head yet. Well, they come out in the beard so that's incentive to shave. :D )

Wow dynamutt! A blast from the past! Welcome back.

Yay! Welcome back Dynomutt. I lurk more than post myself these days but it is good to see you back again.

Dynomutt, you must have been just a kid when you posted at RP all those years ago. ;-)

I used to read Doonesbury frequently, but I haven't followed it for about fifteen years now. I don't remember why I got away from it. Is Trudeau still nailing current events?

I like your points about supporting characters:

It's as if the supporting character is a lighting umbrella that serves to reflect more light to the hero. In some cases, the supporting character is more of the reader's representative in the narrative -- we see through the supporting characters' eyes, we feel through their reactions, and we bask in the triumph of the hero through the supporting characters' adulation of the hero.

That's a very interesting articulation of a point I've never quite put my finger on.

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, McMurphy isn't as great if The Chief wasn't there.

Excellent example! The casting for the film of Will Sampson as The Chief was perfect, I think.

(Archie Goodwin isn't really a supporting character -- he's a main character masquerading as a supporting character.)

You're right! I just never thought of it that way.

... good supporting characters are as important to the narrative (if not, at times, MORE important) as the main character.

I agree, but I'm fumbling around for some more book examples. Oh-oh! What about in Donn Pearce's novel, Cool Hand Luke, and in the subsequent great film (one of my all-time favorites) -- which, by the way, Pearce also wrote the screenplay . . . What would Luke be without Dragline?

Sam the Lion in Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show is an essential character, too, I think.

• "You boys can get on out of here, I don't want to have no more to do with you. Scarin' a poor, unfortunate creature like Billy just so's you could have a few laughs - I've been around that trashy behavior all my life, I'm gettin' tired of puttin' up with it. Now you can stay out of this pool hall, out of my cafe, and my picture show too - I don't want no more of your business."

That's dialogue from the movie (played exactly right by the great Ben Johnson), but as I recall it's pretty close to what was in the book.

Dynomutt, do you know those examples? Thank you so much for stimulating my brain! It's great to have you back. I hope you check in often here at RP.

Hi everyone! Greetings to one and all! Sorry I wasn't able to log back in but .... ugh. This week has been a bit hell-ish at work. I'm hoping this coming week is a bit easier with a lighter schedule. I don't think it'll happen but.... you never know.

Friedag --

I think Garry Trudeau is still doing Doonesbury. I haven't read the strip in years though. I have, however, gotten back to reading Bloom County since Berke Breathed came back from retirement and is now posting his strips on Facebook! (I login and, if he has a new strip, it's in front of me!) It's funny and biting. It has, of course, a bit of a liberal bent but it doesn't bash you over the head with that bent like Doonesbury used to.

Trudeau, I think, kind of lost his way back in the 90s/2000s. Doonesbury became almost a soap opera. Bloom County, on the other hand, was firmly entrenched in a very clearly fictional universe. So, there really wasn't much of a need for .... reality? I mean, when your main characters are a very badly drawn Garfield clone (Bill the Cat) and a penguin that kind of looks more like a puffin (Opus) .... reality goes out the window. That being said, his strips over the past year have been bang on. I mean, there IS a lot of material to work with but how he does it without directly addressing the current events issue is ... genius. (In one strip Bill the Cat disappears and one of the characters can't figure out how to describe what happened .... he searches and searches for a word until someone blurts out ... GRABBED! And yes. A cat. Think about it.)

The Archie Goodwin thing is quite interesting since, clearly, Archie is portrayed as being almost secondary since he's the narrator and that, clearly, Wolfe is the main protagonist. Wolfe solves the mystery. He's the one that moves the mystery and the solution along .... however, without Goodwin .... NOTHING gets done. Archie interviews the witnesses (initially), gets into gunplay, and flirts with the women. It's almost as if Wolfe is Mycroft Holmes -- immobile, brilliant, but, in the final analysis, paralyzed without data. Archie provides that data and is a combination of Sherlock and Watson -- full of nervous energy, a ladies man, a man of action, and a proxy for the reader. (That being said, Wolfe's dinners are something to read about. Archie isn't really a sensualist -- he enjoys good food but he's ok with a ham sandwich and a glass of milk from the corner store. Archie's doesn't even appreciate art that much -- that's left to Wolfe and Lily Rowan. If Wolfe is the epitome of the elitist, almost Eastern Establishment figure (well, kind of), Archie is the everyman who likes to watch boxing, likes hotdogs, and doesn't mind an occasional fist fight!)

