Favorite Heroine?

Who's your favorite female protagonist in a work of fiction?

I'll break mine down into categories, because I'm a cheater:
Young adult: always been partial to Podkayne from Podkayne of Mars
Comics: Oh, so many. I'll take it down to two: Jessica Jones from Alias and Maggie from Love and Rockets
Sci-fi/Fantasy : Jame from God Stalk
Horror: Mary Katherine from We Have Always Lived in the Castle *shiver*
Fiction: Smilla, from Smilla's Sense of Snow and Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird

I believe that my favourite heroine, or one of them, is Cindie, from Cindie by Jean Devanny, an author from New Zealand.
I always loved Cindie's strength and determination, and her ability never to be overwhelmed by adversities. Another one will definitely be Elizabeth Bennett, from Pride and Prejudice.
I have others, I know, but cannot think of them at the moment. I will post other messages as long as they come to my mind.

Paola :-))

Oh, and by the way, I am really glad there finally is a group dedicated to women writers! Thanks lizvelrene!!

Good Topic!

I think Elizabeth Bennett has to be at the top of my list, along with Anne from the L.M. Montgomery books and Laura from Little House on the Prairie but from more contemporary works, several of Margaret Atwood's characters are great heroines, as is Mary Russell from the Laurie King Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

Madeleine in (The Way the Crow Flies) by (Ann-Marie MacDonald) is such a strong young character.

She's not strong and heroic the way we like our 20th cen. women but (Jane Eyre) is great because of her vulnerability.

(Carol Shield)'s and (Alice Munro)'s female characters always make me feel not so alone.

Bone from Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina.

Anna from Damage. She's the antagonist really, but she says, "Damaged people are dangerous because they know they can survive." I love that line and I love her character for being unapologetically flawed.

Bone v. Scout seems too close to call!

Bone is one of my favorites too. I also particularly liked Delia and Cissy in Cavedweller.

I'm partial to Lolly Willowes from Sylvia Townsend Warner's novel of the same name.

A much younger heroine I love is Cassandra Mortmain in Dodie Smith's novel 'I Capture the Castle'.

As a young teenage girl, I idolized Colette's Claudine. I'm not too certain what I'd think of her now, if I were to reread that series. I still like Elizabeth Bennet though-another early teen favorite

And any heroine envisioned by Joanna Russ is a fictional force to be reckoned with!

Silence Leigh, from the roads of heaven trillogy by Melissa Scott has been a firm favourite for many years (I first read those books when I was seven.)

In more recent times, I've become quite attached to Ista Dy Baocia from Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold. I'd not realised Bujold had written fantasy (I knew her only for her scifi) and am currently looking for the book that preceded this one just so I can have more of Ista's Story to read.

Latest fave: Girl in McLaughlin and Krauss' "Citizen Girl."

Childhood fave: Alice in "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass."

Adolescent fave: Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre.

Fave from my 10-year-old's book collection: Professor Delores Umbridge. Magnificently awful.

Fave from Shakespeare: Lady Macbeth. See Umbridge above.

Fave from Tennessee Williams: Blanche "Ah have al-ways relahed on the kahndness of sta-rangers" Du Bois. God, I love saying that.

But Violet Venable is a close second.

Austen Fave: Eleanore in "Sense and Sensibility."

Podkayne of Mars, that was the first SciFi book I read. I remember the cover being intrigueing. But if my memory serves me right, wasn' Podkayne very passive, things happened to her, and her brother was the agentic one. I read a fair amount of Heinlein but hated his female characters - he described them as atypical for a woman (so what does that say about most women) and they had big boobs. But that may Not be how Podkayne a central character was portrayed.

Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land was another dopey book with passive women characters. As I recall there were a bunch of women judges who hung around the pool in various states of disrobement, but they were really brainy, so I guess that was supposed to offset their dynamite figures.

I could never "grok" any of it, though it was one of the books that it was cool to be seen reading in my hippie heyday. That and Lord of the Rings, and On the Road, two other colossal wastes of time.

Honestly, I could add years to my life if I had the time I spent sitting around the student union with those books, hoping to be seen by Certain Boys reading that tripe.

(continues to chuckle while reading above messages...). Yep, read the Heinlein also. Remember his Friday? Ugh. I did like some of his stories but I was fairly conditioned to not expect anything too much of the women in any literature. Never could get into LOTR either. Thank the bookgods that some womynly life has been blown into the genre...

