# Night and Day — Character guide

> Key figures in Night and Day by Virginia Woolf.

- [Katharine Hilbery](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/katharine_hilbery.md): Katharine is the only daughter of a literary household, expected to help her mother assemble the Life of Richard Alardyce and to marry well. Yet her real self lives elsewhere: in mathematics, in solitary walks, in the co
- [Ralph Denham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/ralph_denham.md): Ralph works in a London office, supports his family, and repeats to himself that he shares the common fate and wants no other. But in private he lets himself swing away on strange, noble voyages, and his sister Mary watc
- [Mary Datchet](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/mary_datchet.md): Mary runs an office of the suffrage movement, humoring colleagues like Mr. Clacton and Mrs. Seal while quietly wanting more than they guess. Beneath the Elgin marbles she admits to herself that she is in love with Ralph,
- [William Rodney](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/william_rodney.md): Rodney moves through London drawing rooms as a man of taste, escorting Katharine along the Embankment and striking the parapet in frustration at his own inarticulacy. He is conventional, sincere, and a little vain, wanti
- [Cassandra Otway](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/cassandra_otway.md): Cassandra comes to stay with the Hilberys and quickly becomes the focus of William Rodney's restless admiration, though he is engaged to Katharine. Earnest, inexperienced, and fond of solemn declarations, she decides she
- [Mrs. Hilbery](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/mrs_hilbery.md): Mrs. Hilbery is the widow of a poet's daughter, absorbed in the biography of her father and largely indifferent to the practical running of her household, which Katharine quietly manages. She is charming, vague, and roma
- [Mr. Hilbery](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/mr_hilbery.md): Mr. Hilbery presides over the Hilbery household from a subterranean study lit by a green lamp, where he edits his review and settles whether Byron slept at the Nag's Head or the Turkish Knight. When Katharine brings him 
- [Mrs. Milvain](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/mrs_milvain.md): A friend of the Hilberys who hosts social gatherings.
- [Mr. Clacton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/mr_clacton.md): A colleague of Mary Datchet in the suffrage office.
- [Mrs. Seal](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/mrs_seal.md): A passionate suffragist who works with Mary Datchet.
- [Joan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/joan.md): An elderly servant in the Hilbery household.
- [Lady Otway](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/lady_otway.md): Cassandra's mother, a country gentlewoman.
- [Mr. Basnett](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/mr_basnett.md): A colleague in the suffrage movement.
- [Henry Otway](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/henry_otway.md): Cassandra's brother, a young man studying law.
- [Cyril Alardyce](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/cyril_alardyce.md): A young relative of the Hilberys, a poet who dies young.
- [Celia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/celia.md): Katharine's aunt, a Hilbery family member.
- [Mr. Fortescue](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/mr_fortescue.md): A friend of the Hilberys, a literary man.
- [Richard Alardyce](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/night_and_day_se/characters/richard_alardyce.md): The famous poet, Mrs. Hilbery's father, deceased before the story.

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