Tom Ripley
fictional character created by Patricia Highsmith
Tom Ripley is a fictional character in the Ripley series of crime novels by American novelist Patricia Highsmith, as well as several film adaptations. He is a charming, amoral career criminal, con artist, and serial killer. The five novels in which he appears—The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, and Ripley Under Water—were published between 1955 and 1991.
Ripley has been critically acclaimed for being "both a likable character and a cold-blooded killer". The Guardian wrote, "It is near impossible, I would say, not to root for Tom Ripley. Not to like him. Not, on some level, to want him to win. Patricia Highsmith does a fine job of ensuring he wheedles his way into our sympathies." Book magazine ranked Ripley on its list of the 100 Best Characters in Fiction since 1900.
Fictional biography
Backstory
Highsmith introduced Ripley in The Talented Mr.
“Tom Ripley” enters the record as fictional character created by Patricia Highsmith. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ripley, fictional and character can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2625100. VIAF identifies the subject as 202327637. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1991 and 1900.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tom Ripley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.