# Decline and Fall — Character guide

> Key figures in Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh.

- [Paul Pennyfeather](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/paul_pennyfeather.md): Paul begins the novel as the sort of well-mannered young man who can order dinner in creditable French and be trusted with luggage at foreign railway stations — precisely the qualities that make him helpless once he is e
- [Captain Grimes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/captain_grimes.md): Grimes teaches at Llanabba alongside Paul, forever on the verge of being sacked and forever bouncing back, a man whose past includes Flanders, Wales, and a string of women he has somehow married or escaped. His charm is 
- [Mr. Prendergast](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/mr_prendergast.md): Prendergast teaches at Llanabba, a man so grateful for a dinner invitation that he weeps openly at the kindness, and so anxious about money that he mistakes hotel cloakroom keys for currency. His quiet crisis of vocation
- [Philbrick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/philbrick.md): Philbrick serves at the Castle while spinning ever more extravagant stories about his past, and later resurfaces as the mysterious Sir Solomon Philbrick, a lavish spender at the Metropole who sends champagne to Grimes wi
- [Margot Beste-Chetwynde](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/margot_beste_chetwynde.md): Margot Beste-Chetwynde is the fashionable widow whose son Peter attends Llanabba, and whose engagement to Paul becomes a national sensation — announced in the papers, then shattered by his dramatic arrest hours before th
- [Dr. Fagan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/dr_fagan.md): Dr. Fagan presides over a school housed in a sham medieval castle built by Victorian mill-owners, and he runs it on the same principle of enlightened self-interest — hiring cheap masters, tolerating Grimes until the pare
- [Peter Beste-Chetwynde](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/peter_beste_chetwynde.md): Peter moves through Llanabba as an ordinary boy with an extraordinary secret: his mother is Margot Beste-Chetwynde, and he is the young Earl of Pastmaster. When Paul agonizes over whether to shield Margot from prison, it
- [Flossie Fagan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/flossie_fagan.md): Dr. Fagan's elder daughter, a spinster.
- [Professor Silenus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/professor_silenus.md): A modernist architect who designs Margot's house.
- [Sir Alastair Digby-Vaine-Trumpington](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/sir_alastair_digby_vaine_trumpington.md): Sir Alastair belongs to the charmed circle of London society whose doings are retailed by newspapers and whose remittances are anxiously checked at the bank. He is named as best man at Margot's wedding, a position that p
- [Sir Wilfred Lucas-Dockery](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/sir_wilfred_lucas_dockery.md): Sir Wilfred runs his prison with the serene confidence of a man who has read all the right books and drawn all the wrong conclusions. Where others see punishment, he sees an experiment in rehabilitation, and he is perfec
- [Sir Humphrey Maltravers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/sir_humphrey_maltravers.md): A cynical lawyer and politician involved in Paul's case.
- [Arthur Potts](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/arthur_potts.md): A fellow schoolmaster at Llanabba, a socialist.
- [Lady Circumference](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/lady_circumference.md): A formidable aristocratic mother of a Llanabba pupil.
- [Dingy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/dingy.md): A prostitute who befriends Paul in prison.
- [Clutterbuck](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/clutterbuck.md): A wealthy parent of a Llanabba pupil.
- [Little Lord Tangent](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/little_lord_tangent.md): A young pupil at Llanabba who is accidentally shot.
- [Colonel Sidebotham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/colonel_sidebotham.md): A prison visitor who takes an interest in Paul.
- [Mr. Cholmondley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/mr_cholmondley.md): A schoolmaster at Llanabba.
- [David Lennox](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/david_lennox.md): A young prisoner who befriends Paul.
- [Stubbs](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters/stubbs.md): A servant at Llanabba Castle.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/decline_and_fall_se/characters