Sketching Characters: from Ancient Moralists to the Mansplainer (with Katie Ebner-Landy)

Theophrastus was an ancient Greek philosopher. He wrote widely on topics including metaphysics, plant-life, dizziness, odours, and juice. Most notably, though, he was the author of a colourful text detailing the vices of thirty typical characters from Athenian city life. The impact of this short book of sketches, known simply as Characters , was prodigious. In early modern Europe, it spawned an…