# Of Human Bondage — Character guide

> Key figures in Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.

- [Philip Carey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/philip_carey.md): Philip enters the world marked by two things he cannot choose: a dead mother and a deformed foot, and the shame of the second shapes his shyness, his ambition, and his hunger to be loved. Raised by a cold vicar uncle and
- [Mildred Rogers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/mildred_rogers.md): Mildred drifts into Philip's life as a tea-shop waitress, indifferent to his devotion and quick to humiliate him, and he returns to her again and again against every instinct of self-preservation. She cannot conceive of 
- [Sally Athelny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/sally_athelny.md): Sally moves through her father's theatrical Sunday dinners with a slow smile and an easy modesty, taking the children to Sunday school and serving roast beef without fuss. Her father boasts she'd make a lucky man a wife;
- [Miss Wilkinson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/miss_wilkinson.md): Miss Wilkinson arrives at the Blackstable vicarage as a woman of a certain age with a taste for younger men, and she sets her sights on Philip with a determination he mistakes for passion. She is neither beautiful nor ki
- [Cronshaw](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/cronshaw.md): Cronshaw holds court at Tuesday gatherings, drinking steadily and discoursing on art as a luxury men only bother with once food and women are secured. He recites his own verses, mingles wisdom with nonsense, and treats t
- [Norah Nesbit](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/norah_nesbit.md): Norah is a woman of modest means and generous spirit, supporting herself by her pen and loving Philip with a patience he does not return in kind. She gives him comfort, companionship, and a home when he is bruised and br
- [Hayward](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/hayward.md): Hayward is the older friend whose talk of books and beauty first opened Philip's mind in Heidelberg, and whose example taught him to scorn action, success, and the vulgar crowd. Eight years on, the intimacy has curdled i
- [Frederick Lawson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/lawson.md): Lawson is the sociable center of the Paris art set, forever sketching music-halls, chasing models, and talking up the genius of others. His affair with Ruth Chalice ends without a pang—except for the portrait left unfini
- [Griffiths](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/griffiths.md): Griffiths enters Philip's hospital years as the kind of man everyone warms to: handsome, unbothered, generous with talk and drink, the opposite of Philip's self-conscious intensity. Philip, starved for easy companionship
- [Mrs. Carey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/mrs_carey.md): Aunt Louisa keeps the Blackstable vicarage running under her husband's dry rule, pouring her thwarted tenderness into the deformed nephew delivered to her care. Childless and devout, she clings to the hope that Philip wi
- [Mrs. Athelny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/mrs_athelny.md): Bound to Athelny by no legal tie and by many children, Mrs. Athelny runs the household with sewing, thrift, and a mouth that tightens when her husband rhapsodizes about being wasted. She takes Philip's shillings with mot
- [Miss Price](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/miss_price.md): Fanny Price haunts Amitrano's studio in a stained brown dress, hard up, unkempt, and savagely possessive of the criticism she gives Philip—refusing to help him if anyone else has spoken first. The other students tease hi
- [Clutton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/clutton.md): Clutton belongs to the shabby, argumentative set of art students around Mrs. Otter's studio, where reputations are made and unmade by the master's thumb. When Foinet grudgingly admits he is beginning to learn to draw, Cl
- [Dunsford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/dunsford.md): Dunsford is the first acquaintance Philip makes at St. Luke's, a friendless London newcomer who latches onto him out of sheer convenience and stays out of genuine sweetness. He is stupid but never takes offence, always s
- [Weeks](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/weeks.md): Weeks drifts through the same studios and cheap restaurants as Philip, an outsider twice over — American among the English, thinker among the painters. He argues without heat, listens harder than anyone else, and treats 
- [Thorpe Athelny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/thorpe_athelny.md): Athelny holds forth in his shabby, stately home about Cervantes and the glories of Spain, but in the shop he is a subdued little man hurrying between departments, his flamboyance extinguished. The gap between his self-im
- [Mrs. Otter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/mrs_otter.md): A landlady in Paris who rents rooms to Philip and other art students.
- [Mr. Perkins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/mr_perkins.md): The headmaster of King's School at Tercanbury, who mentors Philip.
- [Mary Ann](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/mary_ann.md): A servant in the Carey household at Blackstable.
- [Leonard Upjohn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/leonard_upjohn.md): A pretentious writer who takes an interest in Cronshaw's poetry.
- [Josiah Graves](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/josiah_graves.md): The churchwarden at Blackstable, often in conflict with Mr. Carey.
- [Fräulein Cäcilie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/fraulein_cacilie.md): A German girl at Frau Erlin's pension who flirts with Philip.
- [Mr. Flanagan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/mr_flanagan.md): An American medical student and friend of Philip in London.
- [Macalister](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/macalister.md): A Scottish stockbroker who introduces Philip to speculation.
- [Doctor South](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/doctor_south.md): A gruff, elderly doctor who employs Philip as an assistant in Dorset.
- [Miguel Ajuria](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/miguel_ajuria.md): A Spanish painter in Paris, part of Philip's artistic circle.
- [Frau Professor Erlin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/frau_professor_erlin.md): The stern proprietress of a pension in Heidelberg where Philip stays.
- [Sampson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/sampson.md): A buyer at Lynn's department store where Philip works briefly.
- [Albert Price](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/albert_price.md): Fanny Price's brother, who appears after her death.
- [Emil Miller](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/emil_miller.md): A German student at Heidelberg who befriends Philip.
- [Ruth Chalice](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/miss_chalice.md): A bohemian art student in Paris who models for painters.
- [Mrs. Foster](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/mrs_foster.md): The housekeeper at the vicarage in Blackstable.
- [Singer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/singer.md): A medical student and friend of Philip at St. Luke's.
- [Emma](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/emma.md): Philip's devoted nurse during his childhood at Blackstable.
- [Mrs. Hodges](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/mrs_hodges.md): The landlady of Philip's lodgings in London.
- [Herbert Carter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/herbert_carter.md): A clerk at the accounting firm where Philip works briefly.
- [Sung](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/sung.md): A Chinese student at Heidelberg, part of Philip's circle.
- [Mr. Goodworthy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/mr_goodworthy.md): A senior clerk at the accounting firm where Philip works.
- [Fräulein Hedwig](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/fraulein_hedwig.md): A pretty German girl at Frau Erlin's pension.
- [Winks](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/winks.md): A medical student and friend of Philip at St. Luke's.
- [Fräulein Anna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/fraulein_anna.md): A German girl at Frau Erlin's pension, sister of Fräulein Cäcilie.
- [Mr. Turner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/mr_turner.md): A fellow clerk at the accounting firm.
- [William Carey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/william_carey.md): Philip's stern, religious uncle who raises him after his mother's death.
- [Miss Watkin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/miss_watkin.md): A friend of Aunt Louisa in Blackstable.
- [Harris](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/harris.md): A medical student and friend of Philip at St. Luke's.
- [Thekla](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/thekla.md): A German girl at Frau Erlin's pension.
- [Chandler](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/chandler.md): A medical student and friend of Philip at St. Luke's.
- [Albert Nixon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/of_human_bondage_se/characters/albert_nixon.md): A fellow clerk at the accounting firm.

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