Ashenden · Character

Mr. Harrington

An American traveler whose relentless, precise monologue about his family, his ancestry, and his laundry follows Ashenden across revolutionary Russia like a force of nature.

supporting

Also known as Mr. John Quincy Harrington, XVI Mr. Harrington

First appearance: XVI: Mr. Harrington’s Washing

As a supporting figure in Ashenden, Mr. Harrington is not background color—the story leans on what they do once the chapter opens.

American travelling companion from Philadelphia; a highbrow bore who recites speeches incessantly; extremely polite, modest, and helpful, but drives Ashenden to distraction.

In the storyXIV: A Chance AcquaintanceOpen this moment free

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Mr. Harrington talks without pause or inflection, a stream of lava that overwhelms everything in its path, and Ashenden learns more about him than he ever wished to know. Proud of his English ancestry yet suspicious of newer immigrants, devoted to his delicate wife, he is a comic and faintly pathetic specimen of a vanished order. His obsession with clean linen in a country without bread becomes the book's sharpest emblem of the collision between bourgeois comfort and revolution.

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See Mr. Harrington in XVI: Mr. Harrington’s Washing

Character Web

3 connections

A slice of how Mr. Harrington sits in the book — open the reader for the full interactive map.

Relationship types

Other

Character groups

Miscellaneous contacts and targets
Espionage network core
Protagonist

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Narrative arc

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

Setup
Escalation
Breaking point

Ashenden’s decision to write to Anastasia Alexandrovna marks the emotional and psychological peak because it f…

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In the story

Mr. Harrington appears across 3 companion beats. Open any chapter in the free preview to see the notes beside the text.

XIV: A Chance Acquaintance
American travelling companion from Philadelphia; a highbrow bore who recites speeches incessantly; extremely polite, modest, and helpful, but drives Ashenden to distraction.
Love and Russian Literature
Mentioned as needing an interpreter for his business proposition and letters to Ministers of State.
XVI: Mr. Harrington’s Washing
Obsessed with retrieving his laundry despite the danger; forms a friendship with Anastasia; goes missing after the outing.

Chapter companion notes

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See Mr. Harrington in XVI: Mr. Harrington’s Washing

See Mr. Harrington in XIV: A Chance Acquaintance