A Room With a View · Character

Miss Lavish

A flamboyant novelist who mines Florence for local colour, warns she will be unmerciful to British tourists, and keeps Lucy on trial for the role of ingenue.

supporting

Also known as Lavish, Eleanor Lavish, Miss Eleanor Lavish

First appearance: The Bertolini

As a supporting figure in A Room With a View, Miss Lavish is not background color—the story leans on what they do once the chapter opens.

A clever lady at the pension who enthusiastically advises the newcomers to visit Prato.

In the storyThe BertoliniOpen this moment free

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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.

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See Miss Lavish in The Bertolini

Character Web

5 connections

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Relationship types

Other

Character groups

Minor and background characters
Main characters and family
Protagonist

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Narrative arc

Story tension across the book — this chapter sits in Exposition.

Setup
Escalation
Breaking point
Aftermath
Closing

This is the dramatic climax because Lucy reaches an emotional and psychological peak of defiance, finally asse…

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In the story

Miss Lavish appears across 6 companion beats. Open any chapter in the free preview to see the notes beside the text.

The Bertolini
A clever lady at the pension who enthusiastically advises the newcomers to visit Prato.
In Santa Croce with No Baedeker
Abandons Lucy in the Piazza to chase a 'local-colour box'; takes Lucy's Baedeker with her.
III: Music, Violets, and the Letter S
Mentioned as the owner of the cigarette-case; her novel was lost in a landslide at Amalfi, leading her to take up smoking.
Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing
Eager to exploit the murder for her novel, presses Lucy for details, and is later doubted by Lucy as a great artist.
VI: The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians Drive Them
Initially supports the lovers' freedom as 'an adventure,' but backs down when Mr. Eager insists; engages in a scholarly dispute about Alessio Baldovinetti.
XI: In Mrs. Vyse’s Well-Appointed Flat
Reported by Charlotte to have seen George Emerson near Summer Street.

Chapter companion notes

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See Miss Lavish in The Bertolini