And yes -- I've seen Cool Hand Luke. I've seen The Last Picture Show but I can't remember it much.

Funnily, I think that, when it comes to comedies, the supporting characters are quite essential. I don't think that's true of dramas. In comedies, the supporting characters tend to be the straight man that the protagonist "riffs on" to get the laughs. If we look at Ghostbusters (the original movie, not the 2016 ummm.... yeah, the original), the whole series of scenes involving Walter Peck (the guy from the EPA who shut down the grid and caused the ghosts to escape) was funny because Peck was the straight man and the various Ghostbusters (mostly Venkman) were cracking wise at Peck's expense. And if we look at Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein, a lot of the jokes were made with the supporting characters as straight man. I'm not sure how you would do something similar for dramas.

I think the same thing holds true for comedic books -- the supporting characters are quite essential (if written properly). Let's look at the Hitchhiker's Guide series. Arguably the main characters are Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and Zaphod. The books aren't as funny if you take away the Vogons and the other aliens (even Slartibartfast!). For dramas, let's take .... the Holmes stories. They're not strictly dramas but they're close enough (especially the longer stories such as A Study in Scarlet and The Valley of Fear). The drama and the story, I think, continues even if you replace some of the supporting characters. Lestrade, arguably, can be replaced by another Scotland Yard detective who similarly does not believe in Holmes' abilities.

I'm not sure but I don't know if you CAN do a comedy without supporting characters. You can DEFINITELY do a drama without supporting characters. The Martian has supporting characters but, arguably, the story would still stand and would still be as riveting (ok maybe a bit less riveting) if the Earth characters and his buddies were cut out. Cast Away was effective and it didn't really have any supporting characters. (No. Wilson does NOT count) Yet how would you do a comedy without a supporting cast? You could do a MOVIE comedy without a supporting cast but what about a comedy book?

Ok, that's quite a post so .... I'll leave it at that. :-)

Dynomutt, thanks for another thought-provoking post!

I'm not sure but I don't know if you CAN do a comedy without supporting characters. You can DEFINITELY do a drama without supporting characters.

I think that's generally true, mostly because no examples of comedy immediately popped into my head.

I do recall seeing Hal Holbrook live during the early 1970s in a one-man performance in the role of Mark Twain. This was in the main library of the university I was attending at the time. Holbrook as Twain was seated in a wing chair with the audience sitting on a large rug around him at his feet. It was a very intimate -- and, to me, unforgettable -- performance. Holbrook was attired in a Clemens-trademark white suit and was probably wearing a white wig and a huge moustache. The makeup was very good because Holbrook who was only in his forties at the time was thoroughly convincing as a seventy-something year old reminiscing Twain. Most of it was very funny or at least self-deprecatingly (in role) humorous. I imagine it as the next-best thing to seeing Samuel Clemens himself live.

Cast Away was effective and it didn't really have any supporting characters. (No. Wilson does NOT count)

But, Dynomutt, Wilson was the best stand-in for a supporting character -- especially as an inanimate one -- don't you think? ;-)

Lots to mull over! If you happen to think of anything else, please let me know. I don't check in every day at RP, but I can't stay away very long.

Annpan, reading in another thread reminded me that you are RP's resident Georgette Heyer expert. I have read four or five of her Regencies (some, I'm told, actually have Georgian settings, but I forget which ones) -- The Black Moth, These Old Shades, The Grand Sophy, Venetia, The Masqueraders, and Frederica are those that I can name off the top of my head. I've also read a few of her mysteries (Envious Casca is the only title I can think of, at the moment). Is Penhallow a mystery? I can't recall.

Anyway, are there repeating characters in any of Heyer's books (appearing in more than one book or story)? Do you think there are any particularly memorable supporting characters? All I can think of are main characters. Also, have there been any film adaptations of Heyer's books and stories? If so, have you seen them?

Friedag, Penhallow is about a murder but there isn't a mystery about it. The reader is told who does it, how and why. It is an unusual book and I don't want to spoil it for you.

Devil's Cub is about the son of the These Old Shades characters and his granddaughter is in An Infamous Army. There are repeat characters in the mysteries too. Duplicate Death has an older version of a boy in an earlier book whose name escapes me at the moment. (I shall need to check that out to earn my title of the RP expert!)

