Tip of sword encased in stone by a literary character (9)
I believe the answer is:
esmeralda
'tip of sword encased in stone' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'by a literary character' is the wordplay.
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'literary character' becomes 'esmerald' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'a' after 'esmerald' is 'ESMERALDA'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for esmeralda that I've seen before include "Hugo's heroine" , "Victor's character" , "Heroine of The Hunchback of Notre Dame" , "Victor Hugo character" , "woman, kept in a tower" .)