# Mr. Coombes — Short Fiction character guide

> Mr. Coombes in Short Fiction by H. G. Wells.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** The Purple Pileus Mr. Coombes, little Coombes, Coombes

**First appearance:** 0033-the-purple-pileus

## Snapshot

A henpecked small shopman who, fleeing his wife's nagging and his own despair, stumbles upon a purple fungus in the woods.

## Who they are

Coombes is a mild, self-denying shopkeeper whose marriage has curdled into a trap: his wife married him to escape the workroom, and now she and her relatives eat up his capital and his patience. On a Sunday walk through the woods, brooding on razors and bread-knives, he finds a purple pileus among the fungi—and destiny, as the narrator notes, has planted his path with more than one kind of temptation. His quiet desperation and his sudden encounter with the mushroom set the story's strange transformation in motion.

## In the story

### [A Catastrophe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se/chapters/a-catastrophe)

Not present; no match found.

### [The Purple Pileus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se/chapters/the-purple-pileus)

The protagonist, a pale-faced little man with a black moustache, sick of his unhappy marriage and driven to despair by his wife's friend Jennie.

### [The Man Who Could Work Miracles](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se/chapters/the-man-who-could-work-miracles)

Not present in this excerpt.

### [Jimmy Goggles the God](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se/chapters/jimmy-goggles-the-god)

The sunburnt man telling the story, who was a god among natives.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se/characters/mr-coombes
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se/characters