There have been two films made but the stories were changed. I saw The Reluctant Widow with Jean Kent but had to miss the end to catch the last bus home. This lead to me reading the book and started me off as a Heyer fan!

I understand there is a version of Arabella but made in Germany and in a modern setting, which I have never seen.

As to supporting characters there is at least one in most of the books. They have good parts to play too.

It is interesting to read modern readers interpretations of the characters. I was surprised to know that Freddie in Cotillion is "gay" and the Devil's Cub a potential rapist. I don't know if that was Heyer's intent ...

Ah-ha the title was They Found Him Dead! I remembered the storyline but couldn't recall the exact title. WW2 comes between the two books and the first detective's sidekick is now the main detective.

As I said, I have lost all the books but was given a yellowed copy of Penhallow so have to go by memory on the rest...and a quick peep at the website of stopyourkillingme!

Anyone remember of any good animal supporting characters? I got to thinking about this while walking Batpooch yesterday morning. Holmes used Toby (a bloodhound, I think) on occasion. Of course, there's the tiger in Life of Pi. Snowy (or Milou in the French editions) is Tintin's sidekick. Oh, and Batman had Batdog for a few months back in the 1950s. Tom Sawyer also used a bloodhound in Tom Sawyer Detective.

I'm not sure if it was Enid Blyton's Famous Five or Secret Seven who had a dog. I do, however, remember that the Our Gang kids had a dog. I don't remember any feline supporting characters though ....

Friedag --

I think I've seen the videos of Holbrook's performance as Twain. He's almost the quintessential Twain.

Funny thing about the Wilson character is that .... I'm sure the company MUST have paid for that awesome product placement! :D (Reminds me, as well, of the Wilson character from Home Improvement!)

Product placement in movies and TV shows is a very interesting topic ..... It's even more interesting when the product becomes PART of the plot!

Dynomutt,, what about Asta, the wire hair terrier, who belonged to Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man series? I don't remember if he appeared in Dashiell Hammett's original novel, The Thin Man, however.

Of course there's Dorothy's little dog, Toto, in The Wizard of Oz film. But again, I'm not sure he was in the Oz books.

The only feline character that comes immediately to my mind is the pet leopard that belonged to Katharine Hepburn's character in Bringing Up Baby. The leopard was named Baby, and he certainly gave Cary Grant's character fits (and probably Cary as well)!

What fun! I'll have to think some more about animal supporting characters. Some of the other animal actors really had starring roles, such as Lassie, Old Yeller, and perhaps the fawn in The Yearling. The human characters were important, but the animals were an absolute necessity or there would have been no story or books!

As we are on the film-front how about Elwood P Dowd and his friend Harvey the while rabbit? Perhaps they should have joint star billing. Don't you just love James Stewart's slow, measured voice?

Annpan, I was waylaid and didn't get a chance until now to post a response to your very interesting information re Georgette Heyer's books. Thanks so much. I must not have read enough of them to pick up on the repeated characters. I would like to go back and reread some of them and read others for the first time.

You probably have mentioned which of GH's books are your favorites, but if I made a note of them I have since misplaced it. Will you indulge me with a repeat, please?

I think The Grand Sophy is my favorite, perhaps because it's the most recent one I've read. That was several years ago, however.

I did read Penhallow, but I only remembered that there was something rather irregular about it. That it was about a murder but there was no mystery must have been what struck me.

As a side note: I've been reading about the development of the mystery genre and why it is perhaps the most popular for many readers. Seems that the genre started with the nonfiction 'execution sermons' given by clergymen on the Sundays before a scheduled execution. The condemned person was usually in attendance, especially if s/he had confessed and showed contrition for her/his crime. Supposedly this helped them accept the justness of their fate. These sermons were quite the attraction, so some enterprising printer began publishing them as broadsides. Readers couldn't get enough of them, so imaginative writers in the late 18th century began making up stories to tide readers over until the next real event! I got that information from Murder Most Foul by Karen Halttunen. Did you know that?

I find it amusing that some of the nicest people I know love to read about murder and mayhem. :-)

Vee, re Harvey: My mother and sister-in-law have been telling me that there are a couple of 'sightings' of Harvey in the film. I don't recall those. I thought he was completely invisible throughout, except to Elwood of course. Have you seen those glimpses? One is a silhouette of unmistakable rabbit ears and the other is a blur from a distance. (So say mama and sis-in-law. I haven't verified this.)

