# Mr. Anderson — Short Fiction character guide

> Mr. Anderson in Short Fiction by M. R. James.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Anderson

**First appearance:** 0020-an-episode-of-cathedral-history

## Snapshot

A wellborn English traveller in Denmark who notices a hotel room numbered thirteen that appears on no register, and cannot let the discrepancy alone.

## Who they are

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 door marked 13 that refuses to open, his sensible speculation about servants' rooms and superstitious landlords begins to fray. His orderly, slightly smug rationality is exactly what the story needs to set against the quiet wrongness of the hotel, making his small unease the reader's first foothold.

## In the story

### [Number 13](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/chapters/number-13)

The protagonist; an English gentleman researching in Viborg, who experiences strange phenomena in his hotel room and examines historical documents.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/mr_anderson
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters