# The Book of Wonder — Character guide

> Key figures in The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany.

- [Mr. Thomas Shap](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/mr_thomas_shap.md): Mr. Thomas Shap moves through the ordinary world of ledgers and routine, yet something in him answers to a stranger, more ceremonial calling. The tension lies between the respectable man his colleagues know and the 'real
- [Mr. Sladden](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/mr_sladden.md): Mr. Sladden works his neat frock-coat among the counters of a London emporium, but each dawn he gazes through a window that opens onto an inaccessible city of archers and gilded balconies. He loves its little golden drag
- [Pombo](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/pombo.md): Pombo is a self-styled idolater whose etiquette has offended every proper deity, so an arch-idolater sends him past Lonely House and Maharrion to a small, scandalous god who grants what no respectable heaven would. Fearf
- [Mr. Nuth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/nuth.md): Mr. Nuth runs a quiet, prosperous trade in theft, sending glowing reports of Tommy Tonker's progress to the boy's mother in the country. He despises forgery, keeps his name out of rumour, and lets success only sharpen hi
- [Thangobrind](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/thangobrind.md): Thangobrind is a venturous jeweller who has taken the diamond whose price is the Merchant Prince's daughter's soul, and he walks the narrow way past the grim woman whose house is Night. He is brave, but the spider-idol's
- [Alderic](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/alderic.md): Alderic is the careful man his country trusts to rob the Gibbelins of their hoard, and he scatters gold as he rides away because he will not need it if he succeeds. His plan is subtler than any before: swim the ancient r
- [Captain Shard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/captain_shard.md): Shard commands the surviving crew of the Desperate Lark, who escaped the gallows by settling a movable island between Plymouth and the Horn and plundering passing ships by night. He lavishes the Queen of the South with l
- [Miss Cubbidge](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/miss_cubbidge.md): Miss Cubbidge lives at Number 12A, daughter of a newly elected MP, speaking in an affected voice and dismissing the world with a drawled 'Go to!' On the eve of her eighteenth birthday she vanishes from the respectable ob
- [Sheemish](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/sheemish.md): Sheemish is the newer god in the temple, mocked as 'Dirty Sheemish' by Chu-bu's partisans even as his own worship grows, and he burns to assert himself over his rival by performing a miracle. Choosing a small earthquake 
- [Ackronnion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/ackronnion.md): Ackronnion belongs to the wandering company of Dunsany's edge-of-the-world tales, where mortals set out on errands whose true stakes they only half understand. His part in the quest for the queen's tears places him among
- [Sylvia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/sylvia.md): Sylvia is caught in a house at the forest's edge, where a deed has been done and the arch-inquisitor of the forest is expected to answer it. She and her companions fuss uselessly at a rotting door while the Sphinx sits c
- [the Gibbelins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/the_gibbelins.md): The Gibbelins keep their treasure in a tower reached by a high-built bridge, and centuries of well-advised knights have gone by boat to the door and ended on their table. Men hate them but covet their hoard, hoping a suc
- [Tonker](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/tonker.md): Tonker is a country woman's ambitious son, taken on by the notorious Nuth after a jeweller's reference and trained in the quiet crafts of other people's houses. His pride in the Lord Castlenorman affair and his reverence
- [the Gladsome Beast](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/the_gladsome_beast.md): The Gladsome Beast sits at the top of broad smooth steps, its continuous chuckles a terror to anyone who must climb toward it. Ackronnion comes armed with an agate bowl and the chaunt called Dolorous, and the beast's mir
- [Shepperalk](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/shepperalk.md): A character who appears in the city of Never.
- [Slith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/slith.md): A character who appears in the story of the three literary men.
- [the Desperate Lark](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/the_desperate_lark.md): A character from a story within the book.
- [Maharrion](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/maharrion.md): A character appearing in the quest for the queen's tears.
- [the Old Man Who Looks After Fairyland](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/old_man_who_looks_after_fairyland.md): A guardian figure who reacts to deeds in the book.
- [Mergin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/mergin.md): A character mentioned in the book.
- [Chater](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_book_of_wonder_se/characters/chater.md): A character appearing in the book.

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