Well, I hated Sirius Snape when I started reading the books, but then I finished the fourth. That scene at the end (no spoilers if you haven’t read it) just made me do a complete 180 . . . I want Snape . . .
I am a guy. I have read Lucy Maude Montgomery’s Anne… series that carlotta mentioned.
I am all about Megan Follows. 
Well, obviously Darcy. I mean, really.
And Aragorn, of course, who I thought was hotter in the book than the movie.
And Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel.
And Snape.
Captain Carrot
And I know he’s not really sexy in the strictest sense of the word, but I want to make everything all better for Arthur Dent.
Daerlyn: I know I’m being REALLY nitpicky, and for that I apologize, but Snape’s first name is Severus. Sirius is the first name of Sirius Black. See my post.
I know it doesn’t matter but I’m a perfectionist. 
Vlad Taltos from Taltos, Jhereg, etc.
I.M. Fletcher from Fletch, etc.
And Val Con yos’Phelium from Partners in Necessity, Plan B, and I Dare, along with his cousins, Pat Rin yos’Phelium and Shan yos’Galan.
Hmm… let’s see… Jennet Jourdemayne of “The Lady’s Not for Burning” by Christopher Fry. By turns vulnerable and courageous, she travels with commendable grace and little hysteria through her last night on earth, reclaiming her life in a realistic and yet admirable manner. One for the “What a woman!” files.
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, limned with such strength of character in Michael Shaara’s “The Killer Angels”. Chamberlain was a real person, the Union commander who held Little Round Top for the Feds at Gettysburg. He was severely wounded in the Civil War–something like five times–and went on to become the governor of Maine and president of Bowdoin College. In the book, he delivers a speech on the meaning of the Civil War that is so absolutely inspiring I’d stack it up against the Crispin’s Day exhortation as the best reason to lose your life horribly just 'cause somebody told you to. I’ve had fantasies of time travel concerning Chamberlain and wonder how he would have regarded the more recreational uses of cavalry boots.
Marian Halcombe, from Wilkie Collins’s “The Woman in White”. Forthright, fearless, charming, witty, and, refreshingly, not conventionally beautiful. I was torqued that that idiot narrator Hartright threw her over for the relatively pallid Laura Fairlie, but then that just left more of her for me.
My wife is very fond of both Nancy Drew and Philippa Talbot from “In This House of Brede” by Rumer Godden. I am also compelled to mention, since we’re on the subject, that she read a story of mine and spent two days in a funk because she’d never met anyone like the main character’s stepmother.
Um… we’re kind of an interesting family, literary lust-wise.
While we’re on the subject, and seeing that so many of you are Austen fans… how do, pleased to meet you… I felt it imperative to share the following. Many gazillions of years ago, New York Magazine had a competition run by an imaginative editor, Mary Ann Madden. She’d give everybody a literary assignment and ask for entries that could be confined to a postcard. In one of the contests, she asked for the first two sentences of a bad novel: the first flavorful, the second deflating. One of her frequent contributors, Mimi Cozzens, sent in this one:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife. Unless he’s gay.”
Jamie Fraser, mmm mmm good.
And Fafhrd, the Grey Mouser’s sidekick from Fritz Leiber’s “Erewhon” fantasy series.
Just something about those viking men I guess…yum.
:smack: I knew that, I really did. My only excuse is that I posted that from work, where my brain generally runs at 1/4 capacity.
Oh my gods, I don’t know how I could have overlooked her. She doesn’t make me “swoon”, technically, but she does fill me with mind-numbing lust: Molly from William Gibson’s Cyberpunk trilogy.
Now there is a woman.
Definitely Garp, but also Roberta Muldoon from the same novel.
Without hesitation, Conor Larkin in Trinity. He made me forget that I am old.
Wow, five votes for Jamie Fraser (including me!)
Shall we start an Outlander appreciation thread?
Ruth from Fried Green Tomatoes is an utter babe.
And Angua from the Discworld series… I swoon. I’m not a swooning type, but she makes me swoon.
<trying to control hormones>
Ooh! Ooh! Rena Titanon, the wrestler from “Love and Rockets”. She was a superhero and she used to run around in this lovely black leather suit and tie with a really short skirt and these thigh-high boots and these skin-tight gloves… grrrff… I never wanted to be a cartoon character so much in all my bornden days. I’d have been a bad guy, even, and extra bad so she’d have more of an excuse to beat the living tar out of me with them boots. I am not normally a person excited by the prospect of violence, but there are exceptions to every principled stand… grrff…
Bernard in Tom Robbins’ Still Life with Woodpecker . I wanna do him.
HAHA Thanks! it’s hard to really find stuff for me to swoon over. Heathcliff is too sappy and weepy for me, Charles Darnay is too good and pure for me…I swoon over flawed, broody, dangerous guys. I prefer Sydney Carton in Tale of Two Cities to Charles any day.
Professor Severus Snape. Definitely numero uno
(Whatever rank of policemna he is depends on the book) Alex Cross in any of the James Patterson books
Dr Tony Hill in any of the Val McDermid books
However, when these were adapted into telly or film, I fancied Snape ever more, because of Alan Rickman, but Alex Cross less, becasue I thought Morgan Freeman was too old for the part.
And as for Robson Green as Tony Hill! What?
Had the casting people not read the bookks?
Now that I have read Outlander please add me to the Jamie Fraser appreciation list.
This is the most intensive SWOON over a literary character I have ever experienced!
Oh, please! Vanyel Ashkevron from Misty Lackey’s Last Herald-Mage series, hands down. Dark, broody, musical, magical, intensely romantic and loving, dedicated, dutiful, beautiful…
Second place goes to Collan Rosvenir from Melanie Rawn’s Exiles series. Charming, musical, rebellious, romantic but cynical, loving, beautiful, and a REDHEAD! Somebody catch me…
I’ve always had something of a crush on Candide, poor thing.
And I would love to fuck some sense into Ford Prefect.