WELL-READ

WOMEN
PORTRAITS OF FICTION’S MOST BELOVED HEROINES

by Samantha Hahn

C H R O N I C L E B O O K S
SAN FRANCISCO
 A portion of this book’s proceeds are donated to A Room to Read,
a charity that supports literacy and gender equality in education.

...

Introduction and illustrations copyright © 2013 by Samantha Hahn.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form without written permission from the publisher.

Page 108 constitutes a continuation of the copyright page.

ISBN 978-1-4521-2955-6
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ISBN: 978-1-4521-1415-6

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INTRODUCTION
Anna Karenina, Daisy Buchanan, Jane Eyre: the greatest female characters inflame our
passions and excite our imaginations. Our favorite characters are universal archetypes
and uniquely flawed individuals all at once. Every so often, an author creates this kind
of masterpiece, a female figure of such dazzling originality and truth that she will reso-
nate with readers for all time. We sympathize with her, we admire her, we hate her, we
want to be her. Ultimately, every reader brings his or her own imagination to the task
of envisioning these legendary characters.

As an artist consumed by the female form, I could not resist the challenge of bringing
each of the greatest women in literature (in my own opinion, of course) to life, as,
reading intently, I see them spring forth in my mind.

To choose the characters I portrayed in this book, I cast my net across the Western
canon and a bit beyond. Some of these stories were new to me, and some were trea-
sured favorites. They come from novels, plays, and poetry, and each is, in her own way,
profound. Every reader conjures her own vision. No two Scarletts or Lolitas are alike.
Seeking reference for them was a thrill and an adventure. It was my goal to evoke the
magic and intrigue of an era through little details like the style of Clarissa Dalloway’s
Jazz Age turban and Becky Sharp’s Edwardian dress. Beyond the surface details, it was
essential to me to capture the feeling of each character, to visually interpret her through
my emotional lens, to portray her as I see her in my mind’s eye. From Edna Pontellier’s
despondent eyes to Wendy Darling’s warm smile, I set out to convey the essence of
each one as we feel her through the author’s description of her and her world. I illus-
trated quotes from their dialogue or thoughts, giving them voice as well as presence.

Each of these characters is now as familiar to me as a close friend. I learned so much

about myself from getting to know each of them. I invite you into this book as though
you, too, are in the scene the author created. Meet these heroines, befriend them, and
in the process, perhaps, learn about yourself. Whether you’ve read some or all of these
stories, I hope you enjoy gazing into the eyes of all of the powerful, damaged, beautiful,
and incandescent women in my book. I hope you follow them back to their original
stories and come to see them in your own way, too.
ALL RIGHT... I'M GLAD IT'S A GIRL.
AND I HOPE SHE'LL BE A FOOL —
THAT'S THE BEST THING A GIRL CAN BE
IN THIS WORLD.
A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE FOOL.

DAISY BUCHANAN
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

9
 what a morning
fresh as if issued
to children on a beach.

CLARISSA DALLOWAY
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

11
 Haven't I striven.
striven with all my strength,
to find something
to give meaning to my life?

ANNA KARENINA
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

13
 This senaation of listlesssness, weariness, stupidity,
this disinclination to sit down
and employ myself,
this feeling of every thing's being dull insipid about the house!
I must be in love;
I should be the oddest neature in the world
if I were not
for a tew weeks at least.

EMMA WOODHOUSE
Emma by Jane Austen

15
 I wonder if l've been changed in the night?
Let me thing. was I the same when I get up this morning?
I almost thing I can remember feeling a little different.
But if I'm not the same, the next question is
"Who in the would am I2."

ALICE
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

17
 I have never allowed a gentleman
to dictate to me.
ar to interfere with anything I do.

DAISY MILLER
Daisy Miller by Henry James

18
Thou must gather thine own
sunshine.
I have none to give thee!

HESTER PRYNNE
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

21
if is quite an easy thing to pretend not to see one gentleman,
but it is quite hard thing to pretend not to see two gentlemen.

LORELEI LEE
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos

23
If I'm ever to reach any understanding
of myself and the things around me,
I must learn to stand alone.

NORA HELMER
A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

25
 I would give up the unessential!;
I would give my money,
I would give my life for my children;
but I wouldn't give myself.

EDNA PONTELLIER
The Awakening by Kate Chopin

26
 Laws and principles
are not for the times
when there is wo tewptatiou. . .

JANE EYRE
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

28
Oh, do not move!
do not speak!
look at me!
something so sweet
comes from
your eyes
that helps me
so much!
EMMA BOVARY
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

31
 I was a daisy-fresh girl,
and look what you've done to me.

DOLORES HAZE
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

33
You think we live on the rich,
rather than with them:
aad so we do, in a sense ~
but it's a privilege
we have to pay for!

LILY BART
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

35
 you known as well as I do
that a single girl, a girl alone
in the would, has got to keep a irm hald
an her emations ar
she'll lie last!

BLANCHE DUBOIS
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

37
 Chilrden are unconstrainedly sincere
and not ashamed of the truth,
while we, from fear of seeming backward,
are ready to betray what's most dear,
to praise the repulsive,
and to say yes to the incomprehensible.

LARA GUISHAR
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

38
nature is for mutual love,
for mutual love,
not hate,

ANTIGONE
Antigone by Sophocles

41
 you have been my friend.
that in itself is a trenendous thing.

CHARLOTTE A. CAVATICA
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

43
I love you, Nicky,
because you smaell nice
and know such
fascinating people.

NORA CHARLES
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

45
Dont't ask me to explain anything
until l've had a drink.

AUNTIE MAME
Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
47
you don't know all The
have to suffer and
; | /ft -fr

^r w

bear in silence.

BECKY SHARP
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
49
As coverousness is the root of all evil,
so poverty is, l leelieve,
the warst of all snares.

MOLL FLANDERS
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

51
 Why, look at pretty-eyed pecola.
We mustn't do bad things in front of
those pretty eyes.

PECOLA
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

53
you see my ignorance,
my blunders, the way
I wander about as if
the would belonged to me,
simply because-because it
has been put in my
power to do so.
ISABEL ARCHER
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

55
Whatever our souls are made of,
his and mine are the sarce

CATHERINE EARNSHAW
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

57
 my love is deep;
the more I give to thee,
the more I have,
for both are infinite.

JULIET CAPULET
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

59
 When we hear voices that we love,
we need not understand
the words they say.

COSETTE
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

60
love will
carry you
all lengths

NANCY
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

63
I can do anything to you.
Any woman can do anything to you.
your're a fool.

CATHY AMES
East of Eden by John Steinbeck

65
There is something demoraliging
about watching two people
get more and more
crazy about each other,
especial y when you are
the only extra person in the room.

ESTHER GREENWOOD
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

67
 And please ell me what's the matter.
Have I changed?
Am I not the girl you abandoned two months ago?

DAISY CLOVER
Inside Daisy Clover by Gavin Lambert

68
you learn things saying then over and over
and thinking about then
until they stay in your wind forever.

MARY LENNOX
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

71
 There was a long hard time when
I kept far from me, the remembrance
of what I had thrown away when
I was guite ignorant of its worth.
/

ESTELLA HAVISHAM
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

73
 Since my departure for this dark journey.
makes you so sad and louely.
fain woula I stay though weak and weary.
And live for your sake ouly!

LADY KIRI-TSUBO
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

75
 It seems as if I could do anything
when I'm in a passion.
I get so savage, I could hurt anyone
and enjoy it.

JO MARCH
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

76
isn't it nice to think
that tomorrow is a new day
with no mistakves in it yet?

ANNE SHIRLEY
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
79
 If you knew how
great is a mother's
love ... you would have
no fear.

WENDY DARLING
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

81
you must accept suffering and
redeem yourself by it.

SOFIA SEMYONOVNA MARMELADOVA (SONYA)

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

83
 Everything has strings leading
to everything else.
We're all so tied together.

DOMINIQUE FRANCON
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

84
I'll let someone else carry off the social honors
. . . I'l stick to mystrery.

NANCY DREW
The Secret in the Old Attic by Carolyn Keene

87
What do we live for,
if it is not to make life
less difficult to each other?

DOROTHEA BROOKE
Middlemarch by George Eliot

89
 D, woe is me
I have seen what I have seen,
see what I see!

OPHELIA
Hamlet by William Shakespeare

91
 his heart was going like mad
and yes I said yes
I will yes.

MOLLY BLOOM
Ulysses by James Joyce

92
Love should be allowed.
I'm all far it.

HOLLY GOLIGHTLY
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

95
Our souls are knit
into one,
for all life
and all time.

MINA HARKER
Dracula by Bram Stoker

97
I have courage
enough Car
and danger I can Coresee,
Car every miscortune
which I understand.

MILADY DE WINTER
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

99
there is no place like
home.

DOROTHY GALE
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

101
 A lady's imagination is very
rapid; it jumps from adwiatiou to love,
from love to matimory in a moment.

ELIZABETH BENNET
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

102
 We could have had
such a damn good time
together.

BRETT ASHLEY
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

105
 After all,
tomorrow is another day.

SCARLETT O’HARA
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

107
CREDITS
Page 9: Quote reprinted with the permission of Harold Ober Associates and of Scribner, a Division
of Simon & Schuster, Inc. from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Copyright © 1925 by Charles
Scribner’s Sons. Copyright renewed © 1953 by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan. All rights reserved.

Page 11: Excerpt from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Copyright © 1925 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Company. Copyright © renewed 1953 by Leonard Woolf. Reprinted by permission of
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Published in the UK by the
Hogarth Press.

Page 23: Quote from Gentlemen Prefer Blonds by Anita Loos. Copyright © 1925 by Anita Loos, renewed
1952 by Anita Loos Emerson. Copyright © 1963 by Anita Loos. Used by permission of Liveright
Publishing Corporation.

Page 33: Quote from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Copyright © 1955 by Vladimir Nabokov, used by
permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.

Page 37: Quote by Tennessee Williams, from A Streetcar Named Desire, copyright © 1947 by The University
of the South. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Page 38: Quote from Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari,
translation copyright © 1958 by William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd. Copyright © 1958 by Pantheon
Books Inc. Used by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party
use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to
Random House, Inc. for permission.

Page 43: Quote from and illustration based on the story Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White, published
by HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright © 1952 by E. B. White. Text copyright renewed 1980 by
E. B. White.

Page 45: Quote from The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, copyright © 1933, 1934 by Alfred A. Knopf, a
division of Random House, Inc. and renewed 1961, 1962 by Dashiell Hammett. Used by permission of
Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this
publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.

Page 47: Quote from Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade by Patrick Dennis, copyright © 1955 by Patrick
Dennis, renewed in 1983 by the Tanner family. Introduction copyright © 2001 by Paul Rudnick.
Afterword copyright © 2001 by Michael Tanner. Used by permission of Broadway Books, a division of
Random House, Inc. Quote from Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis, published by Frederick Muller Ltd.
Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited.
Page 53: Quote from The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, copyright © 1970 and renewed 1998 by Toni
Morrison. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

Page 65: Quote from East of Eden by John Steinbeck, copyright © 1952 by John Steinbeck, renewed ©
1980 by Elaine Steinbeck, John Steinbeck IV and Thom Steinbeck. Used by permission of Viking
Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
16 words from East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Penguin Classics 2000). Copyright 1952 by John
Steinbeck. Copyright © renewed by Elaine Steinbeck, Thom Steinbeck, and John Steinbeck IV, 1980.
Introduction copyright © Penguin Putnam, Inc., 1992.

Page 67: Quote from The Bell Jar © Estate of Sylvia Plath and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber
Ltd. Brief quote from p. 18 (to accompany an illustration) from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Copyright
© 1971 by Harper & Row, Publisher, Inc. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Page 68: Quote from Inside Daisy Clover by Gavin Lambert. Copyright © 1963 by Gavin Lambert.
Reprinted with permission by Serpent’s Tail.

Page 84: Quote from The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, copyright © 1943 by the Bobbs-Merrill Company;
copyright © 1968, renewed © 1971 by Ayn Rand. Used by permission of Dutton Signet, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Page 87: Quote from The Secret in the Old Attic by Carolyn Keene. Copyright © 1970, 1944 by Simon &
Schuster, Inc. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 95: Quote from Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, copyright © 1958 by Truman Capote and
copyright renewed 1986 by Alan U. Schwartz. Used by permission of Random House, Inc. Any third
party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply
directly to Random House, Inc. for permission.

Page 105: Quote reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. Copyright © 1926 by Charles Scribner’s Sons; copyright renewed
1954 by Ernest Hemingway. All rights reserved.
Quote from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, published by Arrow Books. Used by permission of
The Random House Group Limited.

Page 107: Quote reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. from
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Copyright © 1936 by Macmillan Publishing Company, a division
of Macmillan, Inc. Copyright renewed 1964 by Stephens Mitchell and Trust Company of Georgia as
Executors of Margaret Mitchell Marsh.
INDEX
A Clarissa Dalloway, 11
Alcott, Louisa May, 76 Cosette, 60
Alice, 17 Crime and Punishment, 83
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 17
Anna Karenina, 13 D
Anna Karenina, 13 Daisy Buchanan, 9
Anne of Green Gables, 79 Daisy Clover, 68
Anne Shirley, 79 Daisy Miller, 18
Antigone, 41 Daisy Miller, 19
Antigone, 41 Defoe, Daniel, 51
Auntie Mame, 47 Dennis, Patrick, 47
Auntie Mame, 47 Dickens, Charles, 63, 73
Austen, Jane, 15, 102 Doctor Zhivago, 38
The Awakening, 26 A Doll’s House, 25
Dolores Haze, 33
B Dominique Francon, 84
Barrie, J.M., 81 Dorothea Brooke, 89
Baum, L. Frank, 101 Dorothy Gale, 101
Becky Sharp, 49 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 83
The Bell Jar, 67 Dracula, 97
Blanche DuBois, 37 Dumas, Alexandre, 99
The Bluest Eye, 53
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 95 E
Brett Ashley, 105 East of Eden, 65
Brontë, Charlotte, 28 Edna Pontellier, 26
Brontë, Emily, 57 Eliot, George, 89
Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 71 Elizabeth Bennet, 102
Emma, 15
C Emma Bovary, 31
Capote, Truman, 95 Emma Woodhouse, 15
Carroll, Lewis, 17 Estella Havisham, 73
Catherine Earnshaw, 57 Esther Greenwood, 67
Cathy Ames, 65
Charlotte A. Cavatica, 43 F
Charlotte’s Web, 43 Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 9
Chopin, Kate, 26 Flaubert, Gustave, 31
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous L
Moll Flanders, 51 Lady Kiri-Tsubo, 75
The Fountainhead, 84 Lambert, Gavin, 68
Lara Guishar, 38
G Les Misérables, 60
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 23 Lily Bart, 35
Gone with the Wind, 107 Little Women, 76
The Great Gatsby, 9 Lolita, 33
Great Expectations, 73 Loos, Anita, 23
Lorelei Lee, 23
H
Hamlet, 91 M
Hammett, Dashiell, 45 Madame Bovary, 31
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 21
Mary Lennox, 71
Hemingway, Ernest, 105
Middlemarch, 89
Hester Prynne, 21
Milady de Winter, 99
Holly Golightly, 95
Mina Harker, 97
The House of Mirth, 65
Mitchell, Margaret, 107
Hugo, Victor, 60
Moll Flanders, 51
Molly Bloom, 92
I
Montgomery, Lucy Maud,79
Ibsen, Henrik, 25
Morrison, Toni, 53
Inside Daisy Clover, 68
Mrs. Dalloway, 11
Isabel Archer, 55

J N
James, Henry, 18, 55 Nabokov, Vladimir, 33
Jane Eyre, 28 Nancy, 63
Jane Eyre, 28 Nancy Drew, 87
Jo March, 76 Nora Charles, 45
Joyce, James, 92 Nora Helmer, 25
Juliet Capulet, 59
O
K Oliver Twist, 63
Keene, Carolyn, 87 Ophelia, 91
P T
Pasternak, Boris, 38 The Tale of Genji, 75
Pecola, 53 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 49
Peter Pan, 81 The Thin Man, 45
Plath, Sylvia, 67 The Three Musketeers, 99
The Portrait of a Lady, 55 Tolstoy, Leo, 13
Pride and Prejudice, 102
U
R Ulysses, 92
Rand, Ayn, 84
Romeo and Juliet, 59 V
Vanity Fair, 49
S
The Scarlet Letter, 21 W
Scarlett O’Hara, 107 Wendy Darling, 81
The Secret Garden, 71 Wharton, Edith, 35
The Secret in the Old Attic, 87 White, E.B., 43
Shakespeare, William, 59, 91 Williams, Tennessee, 37
Shikibu, Murasaki, 75 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 101
Sofia Semyonovna Marmeladova (Sonya),83 Woolf, Virginia, 11
Sophocles, 41 Wuthering Heights, 57
Steinbeck, John, 65
Stoker, Bram, 97
A Streetcar Named Desire, 37
The Sun Also Rises, 105

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’ll be forever grateful for the love and support of my husband, David, and our son, Henry;
my mom, Marika; my team at Chronicle Books including Kate Woodrow, Caitlin Kirkpatrick,
and Kristen Hewitt. Thank you sincerely to the lovely models who helped me bring my
favorite characters to life: Ella Beesley, Anna Hoffman, Lila Steinhardt, and Caroline
Ventura. I’d also like to thank my literary agent Melissa Flashman, my illustration agents
CWC-i, Harriet Jung, Abby Clawson Low, and Erin Jang.
EX-LIBRIS