# The Country Wife — Character guide

> Key figures in The Country Wife by William Wycherley.

- [Mrs. Margery Pinchwife](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/mrs_margery_pinchwife.md): Margery arrives in London fresh from the country, kept so close by her husband that she asks her sister-in-law a thousand times a day what the town is like. Her innocence is real but restless: she cries at a cross word, 
- [Mr. Horner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/master_horner.md): Horner announces a convenient medical misfortune and watches the town's husbands relax around him, inviting him into their houses and leaving him alone with their wives. He is candid with his friend the Quack about the s
- [Lady Fidget](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/lady_fidget.md): Lady Fidget moves through the town with the confidence of a woman whose honour is beyond question, and she intends to keep it that way in public. Her husband Sir Jasper, eager to keep her occupied, practically delivers h
- [Mr. Harcourt](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/mr_harcourt.md): Harcourt is Horner's friend and Sparkish's, which puts him in the awkward position of courting Alithea while her fiancé cheerfully pushes them into corners together. He presses her with the claim that Sparkish's confiden
- [Alithea](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/alithea.md): Alithea moves through London with the innocent liberty of the town, defending her reputation against her brother's accusations while quietly enduring her fiancé Sparkish's public foolishness. She tells her maid Lucy that
- [Mr. Sparkish](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/sparkish.md): Sparkish considers himself a man of wit and says so often enough that only he is convinced, treating his engagement as a stage for his own cleverness. He invites Harcourt to test Alithea's wit in a corner, laughs at Pinc
- [Sir Jasper Fidget](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/sir_jasper_fidget.md): Sir Jasper is a man of business and pleasure whose chief talent is being usefully absent; he invites Horner to dine and play cards with Lady Fidget, reasoning that a husband should provide innocent diversion rather than 
- [Lucy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/lucy.md): Lucy serves Alithea with a wit that cuts both ways, puncturing her mistress's faith in Sparkish's constancy while hinting that liberty, not honour, is what women really lose in marriage. She reads the town's hypocrisy fl
- [Mrs. Dainty Fidget](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/mrs_dainty_fidget.md): Mrs. Dainty moves through Horner's lodgings as part of the Fidget faction, trading theatrical revulsion with Lady Fidget while privately angling for the same favours. Her cry of 'foh!' at Horner's civility is less moral 
- [Mrs. Squeamish](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/mrs_squeamish.md): Mrs. Squeamish performs refinement, recoiling from Horner's touch even as she drags him off to cards and insists she will have china too. Her squeamishness is a costume for appetite, and the older Lady Squeamish's teasin
- [Dorilant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/dorilant.md): Dorilant is one of the town wits who orbit Horner, matching him line for line on the relative merits of mistresses and bottles. He argues that a mistress should be like a country retreat, visited briefly and left, and he
- [Frank](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_country_wife_se/characters/frank.md): A friend of Sparkish, often mocked for his simplicity.

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