Character guide

Lucy Honeychurch

major

Also known as Miss Honeychurch, Miss Lucy, Honeychurch, Miss Lucy Honeychurch

A young Englishwoman whose secret kiss on an Italian hillside keeps haunting her respectable life, forcing her to choose between convention and her own unruly heart.

Charlotte Bartlett

major

Also known as Miss Bartlett, Charlotte, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, Cousin Charlotte

Lucy's anxious, well-meaning cousin and chaperone, whose fussy propriety and frayed gloves mask a talent for managing other people's romances.

Cecil Vyse

major

Also known as Cecil, Mr. Vyse, Vyse

Lucy's clever, condescending fiancé, who treats her as a beautiful object to be admired rather than a person to be understood.

George Emerson

major

Also known as George, Mr. George Emerson, Young Mr. Emerson

A brooding, unconventional young railway clerk whose sudden passions and awkward honesty unsettle Lucy's carefully ordered world.

Mr. Emerson

supporting

Also known as old Mr. Emerson, that old Mr. Emerson

George's blunt, warm-hearted father, whose tactless honesty about love and kindness scandalizes and liberates everyone around him.

Mr. Beebe

supporting

Also known as sensible Mr. Beebe, poor Mr. Beebe

A genial, observant clergyman who watches the Honeychurch household with amused detachment and a fondness for Lucy's piano playing.

Freddy Honeychurch

supporting

Also known as Freddy, Honeychurch

Freddy is the son of Windy Corner, forever playing plum-stone games at the dinner table while his mother inveighs against women novelists and his sister's engagement unfolds around him. Where Cecil Vyse composes himself as a Gothic statue of fastidious celibacy, Freddy simply stands stiff and cross and almost handsome, unimpressed by the performance of romance. His cheerful, unreflective presence matters because he represents the ordinary English life Lucy might choose instead of either Cecil's aestheticism or George's intensity.

Miss Lavish

supporting

Also known as Lavish, Eleanor Lavish, Miss Eleanor Lavish

Miss Lavish holds court in Santa Croce and on carriage drives, spinning plots of love, murder, and abduction while declaring her sympathies lie with Italians rather than her own countrymen. She is emancipated, in Miss Bartlett's approving phrase, yet her appetite for other people's lives makes her a quiet menace to anyone within earshot of a good story. Her presence sharpens the novel's comedy about tourism, art, and the way visitors consume the places and people they claim to understand.

Mrs. Honeychurch

supporting

Also known as Honeychurch, young Honeychurch

Mrs. Honeychurch presides over the household arrangements, the garden party, and the small social calculations that will decide her daughter's future, all with genuine affection and a horror of anything sentimental or bombastic. She is generous to a fault and tone-deaf to the currents beneath her roof, insisting on Charlotte's visit while Lucy pleads that the house is already full. Her conventional good sense matters because it is the gravity Lucy must either settle into or escape.

Mr. Eager

supporting

Also known as Presently Mr. Eager, The one Mr. Eager

Mr. Eager moves through Florence as a man of private galleries and unhackneyed views, contemptuous of Baedeker and of the herd of his countrymen, yet fussily proprietary about who deserves to enter a Renaissance villa. His snobbery and his grudge against the Emersons make him a comic and faintly sinister gatekeeper, and his carefully arranged expedition becomes the vehicle that forces Lucy and George into each other's company. He matters because he embodies the respectable English world whose judgments Lucy must learn to see through.

Miss Alans

minor

Also known as the Miss Alans, The Miss Alans

Two elderly spinster sisters who travel together.

Miss Catherine Alan

minor

Also known as Miss Catharine Alan, Miss Alan, Miss Catharine

One of the elderly Alan sisters.

Sir Harry Otway

minor

Also known as Harris, Sir Harry, Harry

A local landowner and neighbor of the Honeychurches.

Minnie Beebe

minor

Also known as Minnie, little Minnie Beebe, Miss Minnie

Mr. Beebe's young niece.

Mrs. Vyse

minor

Also known as Dear Mrs. Vyse, XI In Mrs. Vyse

Cecil's mother, a sophisticated London socialite.

Signora Bertolini

minor

Also known as The Bertolini, The Signora, the Signora, Bertolini

The Italian proprietress of the Pension Bertolini.

Mrs. Butterworth

minor

Also known as old Mrs. Butterworth

An elderly acquaintance of the Honeychurches.

Mr. Floyd

minor

Also known as Floyd

A curate and friend of the family.

Mary

minor

Also known as Dear Marian

A servant in the Honeychurch household.

Uncle Arthur

minor

Also known as Arthur

Lucy and Freddy's deceased uncle, mentioned in passing.

Anne

minor

A servant girl at the Honeychurch home.

Mr. Honeychurch

minor

Also known as The late Mr. Honeychurch

Lucy and Freddy's deceased father.

Miss Teresa

minor

Also known as Teresa, the Pension Bertolini—Miss Teresa

A guest at the Pension Bertolini.

Lady Helen Laverstock

minor

A minor aristocrat mentioned in conversation.

Miss Flack

minor

A local woman in the village.

Powell

minor

A servant or coachman mentioned briefly.

Miss Pole

minor

A minor acquaintance of the Honeychurches.

Contessa Baroncelli

minor

An Italian countess mentioned in passing.

Lady Louisa

minor

A minor aristocrat mentioned in conversation.

Mr. Flack

minor

A local man mentioned briefly.

Mr. Harris

minor

Also known as Harris

A minor character mentioned in the narrative.

Joseph Emery Prank

minor

A name mentioned in a letter or joke.