# Short Fiction — Character guide

> Key figures in Short Fiction by M. R. James.

- [Professor Parkins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/parkins.md): Parkins arrives at Burnstow intending to improve his golf and oblige a colleague by inspecting the site of a former preceptory. His defining trait is pluck—a brisk, rational confidence that he can handle whatever he stum
- [Mr. Humphreys](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_humphreys.md): Humphreys has come into a tall redbrick mansion and its grounds without ever having met the uncle who owned them, and the village watches him with quiet, hat-touching scrutiny. As he walks the park with Mr. Cooper, he ab
- [Mr. Edward Dunning](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_dunning.md): Dunning is the man in England who knows about these things, which is precisely why the Secretary's committee sent Karswell's rejected paper to him. He has hobbies, a comfortable home, and no idea that his expert verdict 
- [Mr. Garrett](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_garrett.md): Garrett is a pleasant, ordinary young man who happens to be in the library class where a certain book is kept, and who does a stranger a small kindness. Whatever he saw there has left him propped by a fire, shivering, un
- [Mr. Fanshawe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_fanshawe.md): Fanshawe is a man of academic pursuits, freshly free of term, cycling up to Squire Richards's Hall for a few days of lawns, lime-trees, and easy talk. The two met over an official inquiry and took to each other quickly, 
- [Mr. James Denton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_james_denton.md): Denton is caught between the demands of his aunt's decorating campaign and his own weakness for old books, a weakness that has already cost him her sharp disapproval. He secures Poynter's manuscript diary for twelve poun
- [Mr. Anderson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_anderson.md): Anderson is a practical, mildly curious Englishman abroad, settled into a Danish hotel and idly studying the blackboard list of fellow lodgers. The absence of any Number 13 pricks at him, and when he later stumbles on a 
- [Dennistoun](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/dennistoun.md): Dennistoun is an amateur of old manuscripts and church antiquities, patient with crumbling choir-books and half-legible paintings, and quietly delighted by the prospect of unransacked corners of France. Yet the sacristan
- [The Squire](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/the_squire.md): The Squire moves through the affair as a man of standing and conscience, anxious about a young librarian he has indirectly injured and pressing for details others would rather suppress. He is courteous, a little imperiou
- [Mr. Williams](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_williams.md): Williams belongs to the small circle of library men around the afflicted Garrett, one of those contemporaries who arrives when something has gone badly wrong and stays to make sense of it. He is level-headed and observan
- [Mr. Dillet](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_dillet.md): Dillet is a connoisseur of the acquisitive, self-indulgent kind, fond enough of his purchases to keep his four-poster in the room where his collection lives. His whim is to sleep surrounded by his gems, and his pleasure 
- [Mr. Cooper](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_cooper.md): Cooper is a solid, obliging man of the neighbourhood, the sort who can answer for the grooms and gardeners and who treats his own hours as a resource at his friends' disposal. He is proud of the household he has helped a
- [Mr. Davidson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_davidson.md): A cautious traveller whose quiet curiosity about an impossible 1653 Prayerbook draws him toward an old house and a stranger's prying questions.
- [Mrs. Simpson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mrs_simpson.md): The Aswarby Hall housekeeper whose warm, gossipy memory holds the household's strangest history, including two children who vanished without a trace.
- [Mr. Brown](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_brown.md): A character who encounters a ghostly figure in a garden.
- [Mr. John Eldred](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_eldred.md): A courteous, methodical man who chases a library book and finds his inquiries shadowed by another reader's collapse and a black-cloaked stranger.
- [Mr. Karswell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_karswell.md): A wealthy Warwickshire occultist and would-be alchemist whose rejected paper and unforgiving temper make him a dangerous enemy to cross.
- [Mr. Worby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_worby.md): A watchful presence in the library's orbit, whose attention to who comes and goes helps trace the movements surrounding a young reader's shock.
- [Mr. Wraxall](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_wraxall.md): Wraxall is a scholarly visitor at Råbäck, dividing his days between the manor-house papers and the innkeeper's reluctant talk of his host's brutal ancestor. He is methodical and curious, but his habit of jotting down eve
- [Frank Sydall](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/frank_sydall.md): Frank is eleven or twelve, adopted into a wealthy childless clergyman's family and accustomed to being useful and overlooked. When Lord Saul arrives from Ireland, Frank teaches him games and shadows him through the minst
- [Mr. Somerton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_somerton.md): Somerton moves through the library with the ease of a man who knows its collections and its staff, asking careful questions about who came and went the day before. His interest in the old gentleman in the black cloak is 
- [Baxter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/baxter.md): A servant who aids in uncovering a family secret.
- [Miss Anna Seward](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/miss_anna_seward.md): A historical figure who appears as a ghostly presence in a story.