Becky Sharp (of Vanity Fair or Dorathea in Middlemarch are some favs, although the heroines who spoke most powerfully to me (and haunt me to this day) were of a different ilk - Lara in Dr. Zhivago, Offred in Handmaid's Tale, Eva in We Need to Talk about Kevin...

Glad to know others out there are not LOTR fans.

While I hate the novels as literature, I do appreciate them as "exercises," in which Tolkien the scholar was synthesizing the Old English/Gothic milieu.

I thought the movies were better than the books. Though I'd recommend reading Cliff's Notes for the first two books adn just renting the last installment.

Except that Sean bean isn't in that one.

Nancy Drew by far.
She's so suave and smart (don't let the brunette head fool you) and I remember wanting to own a red Mustang and learn Judo just because she did too..

Nohrt4me: I'm with you in relief that there are people who read things other than LOTR (though at one point I tried to be like "one of them".. I couldn't do it though.. fantasy is not really my thing, or at least haven't found one that I particularly like)

Movies are better than books? Hmm, I'd say depends on what the storyline is.. in my opinion, some are better on the screen and some just scream out: I'M SUPPOSED TO BE BOUND AND TYPED ON PAPER. As far as LOTR goes though, I thought it was better as a movie.

If you liked Nancy Drew I highly recommend a new non-fiction book called Girl Sleuth. It's about the women who wrote the books and about their changes and impact over time. Very interesting reading.

I meant only that LOTR was a better movie than a book.

Most books are better than the movie.

Though I'd say "Sense and Sensibility" came pretty damn close to being as good, ditto "Pride and Prejudice" (the Firth-Ehle version, not the one with that scrawny Keira Knightly and droopy guy).

But, then, "P&P" follows the book so closely, you can open it and almost read along while you watch the movie.

On the other hand, the "Horatio Hornblower" movies bear almost no resemblence to the books whatever. But the stories are still compelling and it's nicely done, except that Ioan Gruffydd is kind of a stick. But then so is Hornblower.

In my younger years, Jo March from Little Women. I suppose I still admire her for refusing to conform, for having her hair cut off to raise money, and for having a book published.

Dora Chance from Angela Carter's Wise Children.

I will also go for Jo March. I just read Little Women for the first time this year, and thought it was terrific. It's one of those books that makes you wish you could meet the author.

I'm afraid I'm a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings - I'm one of those people who re-reads it every few years. I found it a little boring the first time I read it, but each time I've read it since, there seems to be more to it. I think the reason I love it is that it's so evocative of all kinds of things that have a hold on my subconscious - fairy tales, the wilder parts of the British countryside and a very old-fashioned "Englishness". Some books are like great music; they connect with you on an entirely different level to most literature, and when you come across people who don't appreciate an author like that, you can only react with a mixture of bafflement and pity (and perhaps hope that they might someday See The Light). A lot of older European children's stories have a similar effect on me, such as Hans Anderson's The Snow Queen.

My favourite parts of LotR have always been the first few chapters and the last few chapters. That's why I hated the films - they cut out a lot of the "scenery" to concentrate on the story of The Ring, but for me it's the "human" character of the book, rather than the Epic Quest, that makes it great.

My favorite heroine is the title character in Jessamyn West's Cress Delahanty.

Oh, good. If you guys can "cheat" with multiple categories, so can I!

Young Adult: Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables and George from Enid Blyton's Famous Five series
Comics: Maggie from Love and Rockets and the spin-off Mechanics stories, and Edsel from Mage: the Hero Discovered
Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Marjorie "Friday" Baldwin from Friday and Meg Murray from A Wrinkle in Time
Horror: Mother Abigail from The Stand
General Fiction: Lucy from the Narnia series, Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre, Mary from The Secret Garden, Kay Scarpetta from the Patricia Cornwell mystery series, Kinsey Milhone from Sue Grafton's alphabet mysteries.
Historical Romance: Mary Challoner from Devil's Cub

Hello. I've just joined. I think I'll like it here. I don't go out of my way to read girlybooks, but somehow end up reading a lot of them. Favorite heroines:

Kid - Harriet the Spy, definitely number one.
Adolescent - Morgaine, The Mists of Avalon.
Adult - V.I. Warshawski. She's smart, tough, cultured and brave. She never backs down. I also love Mallory from Carol O'Connell's books.

