Short Fiction · Character

Mr. Dillet

A wealthy collector who sleeps among his treasures and buys a mezzotint that begins, at one o'clock, to show him more than a picture.

major

Also known as Still Mr. Dillet

First appearance: the mezzotint

As a major figure in Short Fiction, Mr. Dillet is not background color—the story leans on what they do once the chapter opens.

Purchases the haunted dolls' house and experiences its terrifying nocturnal visions.

In the storyThe Haunted Dolls’ HouseOpen this moment free

See Mr. Dillet in The Haunted Dolls’ House Book page

Free preview opens at this moment — character cards, Character Web, and themes sit beside the text as you read.

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 in a new acquisition is complacent and proprietary. That very possessiveness is what the story turns against him: when the tolling bell and the moonlit house appear, his collector's gaze becomes a window he cannot close, and his comfortable connoisseurship curdles into something he cannot put back on the shelf.

Continue beside the text

The fuller portrait of Mr. Dillet sits in Reading Lens — open the free preview to keep reading with notes on the page.

See Mr. Dillet in the mezzotint