# The Child of the Cavern — Character guide

> Key figures in The Child of the Cavern by Jules Verne.

- [Harry Ford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_child_of_the_cavern_se/characters/harry_ford.md): Harry is Simon Ford's son, a collier whose lamp and instinct guide the first explorers into the vast cavern and its subterranean lake. When his lamp is mysteriously dashed from his hand in the dark, he begins to suspect 
- [Nell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_child_of_the_cavern_se/characters/nell.md): Rescued half-dead and raised by Madge and Simon Ford, Nell learns the outer world from Harry while hiding the truth of her underground past. She loves her new family but trembles whenever the mine's mysteries are mention
- [James Starr](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_child_of_the_cavern_se/characters/james_starr.md): Starr arrives expecting to confirm a dead seam and instead finds himself standing before an underground lake and a fortune in coal. His keen senses and measured judgment make him the expedition's anchor, though he cannot
- [Jack Ryan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_child_of_the_cavern_se/characters/jack_ryan.md): Jack sings at the Fords' cottage, teases Nell gently, and half-regrets not being the one who saved her himself. His belief in fire-maidens and goblins makes him the butt of jokes until the strange lights and accidents be
- [Simon Ford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_child_of_the_cavern_se/characters/simon_ford.md): Simon lives in the old cottage with Madge, stubbornly certain that a great coal field lies beyond the failed dyke. His discovery of firedamp draws James Starr back, and his dream of building Coal Town beneath the earth g
- [Madge](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_child_of_the_cavern_se/characters/madge.md): When Harry carries the half-dead child home, it is Madge who tends her, questions her gently in Gaelic, and gives her the name Nell. She becomes the girl's adoptive mother, patient with a daughter who does not know what 
- [Silfax](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_child_of_the_cavern_se/characters/silfax.md): Silfax lives alone in caverns known only to himself, feeding the child he keeps from the world and brooding over the miners who have claimed the old Aberfoyle workings. He cannot bear noise or cheerfulness, and his rage 
- [Sir William Elphiston](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_child_of_the_cavern_se/characters/sir_william_elphiston.md): A local landowner and magistrate involved in the story's events.
- [Harfang](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_child_of_the_cavern_se/characters/harfang.md): A giant bird that lives in the cavern and is associated with Silfax.

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