In Fiction and Literature
- Bella Cohen, Florry, & Zoe, Ulysses by James Joyce
- Belle, Ah, Wilderness! by Eugene O'Neill
- Belle Watling, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- Candy, in Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction by Luke Davies
- Candy, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
- Chandramukhi, Devdas
- Fanny Hill, Fanny Hill, by John Cleland
- Fantine, Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
- Lady Sally, a.k.a. Callahan's Lady
- Marguerite Gautier, from Alexandre Dumas, fils' work La Dame aux camélias, inspired by real life Marie Duplessis, 19th century courtesan.
- Inara Serra, Firefly by Joss Whedon
- Juliette, in the Marquis de Sade's Juliette
- Lozana, Portrait of Lozana by Francisco Delicado
- Moll Flanders, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
- Molly Malone, Irish urban legend
- Sonya Marmeladova, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Nana, Nana, by Emile Zola
- Nancy, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
- Tra La La, Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby
- Mrs. Rosie Palm, brothel owner and president of the Guild of "Seamstresses" in various Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
- Phedre no Delauny of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel novels.
- Pie 'Oh' Pah, from Imajica by Clive Barker
- Romulus, central character in The Romanian: Story of an Obsession by Bruce Benderson
- Elisabeth Rouset, Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant
- Satine, in Moulin Rouge! by Baz Luhrmann, a story based on the Paris nightclub of the same name.
- Séverine Serizy, in the 1928 novel Belle de Jour and the 1967 film based on it
- Tristessa, Tristessa by Jack Kerouac
- Talanta, La Talanta by Pietro Aretino
- Vasantsenaa, a Nagarvadhu, or wealthy courtesan, in Śudraka's Sanskrit play, Mṛcchakatika.
- Violetta, main character from the opera La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, is also inspired by Alexandre Dumas' La Dame aux camélias. "La Traviata" means "the reprobate".
- Vivian Ward, central character in Pretty Woman
- Suzie Wong, from The World of Suzie Wong
- Yumi Komagata, Rurouni Kenshin, by Nobuhiro Watsuki
- Zaza, Zaza by Pierre Berton and Charles Simon
- Odette, in Marcel Proust's Un amour de Swann
Read more about this topic: List Of Prostitutes And Courtesans
Famous quotes containing the words fiction and/or literature:
“The society would permit no books of fiction in its collection because the town fathers believed that fiction worketh abomination and maketh a lie.”
—For the State of Rhode Island, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.”
—Edward Dahlberg (19001977)