Elizabeth Bennett in P&P
Eleanor Dashwood in S&S
Esther Summerson in Bleak House
yes, Offred, Citizenkelly!
and yes, Mrs. Dalloway
The Wife of Bath
Countess Gertrude in Gormenghast
Lucia in the Mapp & Lucia series

oh wait, just one? Can't do it!

I love the Lucia and Mapp series, but, really, are either of them protagonists? They're both really delightfully dreadful if you ask me.

How about antagonists!

Yes, that's the word for them. I especially like the story where Lucia is on that "Exercises for Those No Longer Young" plan and Miss Mapp tries to "out" her.

It's been ages since I read those. I'm going to have to get them again.

nohrt4me, I do think Lucia is the protaganist of the series. (Mapp isn't in the first two books; although, yes, Mapp alone is in the third; Lucia and Mapp play off against each other for the remaining three books with Mapp as Lucia's foil.) These are my comfort reads: I go through the entire six books when I'm bed bound for whatever reason or when life gets a bit much. Moyer Bell reissued the series in a good set.

Another Lord of the Rings fan here (though I read a LOT of other things, salerie!), and in fact Éowyn is one of my favourite heroines. One of my reasons to not like the film, though there are several more important ones. In fact the only thing I really liked about that film were the visuals. LotR is one of those books I wish I could read for the first time again. Or for five first times.
Other favourite heroines:
Harriet Vane from Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series.
Elizabeth Bennet of course.
Orlando. She's only a woman for the second half of the book, but I think she counts!
Margret Asgeirsdottir from Jane Smiley's Greenlanders.
And in children's books: Mary from The Secret Garden

HannahSnell, I can't believe I forgot to include Harriet Vane! I adore her!

For a very interesting contemporary Belgian take on Woolf's 'Orlando', I suggest checking out Jacqueline Harpman's Orlanda. I found the ending disappointing (and quite jarring), but getting to that point was a lot of fun!

Elinor Dashwood- Sense and Sensibility
Benny Hogan- Circle of Friends
Mary Garth- Middlemarch (not really a protagonist, but still great)
Mick Kelly- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Ramona Quimby

I'm extremely glad to see that Meg Murray from A Wrinkle in Tim has already been mentioned, however I feel a conspicuous absense: the smart, open minded, creative and compassionate Leslie Burke from Bridge to Terabithia.

In addition to many of the names thrown around already (Lizzy Bennet!) I'm quite pleased to see a range of genres, however cyberpunk is distinctly missing. Although it's not the widest range genre cyberpunk has always taken an interest in prominent female characters, sometimes with rather sexist leanings. Actually, it's largely been in their "post-cyberpunk" writings that the father of cyberpunk, William Gibson, and prominent contributor Neal Stephenson have created their most compelling heroines. Specifically I'm refering to Cayce Pollard from Gibson's Pattern Recognition and Eliza (of the conspicuously missing surname) from The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World).

With a similar flare for strong, passionate women as are found in cyberpunk Christopher Moore has created a number of memorable female leads, not the least of which include his interpretation of a young Mary Magdalene in Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal and Jody from Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck (with a cameo in Dirty Jobs).

marietherese, thanks for the recommendation, sounds interesting. And I'm glad that it was only an accident that I was the first to mention Harriet! She's one of my all-time favourite characters in fiction, whether male or female.

And the more I hear about it, the more I think I should read The Gospel According to Biff. (They have it in the church bookshop, so it can't be too disrespectful. (And anyway, I've watched The Life of Brian!))

Ronia from Ronia, The Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren - such a wild and feisty character!

I also have a soft spot for the titular Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - she's so beautifully written...

Lots of "Oh yeah, her too!" moments as I've read this thread. But the first that popped into my mind was Witch Baby (in Francesca Lia Block's Witch Baby, natch). Damage and bubblegum rolled into one.

Hmm. This is probably going to be fairly controversial, but I was mulling this over last night and I've come to the conclusion that I have rather a soft spot for George, of Famous Five fame. Now, I know that Enid Blyton is scorned for being sexist and racist these days, but George really doesn't conform to that at all. When I first began reading these stories, around 7, I think, it compounded my feeling that it was perfectly all right not to be a girly girl, to dislike dolls, to prefer climbing, playing with toy cars and whittling sticks. Mercifully for me, I'd never been brought up dressed in pink, frills & furbelows (sp?) but, as I say, this helped me realise that I wasn't abnormal. So, despite the fact that Anne was a total wimp and preferred being homemaker, I suppose I still see an element of feminism in the Famous Five stories since by including both George and Anne, Blyton has implied that you have a choice as a young girl/woman.

Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next is my favorite - she can jump into books! Anne Shirley and Elizabeth Bennett are also up there for me. Anne Elliot from Persuasion is renowned in my book for her patience and putting up with the stupidest family in all of AustenLand.

Absolute Number One: Jane Eyre

Some others . . .

Historical romance: Hester Prynne (The Scarlet Letter)
Fantasy: Lyra Belacqua (His Dark Materials)
Fantasy (first runner-up): Capt. Holly Short (Artemis Fowl)
Fantasy (second runner-up): Imogene Yeck (The Blue Girl)
Fantasy (third runner-up): Gemma Doyle (A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels)
Mystery: Kinsey Milhone (A Is for Alibi, and so on)
Young Adult non-fantasy: Jazz Luther (Define Normal)

Message 42: CurrerBell

Why Jane Eyre as your fav? I do love her too, especially her strength as a child. She stood up for herself, those other evil children never broke her will, her sense of right and wrong even when physically hurt. But she was only a child and with only the servants to pay any attention to her how sad the scene was of her being locked away in the room where her uncle died. Her breakdown when she saw the light and her imagination made it into his ghost.

I also like your name here. Mr. Bell is it?

Pippi Longstocking! Adventurous, independent (at eleven!) and preternaturally strong--she's STILL my role model.

Lola, Pippi is indeed the awesomest! How could I have forgotten her?!?

A relatively little known "heroine" (I use the term avisedly) that I really love and that you might like too is Barbey D'Aurevilly's Hauteclaire Stassin. She appears in the section of Les Diaboliques titled 'Le bonheur dans le crime'. Daughter of a fencing master, she is herself a formidable exponent of that art, occasionally giving lessons to the bored young men of her small, sleepy provincial town. Coolly willful, unabashedly sensual, utterly remorseless, she dominates the tale in which she appears much as she dominates her lover, the Comte de Savigny. She is, without a doubt, Barbey D'Aurevilly's most memorable character.

I see your Hauteclaire, and raise you Mademoiselle de Maupin!

Ah, Lola, Mademoiselle de Maupin has been my dearly beloved since my wee little tween years! Such a woman...uh...such a man...er...*sigh*

You may well already know this but I did not know until quite recently that a real Mlle. Maupin, a model for Gautier's famous character, lived during the late 17th century. Opera singer, swordswoman, adventuress, she appears to have been a cross between Hauteclaire and the somewhat kinder, gentler heroine of Gautier's novel.

From Pippi Longstocking to Mlle de Maupin in a heartbeat. Any wonder I love LT!

Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird
Lucy Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia
Vivian Stamper from Sometimes a Great Notion
Dana from Octavia E. Butler's Kindred
Trillian from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I'm with citygirl ~ Kathleen ("Don't Call Me Kathy") Mallory of Mallory's Oracle fame by Carol O'Connell is my current favorite. I also think that both girls in her stand-alone novel Judas Child are amazing.

Holly Short of the Artemis Fowl series, Jo from Little Women, Jane Eyre, and Elizabeth Bennett from P&P are awesome.

Two sci-fi writers who write very strong women protagonists are Louise Marley and Sheri Tepper. I esp. love the main character in Tepper's Beauty.

Edited to fix typo.

wow, I can't believe I haven't answered this question before.

I always related to the girl in the story who stuck out, wasn't neccessarily the prettiest, and was literary-minded, so for me, as a kid, I loved Laura Ingalls (before she was a Wilder) and Jo March. I also loved Nancy Drew.

As an adult, I haven't found that many heroines in books, quite honestly. I find many characters charming or interesting, but there are not many after whom I would want to model myself in the same way that I did when I was younger. I admire Fanny Price in Mansfield Park (hence the username) for sticking to her guns in the face of powerful pressure to conform to other people's values, but we are alike in almost no other respects and she can be quite an annoying literary character. :)

Children's Lit: Pippi, of course, and Heidi -- I read it every year for about ten years when I was a kid. And Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden
YA -- Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables -- though she did get a bit wet in the later novels in the series.
Classics -- the Wife of Bath in the Canterbury Tales, Morgan le Fay in all the Arthurian stuff, Britomart in The Faerie Queene Catherine Linton, the daughter, in Wuthering Heights, Janie in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God
Contemporary -- Martha Quest in Doris Lessing's series, Fleur in Louise Erdrich's books -- though she's not an admirable character, she is fascinating, Denver in Toni Morrison's Beloved

I know most of mine have already been mentioned by I can't resist sticking my oar in -
Oh yes! Sugar (The Crimson Petal and the White)
Dorothea Brooke
Scout
Lizzie Bennet
Isserley (Under the Skin)
Val from The Women's Room
Edna Pontellier from The Awakening
Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's
Pelagia from Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Frances Mackenzie from The Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes
Clare Abshire/DeTamble from The Time Traveler's Wife

ETA - Oh, and weird but unforgettable (maybe more of an antagonist) Miss Jean Brodie!

