# Gordon Doyle — Can Such Things Be? character guide

> Gordon Doyle in Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Doyle, Mr. Gordon Doyle, Mr. Doyle

**First appearance:** 0028-the-middle-toe-of-the-right-foot

## Snapshot

A principal passenger on a broken-shafted steamer, engaged to a Devonshire heiress, who finds his fellow traveler's ravings about a shipwreck uncomfortably close to the truth.

## Who they are

Gordon Doyle is three weeks out from Liverpool on the City of Prague, bound for New York with a broken shaft and a lunatic for a cabinmate, and he is engaged to marry Janette Harford, whom he met a year ago in London and whose family cut up rough about the match. He explains, with the calm of a man who thinks his listener half awake, that Janette sailed on the Morrow to avoid detection, and that the broken shaft may yet let her reach New York first. When the lunatic asks what he knows of Janette Harford, Doyle changes color and lays his fingers on the man's wrist.

## Relationships

### [Janette Harford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters/janette_harford)

_romantic_

Gordon Doyle and Janette Harford are lovers, but their romance is haunted by a spectral premonition.

### [Janette Harford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters/janette_harford)

_romantic_

Gordon Doyle and Janette Harford are lovers, but their romance is haunted by a spectral premonition.

## In the story

### [The Haunted Valley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/chapters/the-haunted-valley)

A visitor to the haunted valley.

### [A Psychological Shipwreck](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/chapters/a-psychological-shipwreck)

Jarrett's friend; engaged to Janette Harford and traveling on the City of Prague.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters/gordon_doyle
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters