To ask for your favourite literary heroines?

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I've just finished a book and I'm looking for inspiration.

My all time favourite is Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind. I love Rebecca (from Rebecca) too, and Cathy Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights.

Amber from Forever Amber is a recent discovery too. Any recommendations for what to read next?

I also like Mina in Dracula - she is so practical and brave.

Jo March was my absolute heroine when I was younger. I so wanted to be her.
Sounds like a popular choice.

Tamsin Grey
Petronella Sterling

Flora Post in Cold Comfort Farm

oh yes definitely Jo March, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Becky Sharp

I like Fanny Price best of the Jane Austin lot.

I also really like Maya Angelou (i know why the caged bird sings) and Sethe in Beloved perhaps the latter too tragic but still.

And someone said Mina in Dracula too - one of my favourite novels.

And always remembering some of the Georgette Heyer heroines.

I find it difficult to differentiate Lisbeth Salander and Offred/June from the films/television shows but them too.

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, Phillipa Somerville, Anne Shirly.

Oh HOW could I forget Flora Poste? She's the BEST.

I love Laura Ingalls too (books, not that awful tv crap). I love Laura when the teacher is rude to Carrie and she rocks the seat til it breaks, all THUMP THUMP THUMP with hair flying.

Mattie Ross from True Grit
Jane Eyre
Valancy from The Blue Castle - a lovely easy read.

Also female detectives like Clarice Starling but that doesn’t seem to be your genre.

Rose Red (Susan Coolidge)
Bertha Mason Rochester
Charlotte Mary Makepeace/Clare Mary Moby
Fevvers
Miriam Henderson
Charlotte Lucas
Kezia Burnell
Margery Fenworthy
Sephy Hadley
Jacky Bast

Rebels and underdogs who are strong women of the world.

Ooh forgot Clarice! And PD James’ Cordelia Gray. Great characters.

Pippi longstockings - such self belief & makes her own rules

Jane Eyre - because she was brave and didn't tolerate being treated like crap

Ruby Lennox for her ability to survive and love despite the chaos

Philippa Somerville 😍😍😍

Lucked beat me to it with Mattie Ross from True Grit.

Ooh good call on Olympia, Shiny. I loved Fortune's Rocks.

I really like Lily Bart from The House of Mirth.

Jane Eyre - because 'I am no bird and no net ensnares me. I am free woman with an independent will....'

That. From a nineteenth century vicar's daughter from Yorkshire.

Actually perhaps it's just Charlotte Bronte!

@twoforluck I love Flora too. Although Elfine is also great in a very different way, (romantic, magical, weird)

I love Nancy Mitford's heroines. Fanny is My favourite as she tells the stories, but I also love Polly and Linda.

Oh, and Cassandra Mortmain.

Jane Eyre.

Some of the lines in that book about being a woman take my breath away even now. Charlotte Bronte wrote an amazing character.

Dorothea Brooke. So committed to being authentic. Crying shame she ended up with meh Ladislaw and not Lidgate!

Also Granny Weatherwax and Adora Belle Dearheart rock my Discworld.

Linda Alconleigh
Cassandra Mortmain

Vera from the Ann cleeves books. Not literary classic I know but a modern woman knows her own mind and wants to solve crimes because really she's inherently nosey. She's also vulnerable and well aware of her faults

Claire Fraser from the Outlander series, love those books!

Isis from Whit by Iain Banks. The first book I read where there was a really active female protagonist. She moved through the world, acting rather than reacting. I love her.

Olivia Brooke from The Diddakoi. She is a fabulous woman.

Also Lyra, Emma, Anne Elliott, Morgain from The Mists of Avalon, Anne of Green Gables, Nicola Marlow, Laurie Marlow and Rowan Marlow.

Jane Eyre