Yes, I always loved Jimmy Stewart's voice.

Friedag, I think you won't have a list of my favourite GH books because I would have said that the one I was currently reading at any time was the best!

As I grew older I liked different ones. As a teenager it was the romantic ones with young characters like the dashing Devil's Cub and Sherry in Friday's Child.

When older, I could enjoy the calmer stories of mature love such as in Venetia and Sprig Muslin. I also like the complexity of The Unknown Ajax with its final scene.

I liked the mysteries which GH's husband helped with by supplying plots from his legal knowledge but only came to read Penhallow late as I thought it was one of the historical novels and I didn't like them. The reason that it is unusual is that the murderer isn't......if you don't remember, read it again!

I didn't know the origin but Vee once quoted that murder mystery readers have a sense of justice. I read the lighter ones for the humour as not many people write the type of comedy stories I once enjoyed these days.

Frieda - That's quite interesting that murder mysteries came out of the 'execution sermons' tradition. I'm glad you learned that and shared it. Thank you. Like you, I've always kind of wondered why so many of us 'nice' people enjoy reading murder mysteries. Of course, it's the solving we enjoy.

More on GH. :) Like Annpan, as i grew older, i react differently to some of her novels. The one I notice the change most is The Talisman Ring. When I was younger, i identified with Ludovic/Eustacie as the lead characters with Sarah/Tristram as secondary - now it's the opposite, and I can't see Ludovic & Eustacie as anything other than silly secondary characters.

On the repeating characters: The Black Moth is a sort of prequel to These Old Shades (Duke of Andover aka "Devil Belmanoir" is recast as Duke of Avon aka "Satanas" and several other characters reappear as well, such as Frank Fortescue/Hugh Davenant & Jack Carstares/Anthony Merivale). Then you have Devil's Cub about Avon's son as a sequel. An Infamous Army combines Avon's descendants with characters from Regency Buck, and includes a cameo from the real-life Harry Smith from The Spanish Bride.

BTW, I think The Black Moth was Heyer's first story, the one she made up to amuse her sick brother. It's available from Gutenberg.

Mystery lover that I am, here are some of my gleanings over the years (not my own but they express my feelings). I also read something once that pleased me which said mystery lovers are intelligent and quick-witted.

Mysteries are a safe thrill and an adventure. There are puzzles to solve; and if you do this one step ahead of the detective, you puff up with pride. As well as the puzzle, though, mysteries help us cope with the
psychological and emotional concept of death and our own mortality. We like closure, which is something that isn’t always possible in real life. The stories appeal to our idea of justice. Good mysteries go far beyond our desire to be entertained. They are a
study of us and our world. The themes of justice and good and evil
abound. We like to see criminals punished because it signals that order
is restored to our world.

In a mystery, the characters are secondary to the driving force of the
plot--the over-riding question of "who done it?" that keeps us reading
from cover to cover. Mysteries are a means of escape from the reality of our lives. Readers enjoy the intellectual challenge in mysteries. They hold your uninterrupted attention till the end more than other fiction and challenge your intelligence. Mysteries get the brain working and the intellect going. Some can be very complicated. People also tend to like the element of surprise and the very best mysteries have this element.

What I find interesting is the way that social conditions are part of a mystery. I am reading one set in the 1930s and there is a reference to the difficulties of finding work for the many single women in that time. A reason why the main character is remaining in a post even though is is not a comfortable place to be with a murderer of young girls in the area!

This is a common theme of novels around the 1920/30 times when there were so many spare women after the carnage of the Great War. They were unemployed and went hungry. They put up with bad conditions in jobs that provided food and shelter. No wonder so many smoked cigarettes to calm their nerves...

Yes, mysteries are a good escape. However, sometimes when the writing and the atmosphere are really well done, all of it can feel very oppressive. As escapist literature, murder mysteries are, I find, some of the best. You get your thrills (safely), you get closure (bad guy gets caught), and you get a feeling of accomplishment (book is over -- time to get on with life once again). Nero Wolfe, I found, were good for this -- you get the humor, the mystery, and the living vicariously in a different era (safely). Ellery Queen is similar -- you get to live in the 20s and 30s (well, 30s, I think) without having to deal with the realities of the time. No hungry masses, no rise of Hitler in the horizon, no Great Depression .... it was (mostly) safe where the protagonist hobnobbed with the rich and famous, solved mysteries, and, in the end, (mostly) got the girl. Oh, and he drove a convertible Duesenberg. How cool is THAT?!

