Cover -- Contents -- From Character to Identity … and back? (rszula Terentowicz-Fotyga, Jadwiga Węgrodzka) -- Part I: Characters in Textual Contexts -- Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Sister Helen": A functional approach to the literary character (Andrzej Zgorzelski) -- Joseph Conrad's "The Partner": Character and language (Karolina Trapp) -- Peter Straub's Shadowland: Character in the liminal space (Sławomir Studniarz) -- Anita Desai's fiction: Marginalisation as a technique of character creation (Joanna Pasternak) -- A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book: The functions of flanks and ficelles (Magdalena Kuźniar) -- Charles Williams's Shadows of Ecstasy: Cognitive aspects of character interpretation (Andrzej Sławomir Kowalczyk) -- Part II: Characters in Generic Contexts -- "A Jew, and circumcised": Constructing collective and individual characters in early modern utopian fictions (Artur Blaim) -- Recent Secondary World Fantasy: Farewell to the hero? (Grzegorz Trębicki) -- The realistic novel and the creation of literary characters: William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (Żaneta Nalewajk) -- Character sketch and its fantastic transformations: H. G. Wells's "The Crystal Egg" (Halszka Leleń) -- Reconstructing the Gothic villain: Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House (Marta Komsta) -- Character in the academic mystery novel: Joanne Dobson's The Raven and the Nightingale (Elżbieta Perkowska-Gawlik) -- Possible men and women of science: Constru(ct)ing characters in academic fictions (Ludmiła Gruszewska-Blaim) -- Part III: Characters in Extra-Textual Contexts -- Terry Pratchett's Lord Vetinari as a transtextual character (Kamil Karaś) -- Breaking Out and Speaking: Old Myths and Narrative Tensions in Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia (Katarzyna Pisarska).

Transtextual characters in literary adaptations: E.M. Forster's Howards End and Zadie Smith's On Beauty (Patrycja Podgajna) -- Irony as the principle of constructing a character: Young Adolf by Beryl Bainbridge (Barbara Klonowska) -- Characters in mythical and historical contexts: William Golding's "The Scorpion God" (Jadwiga Węgrodzka) -- Counterfactual model of the self in J.M. Coetzee's Summertime (Dominika Szwajewska) -- Works cited -- Index -- Contributors.