"In 1843, the Victorian political theorist John Stuart Mill outlined a new science, "the science of the formation of character." Although Mill's proposal failed as scientific practice, S. Pearl Brilmyer shows that it survived in the work of Victorian novelists, who cultivated a narrative science of human nature. Brilmyer explores this characterological project in the work of such novelists as George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Olive Schreiner. Bringing to life Mill's unrealized dream of a science of character, Victorian realists used fiction to investigate the nature of embodied experience, how traits and behaviors in human and nonhuman organisms emerge and develop, and how aesthetic features-shapes, colors, and gestures-come to take on cultural meaning through certain categories, such as race and sex. In the hands of these authors, Brilmyer argues, literature became a science, not in the sense that its claims were falsifiable or even systematically articulated, but in its commitment to uncovering, through a fictional staging of realistic events, the universal laws governing human life. The Science of Character offers brilliant insights into important novels of the period, including Eliot's Middlemarch, and a fuller picture of English realism during the crucial span between 1870 and 1920"--

The Science of Writing Characters is a comprehensive handbook to help writers create compelling and psychologically-credible characters that come to life on the page. Drawing on the latest psychological theory and research, ranging from personality theory to evolutionary science, the book equips screenwriters and novelists with all the techniques they need to build complex, dimensional characters from the bottom up. Writers learn how to create rounded characters using the 'Big Five' dimensions of personality and then are shown how these personality traits shape action, relationships and dialogue. Throughout The Science of Writing Characters, psychological theories and research are translated into handy practical tips, which are illustrated through examples of characters in action in well-known films, television series and novels, ranging from Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and Game of Thrones to The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Goldfinch. This very practical approach makes the book an engaging and accessible companion guide for all writers who want to better understand how they can make memorable characters with the potential for global appeal.

Almost all evolutionary biologists, indeed all biologists, use particular features to study life. These characteristics or features used by evolutionary biologists are used in a particular way to unravel a tangled evolutionary history, document the rate of evolutionary change, or as evidence of biodiversity. "Characters" are the "data" of evolutionary biology and they can be employed differently in research providing both opportunities and limitations. The Character Concept in Evolutionary Biology is about characters, their use, how different sorts of characters are limited, and what are appropriate methods for character analysis. Leading evolutionary biologists from around the world are contributors to this authoritative review of the "character concept." Because characters and the conception of characters are central to all studies of evolution, and because evolution is the central organizing principle of biology, this book will appeal to a wide cross-section of biologists. - Focuses upon "characters" -- fundamental data for evolutionary biology - Covers the myriad ways in which characters are defined, described, and distinguished - Includes historical, morphological, molecular, behavioral, and philosophical perspectives