And, back to the animals theme .... the interesting part about Harvey is that you don't see him. Ever encounter books or films where a main (or supporting) character is never seen but whose presence is very clearly felt? One good example would be Keyser Soze from The Usual Suspects. (If you haven't seen the movie .... run. Run and watch it now. RUN!) Harvey, of course, is another example. Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry might be seen as another example -- you see Harry but .... not really. MORIARTY! How could I forget? You never really saw him in the Holmes mysteries, did you? And yes you KNOW he's there.

Any other examples you can think of?

Annpan and Donnamira: Wow! You both have convinced me that I should take another look at GH. I am impressed with your recall! Although I began reading the Georgians/Regencies when I was fairly young, something interrupted me so that I only followed the books spottily thereafter. The characters didn't 'fix' in my mind as much as the characters did in other books that I first read during my same reading phase (my teens and twenties). For instance, I can recall many of the characters in the comparatively inconsequential Gothic and romantic suspense books I read; e.g., Mary Stewart, Phyllis A. Whitney, etc.

For some reason, I have had a tendency to flush from my mind the details of the many, many fictional mysteries I have read -- or I conflate and confuse them. At least I can enjoy them over and over again that way. :-)

Carolyn, I recognize a lot of what you have collected about readers of mysteries. I think it is the puzzle aspect that I relate to most, and is probably why I am drawn particularly to real-life mysteries: in archaeology, linguistics, geophysics and most of the earth sciences (they can be likened to gigantic jigsaw puzzles, I think), and much of history -- what is history but mystery until a reader learns to synthesize it?

My favorite pencil puzzles are logic problems instead of crosswords which I think rely too much on memory (the retrieval aspect of mine is poor). Instead I like the puzzles that can be worked out without having to rely on my recall: the traditional so-called 'word problems' of math, the logic problems that can be solved on a grid, Sudoku (number place), Kakuro (cross sums). Anagrams and cryptograms are actually logic problems as well.

The vicarious pleasure -- particularly the safety aspect -- resonates too. There's just no way in the world that a person can experience so many different things and live through them except by reading . . . by watching television shows and movies, too, I suppose, but I'm very partial to reading. :-)

Here are a few more characters I think apply to the main question:

• Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously by Christopher J. Koch and in the subsequent film starring Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver, and Linda Hunt.

I read the book first and in it there is no doubt that Billy is male. Actually, there's none in the film, either, except the role of Billy is played by a woman. When I first saw the film, I didn't know that the actor is female, so I wasn't wowed by the fact that she played Billy so convincingly. Some watchers, however, can't seem to get past that fact.

At any rate, without Billy Kwan, a heterosexual male dwarf, the story wouldn't be much beyond the typical love affair during difficult times. (That descriptive of a particular type of a small-sized person is not PC, I know, but good grief, things do have to be taken in context of the times depicted.)

• Flora in The Piano by Jane Campion and Kate Pullinger and in the film starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Anna Paquin.

The book actually came after the film, in one of the rare instances when a novelization of a screenplay is quite well written, probably because Jane Campion, the screenwriter and director, had her hand in the novel as well.

As memorable as Flora is in the film as the daughter of the main character, Ada, I was pleasantly surprised that her actions were translated to the book in depth.

• Sally Bowles in Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories and in a couple of films: "I Am a Camera" (Julie Harris in the role of Sally) and in "Cabaret" (with Liza Minnelli as Sally)

Sally Bowles was English in Isherwood's stories and in "I Am a Camera" (although Julie Harris, the actress, was from the U.S.), but she's American in "Cabaret." I read somewhere that Minnelli was so perfect for the part, but she couldn't sustain an English accent so it was logical to change Sally's nationality. I agree in this instance.

• What about Harry Lime in The Third Man, a novelization by Graham Greene of his own screenplay for the film of the same title starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, and Alida Valli?

Apparently, Greene wanted the character of Holly Martins to be English instead of American. But he always wanted the villain to be American. Greene did not have a very high opinion of Americans. Instead, Martins as played by Joseph Cotten is a Yank. But which is the main character, Harry Lime or Holly Martins, in spite of the billing order of the starring actors?

