List of Duels - Duels in Fiction

Duels in Fiction

• Eugene Onegin by Aleksandr Pushkin (who was himself killed in a duel). Other Pushkin's works featuring duels are The Captain's Daughter, Gunshot, Caucasian Romance, and The Stone Guest.
• Mikhail Lermontov's novel A Hero of Our Time has a duel scene thought prophetic of the duel which would bring about the author's death
• The Princess Bride features several sword duels.

• Westley (Dread Pirate Roberts) versus Iñigo Montoya: Inigo loses but survives.
• Inigo Montoya versus Count Rugen: Inigo avenges his father's death.

• The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père; D'Artagnan commits himself to fight three consecutive duels with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis
• Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand; Cyrano is famous for his dueling.
• The Years Between, four-book series by Paul Féval, fils; and M Lassez: - 1928 features the ongoing conflict between the fiery Cyrano de Bergerac and D'Artagnan the aging legend. Three times they fight; various interruptions prevent either Gascon from receiving satisfaction.
• Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos; Valmont versus Danceny, Valmont allows himself to be killed.
• A Sentimental Education by Flaubert
• The Duel (also known as The Point of Honor: A Military Tale) by Joseph Conrad; Two officers of Napoleon Bonaparte's army fight a number of duels over many years. The story was transferred to the screen in 1977 by Ridley Scott as The Duellists.
• The Duel, a philosophic novella by Anton Chekhov
• War and Peace: Pierre and Dolokhov duel. Leo Tolstoy himself barely escaped duels with fellow writers Ivan Turgenev and Nikolai Nekrasov.
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen has an "offstage" duel between Colonel Brandon and Mr. Willoughby over the seduction of Colonel Brandon's adopted daughter.
• Fathers and Sons: Kirsanov and Bazarov duel is a culminating point of the novel; Turgenev also wrote a short story called Duellist.
• Vladimir Nabokov's Ada, or Ardour.
• HMS Surprise by Patrick O'Brian; Stephen Maturin fights and kills Richard Canning over Diana Villers. Based on the Ashton–Allen duel?
• Mr. Midshipman Hornblower in the Horatio Hornblower series by C. S. Forester; Horatio Hornblower duels Jack Simpson
• In Ridicule, a French film directed by Patrice Leconte, protagonist Gregoire Ponceludon kills one of King Louis XVI's officers in a pistol duel.
• The Highlander series features numerous duels between immortal warriors destined to fight. In the first film, a humorous duel occurs where a very drunk immortal fences with a sober man, is repeatedly run through but keeps getting back up to fight.
• In Tombstone, Doc Holliday stands in for his friend Wyatt Earp in a duel with Johnny Ringo. This is based on one of several explanations for the unusual circumstances surrounding Ringo's death.
• In The Count of Monte Cristo, The Count of Monte Cristo (Edmond Dantès) plans a duel with Viscount Albert Mondego, de Morcerf. However, no duel is ever fought, and Mondego apologizes. Monte Cristo also almost duels Mondego's father, the Count Fernand Mondego de Morcerf, but he learns Monte Cristo's true identity and bows out. There was also a recollection of Noitier de Villefort of him engaging with a duel and killing his opponent. He told the account to Franz d'Épinay, the son of the one Noitier killed. He did this in order to break up the plans of marriage to his granddaughter, Valentine.
• Libertine, a Baroque-style music video by Mylène Farmer starts with a duel between the singer and a man, ending in the man's death.
• The Skulls, a 2000 movie, culminates in a duel between the two main characters, though neither fires on the other and the fight is eventually interrupted by the father of one of the participants.
• Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald; McKisco vs Barban.
• Doctor Who, "The Christmas Invasion": The Doctor duels with the Sycorax Leader in a fight for Planet Earth
• Barry Lyndon, the 1975 movie by Stanley Kubrick includes many duels. It begins with a duel in which Barry's father is mortally shot by an unknown man. Years later Barry duels Captain Quin for Nora. The movie culminates in a duel with Barry's stepson, Lord Bullingdon. This last duel is not in the original novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray.
• In the novel Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling, a number of the students at Hogwarts attend a duelling lesson conducted by teachers Gilderoy Lockhart and Severus Snape. It was during a supervised practice duel with Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter's nature as a parselmouth was exposed.
• Dark Shadows: in the 1795 storyline, Barnabas Collins had fought a duel against Jeremiah Collins in a duel after he learned he married his love Josette du Pres thanks to Angelique's spell, and the duel caused Jeremiah's death.
• In The Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolay Stavrogin duels Gaganov over a family insult. During the duel, Stavrogin intentionally fires into the air, which infuriates Gaganov.
• In Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Prince Hamlet fights a duel with Laertes. The weapons are not supposed to be fatal, but Laertes' sword is sharp, and the tip is poisoned. Both men are killed.
• In Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman is forced into fighting a duel after a brief affair with a fellow officer's lover. Flashman gains a free shot after promising a large sum of money to the pistol loader to give his opponent blanks in his gun, but rather than attempt to kill his opponent, instead delopes and accidentally shoots the top off a bottle thirty yards away, an action that gives him instant fame and the respect of Duke of Wellington. In his next novel Royal Flash Flashman is kidnapped by Otto von Bismarck and is forced to acquire a pair of dueling scars administered by the duelmaster De Gautet. In disgust at having his face sliced like paper, Flashman lunges De Gautet and cuts his abdomen.
• In the Simpsons episode "E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)", Homer, imitating Zorro, inadvertently challenges a gun-toting Southern colonel to a duel. Initially avoiding the duel by running to the country (and inventing 'Tomacco'), the eventual duel results in Homer being shot in the arm (subsequently refusing hospitalisation for pie).
• In the Blackadder the Third episode "Duel and Duality", the Prince Regent (Hugh Laurie) is challenged to a duel by the Duke of Wellington (Stephen Fry). Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) assumes his place but is saved in the eventual duel (using cannon) by a cigarette case. The Prince, in Blackadder's clothing, is shot dead by the Duke for insolence with Blackadder assuming the role of Prince (and later King).
• In Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, the long-standing personal and philosophical differences between Naptha and Settembrini eventually result in a pistol duel; when Settembrini delopes by shooting into the air, Naphta calls him a coward and shoots himself.
• In the Metal Gear Solid series there have been a number of duels, most of them between the hero and boss characters. Three memorable ones are; The duel between Solid Snake and Grey Fox, barehanded over a minefield. The duel between Liquid Snake and Solid Snake, barehanded fighting on Metal Gear REX; and the final duel between Old Snake and Liquid Ocelot, on top of Outer Haven.
• Howard Waldrop's Fin de Cyclé culminates in a duel between Alfred Jarry and an antagonistic journalist, riding bicycles atop the Eiffel Tower.
• In the videogame Red Dead Redemption, John Marston participates in several duels, in and out of the story.
• In the movie Die Another Day, James Bond and Gustav Graves duel with a variety of swords, which ends with Bond slashing Graves across the chest with a longsword.