| ANTIHERO | Less noble protagonist (8) |
| BASER | Less noble graduates returned (5) |
| BRADSHAW | Carrie _; Sex and the City protagonist (8) |
| EBENEZER | ___ Scrooge, A Christmas Carol protagonist (8) |
| TULLIVER | Maggie, The Mill on the Floss protagonist (8) |
| PROSPERO | The Tempest's protagonist (8) |
| DRUDGERY | Dickens' protagonist entered into dreary monotonous labour (8) |
| PICKWICK | Protagonist of Dickens' first novel (8) |
| STARDUST | Fine stuff by protagonist in old song (8) |
| EARNSHAW | Catherine ___, protagonist in Emily Bronte novel Wuthering Heights who weds Edgar Linton (8) |
| DASHWOOD | Elinor ?, protagonist of 1811 Jane Austen novel Sense and Sensibility (8) |
| TRISTRAM | --- Shandy, protagonist of a nine-volume 18th Century novel by Laurence Sterne (8) |
| ANGSTROM | Harry, protagonist of John Updike's Rabbit Run novels (8) |
| WOODRUFF | Surname of the protagonist Sarah in The French Lieutenant's Woman (8) |
| JEOPARDY | Joy read novel about protagonist initially in danger (8) |
| SCARLETT | The protagonist of Gone With the Wind (8,5) |
| GLORIANA | Protagonist of Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590); a personification of Elizabeth I (8) |
| EVERDEEN | Katniss, main protagonist and narrator of The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins (8) |
| MERIDIUS | Protagonist of the 2000 Ridley Scott film Gladiator, played by Russell Crowe (7,7,8) |
| MADRIGAL | Protagonist of the 2021 animated film Encanto, voiced by Stephanie Beatriz (8) |