The English characters, all of whom could be said to be secondary, are some of the best ever, I think: Major Calloway (Trevor Howard), Sergeant Paine (Bernard Lee), and Crabbin (Wilfrid Hyde-White).

What do you all think of those characters? Good choices or not? I'm trying to think of very well known books and films that many people have probably read or seen, although it is likely more have seen the films.

Dynomutt, "the Delay Gremlins" are at work again here at Houzz. A couple of hours ago at 9:31 AM (Hawaii-Aleutian Time) I got an email notification that there was a new comment on this thread. I clicked on it and saw that you were the new poster. Then I came to RP and could see that my three successive posts were the last ones showing. I scrolled up to see if I had missed your post, but I couldn't locate it. I refreshed three or four times until finally I saw your post of Yesterday at 6:57 AM (not sure which time zone). I don't know if this ever happens to you, but it's one of the things I dislike most about the Houzz takeover -- the unpredictability of when posts show up. However, apparently it doesn't happen to everyone. :-(

The Mystery Genre has splintered into so many subgenres -- and for all I know into sub-subgenres. I have trouble keeping track of what is considered what. I'm not a big fan of the ones that are classified police procedurals, mostly because they tend to be too graphic for me. I like to read while I'm eating, especially if I'm alone, and I don't like what I'm reading to put me off my food! No problems with that while reading Christie or other Golden Age mysteries, but I actually think it's quite bizarre that murder can be so entertaining. Mystery doesn't have to be murder, but most of the popular mysteries do seem to concentrate on murder. George Orwell wrote an essay on "Decline of the English Murder," basically a follow-up of Thomas De Quincey's "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts." I need to read those essays again.

Have you listened to recordings of the Ellery Queen radio broadcasts (1940s or 1950s, I think) or watched the television series made in the 1970s with Jim Hutton as EQ?

As for characters that are never actually seen: There's Rebecca de Winter in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Rebecca is dead, but her presence is so apparent at Manderley that she doesn't have to physically haunt the place. Films that deal with dead characters usually have to 'show' them in some ways that the watchers can perceive them. Flashbacks are the easiest way, I suppose, but the really creative subtle ways are much more interesting, I think.

I had forgotten about Moriarity, but I could have sworn that I have seen him in some films, including one quite recently -- perhaps in the New Year's Day special of the 'Sherlock' TV series with Benedict Cumberbatch. Sherlock went back to the 19th/early 20th? century for that special. Did you see that, Dyno?

Dynomutt and anyone else, Nero Wolfe and his sidekick Archie Goodwin are the characters for whom our two dogs are named. Archie and Nero are Decker rat terriers, fierce hunters of rodents who dare to come on to the property.

Blackberry in the book Watership Down.

"When travellers faced a river, Blackberry came up with idea to use a piece of wood to take Fiver and Pipkin
across the river as they were too tired to swim. This discovery saved
their lives, but everyone, except for Fiver and Blackberry himself,
didn't understand the meaning of this and forgot about it soon."

In the book Blackberry is a cunning and intelligent buck. He is the only
rabbit capable of understanding the physics behind the floating wood,
and is often the one to come up with effective plans.

"This is the magic trick now." - Bigwig about Blackberry's trick with boat.

---Watership Down Wiki

And I have to admit....I love Bigwig. He's just too cool : )

“My Chief Rabbit has told me to stay and defend this run, and until he says otherwise, I shall stay here. --Bigwig”

―
Richard Adams,
Watership Down

"Lots of little Bigwigs, Hazel! Think of that, and tremble!"
―
Richard Adams,
Watership Down

Lavender Lass, apologies for not getting back to you sooner! Thank you so much for your addition of Blackberry to the list of memorable secondary characters. I passed along your entire post to my reading buddies who received it with enthusiasm. Watership Down is a much loved book.

Altogether we came up with almost 250 characters. I have to admit that I am familiar with only about half of them. I always thought I was reasonably well read, but apparently not so much in fiction -- particularly not in more recent fiction. I quite clearly can recall characters from books I read thirty, forty, fifty, and even sixty years ago, but not too many from twenty and ten years ago. I suspect writers are still creating great characters, but for some reason I have been less easily impressed! Too bad for me.

At any rate, it has been an interesting and informative exercise thanks to all of you readers.