- [Mr. Lake](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_lake.md): A character who encounters a supernatural being in a field.
- [Mr. Bowman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_bowman.md): A man who investigates a strange occurrence in a church.
- [George Williams](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/george_williams.md): Williams belongs to the small circle of young library men who know Garrett well enough to call on him when he is propped white and shaking by the fire. He is a contemporary, not an investigator, and his presence gives th
- [John Harrington](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/john_harrington.md): A man who discovers a cursed object in an old house.
- [Mrs. Maple](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mrs_maple.md): Mrs. Maple runs the domestic side of the rectory with the confidence of long service, and her testimony carries weight precisely because she is not given to fancy. When the household's routine is disturbed, her account o
- [The Colonel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/the_colonel.md): A military man who experiences a strange event in a country house.
- [Sampson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/sampson.md): A character who encounters a ghostly figure in a library.
- [Mr. and Mrs. Anstruther](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_and_mrs_anstruther.md): Mrs. Anstruther is a stately, self-described great gardener with firm opinions about where roses ought to go; Mr. Anstruther is her obliging husband, more inclined to defer to Collins than to argue. Their chosen site, a 
- [Collins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/collins.md): A servant who aids in a supernatural investigation.
- [Ann Clark](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/ann_clark.md): A woman whose ghost haunts a house after a tragic death.
- [Viscount Saul](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/viscount_saul.md): Viscount Saul presides over his ancestral castle with the easy authority of a man accustomed to being obeyed, and he extends that authority generously to the antiquary who has come to study his family's papers. Yet his h
- [Sir Richard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/sir_richard.md): A character involved in a strange occurrence at a cathedral.
- [Mr. Gregory](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_gregory.md): A character who investigates a mysterious disappearance.
- [Stephen Elliott](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/stephen_elliott.md): Stephen Elliott is a schoolboy boarded with his cousin Mr. Abney in a house beside the cathedral, where he sleeps alone and tries to be no trouble. He is brave enough to walk to the bathroom door after a nightmare and ch
- [Sir Matthew Fell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/sir_matthew_fell.md): Sir Matthew Fell is a country baronet of firm habits and firm opinions, a man who keeps his window open in all seasons and his evenings to himself. His death is discovered when he fails to appear at his customary hour, a
- [Mr. Chittenden](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_chittenden.md): A character who experiences a supernatural event in a church.
- [Uncle Oldys](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/uncle_oldys.md): An elderly relative who tells a story of a supernatural encounter.
- [Mr. Abney](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_abney.md): Mr. Abney is a man of learning and leisure who has invited his young cousin Stephen to stay at his house in the cathedral close, where he keeps a book of observations and a keen eye on the calendar. He is kind in a distr
- [Mrs. Porter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mrs_porter.md): A character who experiences a haunting in a country house.
- [Rogers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/rogers.md): A rude man who encounters a supernatural entity.
- [Lord Chief Justice](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/lord_chief_justice.md): A historical judge whose ghost haunts a country house.
- [Dr. Ashton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/dr_ashton.md): A doctor who investigates a supernatural occurrence.
- [Abbot Thomas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/abbot_thomas.md): Abbot Thomas von Eschenhausen of Steinfeld was a man of God with a strong sense of property, and the treasure he concealed has drawn scholars and treasure-hunters for centuries. His reputation survives in documents and i
- [Miss Cooper](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/miss_cooper.md): A woman who experiences a supernatural event in a cathedral.
- [Dr. Haynes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/dr_haynes.md): A doctor who experiences a supernatural event.
- [Squire Martin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/squire_martin.md): Squire Martin is a landowner of the old stamp, comfortable in his manor and accustomed to being master in his own house. But there is a part of the house he avoids and a matter he will not discuss, and his unease shows i
- [Patten](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/patten.md): A character who discovers a hidden room in an old house.
- [Nisbet](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/nisbet.md): A character who experiences a supernatural event in a library.
- [McLeod](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mcleod.md): A character who encounters a ghostly figure in a field.
- [John Hill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/john_hill.md): A character who discovers a hidden treasure.
- [Mr. Lucas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_lucas.md): A character who experiences a haunting in a country house.
- [Count Magnus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/count_magnus.md): Count Magnus de la Gardie belongs to the dusty aristocracy of a small Swedish town, remembered chiefly through a black-letter biography and the locked mausoleum where his remains rest under a lid no one dares lift. The b

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