Round the Moon · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in Round the Moon by Jules Verne.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
Michel Ardan
major
Also known as Ardan, the amiable Michel
Ardan is the expedition's amateur, the one passenger who joined by charm and nerve rather than credentials, and he knows it. Where Barbicane calculates and Nicholl doubts, Ardan jokes — striking a match on his boot sole, christening the bullet a travelling prison he'd gladly lease for a century, naming the dogs after the first couple. His levity is not stupidity; it is a way of holding three men together in a sealed room with no exit. Without his audacity, the voyage would be an experiment; with it, it becomes an adventure.
Impey Barbicane
major
Also known as Barbicane, President Barbicane, friend Barbicane
Barbicane commands the expedition with the composure of a countinghouse clerk, settling accounts with Nicholl mid-voyage and checking his chronometer against Murchison's to the tenth of a second. His authority rests on precision, not warmth, and the contrast with Ardan's chatter defines the bullet's social weather. He is the scientific instinct of the enterprise — the reason the shot was fired at all — and the reason it might actually arrive. Every early crisis is measured against his calm.
Captain Nicholl
major
Also known as Nicholl, the methodical Nicholl, the calculating Nicholl
Nicholl boarded the projectile as Barbicane's adversary and remains its most methodical passenger, sealing the plates, timing the departure, demanding a written receipt for money exchanged in a vessel that may never return. His skepticism is not hostility so much as a need for proof, and it makes him the counterweight to both Barbicane's confidence and Ardan's improvisation. In the early arc he is the man who checks the bolts — the reason the others can afford to dream.
J. T. Maston
supporting
Also known as Maston, the Honourable J. T. Maston, the worthy J. T. Maston
Maston stays behind while his friends ride the bullet, and his vigil at the great reflector becomes the Earthbound half of the story. He argues with Belfast like a man possessed, insists he can see Ardan's face at a port-light, and leans so far over the tube that his steel hook alone saves him from a 280-foot drop. His fierce, unshakable conviction that the travellers live keeps the rescue effort alive — and gives the narrative its anxious, hopeful pulse.
Diana
minor
Also known as Poor Diana
Dog belonging to the travelers, accidentally launched into space with them.
Captain Blomsberry
minor
Also known as Blomsberry
Commander of the Susquehanna, assists in the recovery of the projectile.
J. Belfast
minor
Also known as the Honourable J. Belfast, Belfast
Astronomer at the Cambridge Observatory, provides calculations for the voyage.
Lieutenant Bronsfield
minor
Also known as Bronsfield
Officer on the Susquehanna, assists in the search for the projectile.
Major Elphinstone
minor
Also known as Elphinstone
Member of the Gun Club, present at the departure of the projectile.
Murchison
minor
Also known as the engineer Murchison
Engineer who oversees the casting of the Columbiad.