Mine has to be Chris Guthrie in Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

In addition to Elizabeth Bennett, Eleanor Dashwood, Jane Eyre, Anne Shirley and Mary Lennox, I love the women in Joanne Harris's Chocolat. Vianne, Anouk, Armande and Josephine are such vibrant, strong, memorable characters.

Thursday Next from the Jasper Fforde books and also Agatha Raisin who I just think is so so so funny!

Scout, from To Kill A Mockingbird

My favorite heroines... oh dear, this could take a while:
Lucy Honeychurch from A Room with a View- how has no one mentioned her before!? So much fun!

And then the obvious:
Elizabeth Bennett
Anne Elliot
Catherine Morland
Eleanor Dashwood
Fanny Price
Emma Woodhouse (not the nicest, but certainly entertaining!)

Shakespeare:
Rosalind As You Like It
Miranda The Tempest
Tamora Titus Andronicus- really interesting, yet evil!
Beatrice Much Ado About Nothing
Viola Twelth Night

Scout To Kill A Mockingbird
Jane Eyre
Sonia Crime and Punishment
Charikleia An Ethiopian Tale by Heliodorus- one of the first strong female characters in literature!

Gosh, there are so many!

Children's/YA:
Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables
Ananka from Kiki Strike
Kit from The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird
Jane Jarvis from Devilish
and
Sabriel from the Abhorsen Trilogy

Fiction:
Jane Eyre
Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice
Thursday Next from the The Eyre Affair
Izzy Spellman from The Spellman Files
Mary Russell from Laurie R. King's Sherlock Holmes books
and
Taylor Greer from The Bean Trees

So many to choose from, I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot!

Scarlett O'Hara - Gone With the Wind
Elizabeth Bennet - Pride and Prejudice
Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser - Outlander Series
Anne Shirley - Anne of Green Gables
Aurelia from First Man in Rome Series
Glencora Palliser - Pallisers
Viola - Twelfth Night
Katherine - Taming of the Shrew
Charlotte - Charlotte's Web
Tatiana - The Bronze Horseman

>60 ktleyed: ktleyed - I LOVED Charlotte! Great one!

#54: YES! Chris Guthrie.

Aud, of Nicola Griffith's The Blue Place, Stay and Always.

How could I forget? I already nominated Sugar from The Crimson Petal, but didn't think to mention Emmeline Fox, from the same book. A true heroine if ever there was one!

Mary Katherine from We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

I sextuple love that book!!!!!!!!!! I read one copy to death.. got another.. and it has gone missing. I have been trying to mooch it, but no luck. Guess I am going to have to pay cash money for a new one *weep*

note: don't think I am too weird, but my beloved daughters nickname is Amycat.. after Marykat in that book .......

Its a name only I use..

hmmm Now I have to buy two copies so I can give one to her!!!!

Fantastic thread!

Podkayne??? I have not thought of that book in a half zillion years...
and I do love Jo March alot alot alot

Nazareth Chornyak in the Native Tongue series by suzette haden elgin.

I agree with so many of the above. I would also add:

Ellen, Ellen Foster
Lily, The Secret Life of Bees
Eloise, in Eloise
Leslie, Bridge to Terabithia
Elphaba, Wicked
Taylor Greer, The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven

And many more I'll remember as soon as I submit this post!

Jane, _Jane Eyre_ (definitely #1)

Marianne, Sense and Sensiblity
Emily, Emily of New Moon
May, Age of Innocence

I love Anne from Anne of Green Gables, Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice, Laura Ingalls Wilder from Little House on the Prarie, Jo from Little Women, and Mia from The Princess Diaries. (In that order)

I love many of the classic heroines listed here, but since no one else has mentioned them: Amelia Peabody Emerson from Crocodile on the Sandbank and as a child, Trixie Belden from The Red Trailer Mystery.

Although she seemingly plays a small role in the enormity of the novel, I absolutely cherish Lily Briscoe from Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse." My favorite line of the entire book, "Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision." Amazing.

The unnamed mothers in Goodnight, Moon and Runaway Bunny.

>64 Booksloth: Love Eloise! I always wanted to be her, though I think my parents bought me her books to show me a naughty child.

Torin Kerr from Tanya Huff's books, Kathy Mallory of course from Carol O'Connell books, and lately I am in dire need to know Maisie Dobbs from the Jaqueline Winspear books.

there's no doubt about it - Lisbeth Salander!! the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who played with Fire

For some reason I really liked Desiree in, well, Desiree by Annemarie Selinko
And Gemma Doyle in The Gemma Doyle Trilogy
Does Historical Fiction count? If so I absolutely loved Joanna in Here Be Dragons (what a horrible title for such a great book) Nell in Falls the Shadow and Ellen in The Reckoning. Pretty much all of the women Sharon Kay Penman portrayed.

Hard to choose :/ There are so many.

Elizabeth Bennet, naturally. She's a favourite for a reason. Sooo well written.

Liesel Meminger - The Book Thief Love this kid.

Kay - The Night Watch
She's really not my type, in most ways, but I'm utterly drawn to her.

Luna Lovegood - Harry Potter

Ms Marple - Such a clever smug old broad.

Lois Farquar - The Last September

Hmmm...I'm sure I'm leaving tonnes out

So many wonderful women, I second all of the above and add Lily Bard, first met in Shakespeare's Landloard by Charlaine Harris.

Annabeth Chase from Percy Jackson.

@81>> Myself, I get a real kick out of Clarisse La Rue. In fact, I refuse to watch the movie since they took Clarisse out of it. I admit, though, she may not be the greatest role model where bullying is concerned. {sigh}

I'm very much enjoying the main characters from the two books I'm reading now. Cassie Maddox is a tough, competent detective and good friend in In the Woods by Tana French; and Grace Williams from Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson is even tougher because of her physical deformities. She is the hero of her own story and a lesson in finding joy in a dismal life.

Since my prior response (back in Feb. '08), I have to add Lisbeth Salander to my list of favorite heroines. I also realize I forgot to mention Antonia from My Antonia. Oh, and Amelia Peabody, though I know she is not everyone's cup of tea, she is definitely one of my favorites.

Omigosh, I have a few!

Anne Shirley
Jo March
Scout Finch
Jane Eyre
Dorothea Brooks Middlemarch
Ada Price The Poisonwood Bible
Margaret Hale North and South
* Emma Woodhouse
* Catherine Morland
Precious Ramotswe

* I love these two heriones of Austen's because they both showed a lot of growth as characters.

84, I can't believe someone else mentioned Amelia Peabody! She's definitely one of my faves! How can you not admire someone who can wield a parasol like that? :-)

Celie and Sofia in The Color Purple
Bone in Bastard Out of Carolina
Offred in The Handmaid's Tale
Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White

These are the ones in books that I remember. I am sure there are more, but I read many of the books that others mention so long ago that I just can't tell...

k4k

For me, Fevvers from Nights At The Circus, is the first that pops into my head.
Also, Lyra from the His Dark Materials trilogy, Nancy from Tipping the Velvet, and Tankgirl from the comics of the same name!

I can't always like her--in fact, she's quite hateful at times--but one of the best heroines I've come across in fiction is Beatrice from Wideacre by Philippa Gregory It's tragic really, watching her go steadily farther and farther off the rails. Anyone else read this?

Having just finished Rita Williams-Garcia's One Crazy Summer, I've definitely got to add Delphine (along with Fern and maybe even Vonetta) to my list.

Helena in Shakespeare's 'Alll's Well That Ends Well'. An alpha female and created by a man, too.

I never responded to this question because I really couldn't think of anyone who stood out for me, but I finally found one: Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. I know she's been mentioned before, and she's not exactly a surprising choice. In fact, I feel like even suggesting her is sort of cliche. However, I just reread the novel, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed her character.

I don't think I've participated in this thread either, but my all-time favourite heroine would have to be Jane Eyre. She is strong and determined yet not an extrovert, and she refuses to do things that would betray her sense of self, no matter what others might wish or expect from her.

well if "mrs rochester" doesn't make it obvious... ;)

I also loved Philippa Gregory's portrayal of Jane Parker in The Boleyn Inheritance and Katie Nolan from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn