Who was the first fictional character you fell in love with?

Robin 'swirled"!

Wasn't it Robin and his friend Ned )?) who did swirling? He was about 5 wasn't he?!

Ooh good thread... usual suspects for me - Dill in To kill a mockingbird (has nobody said him yet?), Holden Caulfield, most Jilly Cooper menfolk but especially Ace Mulholland (Prudence)and Matt (Imogen).
Girl crushes were definitely Clover in What Katy Did, and, ummm, Pollyanna ( am sooo like her in real life!)
I think I may have also vaguely fancied that one of the Noel Streatfield kids who did 'swirling'... was it in Gemma and Sisters? My sister will know!

MmmmmmmmmmmmmmMrRochester.

okay - sequels and improved Mark, here I come.

Dick is still the man for me after book one though.

Doesn't Mark improve after he's crippled, in a rather Mr Rochester sort of way?

Oh yes it is !! Will get on to Amazon immediately. Many many thanks!

Janeite - Mark improves immeasureably I assure you! Just three books to go...

CJCregg. You have reminded me about Ace. And all her other heroes..,, There was one called Rory who lived romantically in the Highlands.

libra - I think it's called My Darling Villain by Lynne Reid Banks. I loved it (and him) too.

Love it too.

janeite (considering name change to 'fellowjaneite'), Mark does improve considerably. Maybe it's the attraction of a character who can change.

I also had a teenage Jilly Cooper phase and of course love all her heroes - Ace Mulholland, could he possibly have a cooler name?

God I love this thread!

Scummy Mummy - I am not alone re: Gum - thank you!

eachPeach - are you still here?! Thnkas for the rec: he's read "The Wind Up Bird Chronicle" and "Sputnik Sweetheart" so far.

Libra - I read the first "Flambards" last night. Mark is hideous - a horrible bully just like his father. I get the feeling things may improve with him a bit in the rest of the series then? Are they worth reading? I really enjoyed the first one - it felt like my guilty teenage Jilly Cooper phase!

Amani - my Sweet Valley High crush was Nicholas Morrow - thanks for reminding me

lol @ Isambard KB crush! Mind you I had a MASSIVE crush on Richard III after studying princes in the tower and concluding that he was a maligned innocent with a noble face. Went onto have a crush on Josephine Tey's detective Grant, who reached the same conclusion in The Daughter of Time.

Heathcliff, oh i wanted to be his Kathy so much, I was about 11

Todd from Sweet Valley High

Brilliant thread, I really want to go back and re-read Flambards and Noel Streatfield now. I would even give Anne of Green Gables another try if Gilbert is all he's cracked up to be.

I started having a crush on Julian (Famous Five) then Colin (Secret 7), then Dick (FF), then Colin (SS). Can't remember any other literary crushes between Enid Blyton and Mr Darcy, but that's probably because there were so many.

Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. It was like he read my thoughts. Mine and those of several million other women.

Growing up - obviously!

Fennel - I have been searching through this thread to see if anyone else liked Sydney (Tale of two cities). Im covinced that character had a huge influence on my taste in men. No my DHs is not really like that - only in looks (at least what I imagined he looked like).

I also love Sam Vimes - but I discovered him much later on. He is still a somewhat tortured character but he is far more fatherly and down to earth. I guesse thats growig up for you!

Kathy - I also had a crush on Steerforth, helped enormously I think by the fact that he was played by Anthony Andrews in an ancient BBC version.

One of my friends had a crush on Isambard Kingdom Brunel, as shown in a photo in our history books.

Another, admittedly weird, girl had a crush on Alex Higgins, the snooker player. She cut his photo out of library books, and had her hair cut like his.

Those aren't exactly literary crushes, but along the same sort of lines.

Oh my book choices got much worse than that.

I used to read all my mother's Jean Plaidy novels.

I used to have a massive crush on Henry VIII.

I didn't read that sort of book Libra (lofty emoticon).

Another one of my teenage lusts, Bill in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Yet another tortured and imprisoned shifty character (skinny with dark hair) with loose sexual morals and a tendency to crime.

how could I forget.... Steerforth in David Copperfield!

i really fancied the time traveller in the time traveller's wife. anyone else?

Can anyone help me with a very vague memory.

This was a book we all got out of the school library again and again.

It was a contemporary setting (which means the late 70s) The heroine is about 15 and she meets and starts seeing a boy who is slightly older, smokes and (horror) rides a motor bike.

Her parents ban her from seeing him and then have to relent when he falls badly from his bike.

I can not remember anything more apart from the fact that he seemed at the time to be the utmost romantic hero.

Now I just agree with the parents and would ban any daughter of mine from going anywhere near such a long-haired and dangerous oik.

hahaaaa! Will have to get this!

Thanks!