# Tess of the d’Urbervilles — Character guide

> Key figures in Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.

- [Tess Durbeyfield](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/tess_durbeyfield.md): Tess carries the d'Urberville name in her veins but not in her purse, and the gap between those two facts shapes everything that follows. She works the harvest with a baby at her breast and a gaze that drifts to the hill
- [Angel Clare](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/angel_clare.md): Angel arrives at Talbothays as a student of agriculture and a skeptic of his father's religion, carrying a quiet faith in human goodness that he has never had to test. He and Tess trade confidences in the meadow, each pu
- [Alec d'Urberville](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/alec_durberville.md): Alec is the novel's most dangerous kind of predator: charming, self-justifying, and convinced of his own generosity. He reappears at the swede-field in semi-clerical dress, offering Tess a marriage licence and a missiona
- [Joan Durbeyfield](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/joan_durbeyfield.md): Joan runs the Durbeyfield household on superstition, song, and a stubborn belief that her family's old blood entitles them to better. She sees Tess's beauty as an asset and the d'Urberville connection as a ladder, and he
- [Jack Durbeyfield](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/jack_durbeyfield.md): Jack Durbeyfield is a man whose one piece of good news — that his blood is noble — becomes the excuse for every subsequent failure to work. He boasts in the tavern, sleeps through the morning, and leaves his family to ab
- [Marian](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/marian.md): Marian is the friend who remembers the old dairy days and tries to reassemble them, writing to Izz Huett and dreaming of the whole set together again at Flintcomb-Ash. She is plain, warm, and unjealous, and her loyalty t
- [Izz Huett](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/izz_huett.md): A Talbothays milkmaid whose frank, unguarded longing for Angel Clare makes her both Tess's companion and a quiet rival in love.
- [Retty Priddle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/retty_priddle.md): A dark-eyed, heavy-tressed milkmaid at Talbothays whose hopeless passion for Angel Clare turns her from a cheerful worker into a figure of silent heartbreak.
- [Dairyman Crick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/dairyman_crick.md): The hearty master of Talbothays Dairy, known as plain Dick all week and Mister Richard Crick on Sundays, who gives Tess her fresh start among the cows.
- [Mrs. Crick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/mrs_crick.md): The wife of Dairyman Crick, who helps manage the dairy household.
- [Liza-Lu](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/liza_lu.md): Tess's younger sister, a girl in a triangular shawl who carries the baby across the harvest field and grows into her sister's living echo.
- [Abraham Durbeyfield](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/abraham_durbeyfield.md): Tess's younger brother, who accompanies her on the fateful trip to deliver beehives.
- [Mercy Chant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/mercy_chant.md): A pious young woman whom Angel's parents hope he will marry.
- [Car Darch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/car_darch.md): A coarse village girl who fights with Tess at the market after Alec's attention.
- [Felix Clare](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/felix_clare.md): Angel's older brother, a conventional clergyman who disapproves of Angel's choices.
- [Cuthbert Clare](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/cuthbert_clare.md): Angel's other brother, also a clergyman, who shares Felix's conventional views.
- [Old Mr. Clare](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/old_mr_clare.md): Angel's father, a grave, earnest clergyman whose rigid Evangelical conscience and genuine charity shape the moral world his son both inherits and rebels against.
- [Mrs. Clare](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/mrs_clare.md): Angel's mother, a gentle woman who worries about her son's future.
- [Farmer Groby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/farmer_groby.md): A harsh farmer who employs Tess during her time at Flintcomb-Ash farm.
- [Mrs. Brooks](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/mrs_brooks.md): The landlady of the lodging house where Tess and Alec stay in Sandbourne.
- [Parson Tringham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/parson_tringham.md): The antiquarian clergyman who informs Jack Durbeyfield of his noble lineage.
- [Prince](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/prince.md): The Durbeyfield family horse, whose death sets Tess's tragic journey in motion.
- [Old Deborah Fyander](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/old_deborah_fyander.md): An elderly woman who lives near the Durbeyfields and is consulted for folk remedies.
- [Mrs. d'Urberville](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters/mrs_durberville.md): Alec's blind mother, who lives at The Slopes and is unaware of her son's actions.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/characters