Ten of the best

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe A large umbrella was for many years known in France as "un robinson" because of the famous castaway's fabrication of a brolly to keep off the sun. It is covered with animal skins, "the hair upwards, so that it cast off the rain like a penthouse, and kept off the sun".

Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens The booze-addled nurse, midwife and layer-out-of-the-dead Mrs Gamp always carries her umbrella, "in colour like a faded leaf, except where a circular patch of a lively blue had been dexterously let in at the top". She brandishes it at foes and uses it to make room for herself in crowds. A "gamp" became a slang word for umbrella in the 19th century.

Howards End, by EM Forster Leonard Bast's umbrella is surely the most famous in 20th-century literature. After a Beethoven concert rich, bohemian Helen Schlegel goes home with a brolly belonging to the impecunious clerk with cultural yearnings. By retrieving the umbrella poor Leonard becomes entangled with the Schlegels, to his doom.

Father Brown stories, by GK Chesterton Chesterton's priestly sleuth – a holy man who solves unholy mysteries – wears baggy clerical garb, a broad black hat, and always carries an umbrella. When we first see him in "The Blue Cross" the umbrella seems a sign of his clumsiness. "He had a large, shabby umbrella, which constantly fell on the floor." He carries on dropping it and leaving it behind in later stories, but it is all to conceal his gimlet mind.

Amerika, by Franz Kafka Young Karl Rossmann is on a ship arriving in New York. As it docks he realises that he has left his precious umbrella below deck. He goes below to find it, and soon gets lost. The umbrella search becomes duly Kafkaesque, leading to encounters with a series of odd individuals who will shape his fate.

Winnie the Pooh, by AA Milne Pooh's guide, philosopher and friend Christopher Robin, being a sensible boy, often takes his umbrella with him. In the very first Pooh story he uses it to try to deceive some bees. Later he and the slow-witted bear set sail in an umbrella named the Brain of Pooh when "Piglet is surrounded by water".

Mary Poppins, by PL Travers A good deal more sarcastic than Julie Andrews's film incarnation, Travers's magical nanny arrives at the Banks household, blown there by the east wind. Her accoutrements are a carpet bag and her parrot-headed umbrella, which talks. The umbrella perfectly combines her prudence and her weirdness: it keeps off the rain and it helps her fly through the air.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis When Lucy stumbles into snowy Narnia and encounters Mr Tumnus the faun, she notices that he has goats' legs and two little horns, but also that he carries an umbrella. He invites her to his cave for sardines on toast. "If you will take my arm, Daughter of Eve . . . I shall be able to hold the umbrella over both of us. That's the way".

The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene Bendrix, Greene's embittered narrator, recalls meeting his former lover's despised husband on Clapham Common. He has taken the wrong umbrella from the rack in the cramped hall of his block of flats. Soon the brolly springs a leak and rain runs down under his collar and he decides to join Henry, the cuckold, for a drink. More misery follows.

Umbrella, by Ferdinand Mount Mount's historical novel narrates the life of Lord Aberdeen, statesman cousin of Lord Byron. He always carries an umbrella – a hefty green one when young, a leaky black one when old – but it cannot protect him from a series of personal tragedies. JM