A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.

-Addison,Joseph
  In The Spectator, no.1,1 Mar.

Mrs. Stowe did not hit the sorest spot. She makes Legree a bachelor.

-Chesnut, Mary Boykin Miller
Diary entry, 26  Aug, recording the conversation of a group of southern white womenon the subject of men and slavery. The reference is to the principal slaveholder in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

You mentioned yournameasif Ishould recogniseit, but I assure you that, beyond the obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a Freemason, and an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you.

-Doyle, SirArthur Conan
  The Return of Sherlock Holmes,'The Norwood Builder'.

He took her up in his arms in the way of a bachelor who has had amateur experience of the carrying of nieces.

-Ridge,W(illiam) Pett
  Lost Property, pt.1, ch.8.

Never trust a husband too far, or a bachelor too near.

-Rowland, Helen
  The Rubaiyat of a Bachelor.

Times are changed with him who marries; there are no more by-path meadows, where you may innocently linger, but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave. Idleness, which is often becoming and even wise in the bachelor, begins to wear a different aspect when you have a wife to support.

-Stevenson, Robert Louis
Virginibus Puerisque,'Virginibus Puerisque', pt.2.

I found out that he was a bachelor, as was his father before him.

-Symington, Stuart
  On hiring a speechwriter. Address toWashington's Gridiron Club,12 Mar, quoted in Harold Brayman The President Speaks-off-the-Record (1976).

As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows.On the occasions when Aunt is calling to Aunt like mastodons bellowing across the primeval swamps†the clan has a tendency to ignore me. It's one of the advantages Iget from being a bacheloröand, according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that.

-Plum
  The InimitableJeeves, ch.16.