# Kathleen Saumarez — The Cream of the Jest character guide

> Kathleen Saumarez in The Cream of the Jest by James Branch Cabell.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Kathleen, Kathleen Eppes Saumarez

**First appearance:** 0011-viii-of-a-trifle-found-in-twilight

## Snapshot

A former club lecturer and book reviewer, now married to Kennaston, whose hard-won dislike of literature shapes both her marriage and the woman his imagination keeps seeking.

## Who they are

Before her marriage Kathleen Eppes Saumarez earned precarious bread as a lecturer and journalist, reviewing books she came to loathe, and she now cares even less for books as art than the average honest woman. That weary professional skepticism makes her the perfect domestic foil to a husband who lives through fictions, and it colors the way she receives his sudden success. The colophon Kennaston writes for Men Who Loved Alison, celebrating books as travel that lets one exchange one's personality for another's, reads very differently once we know the reviewer he married, and her presence sharpens the novel's meditation on why we read at all.

## Relationships

### [Felix Kennaston](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_cream_of_the_jest_se/characters/felix_kennaston)

_romantic_

Felix is romantically entangled with Kathleen, a real-world counterpart to his fictional ideal.

### [Felix Kennaston](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_cream_of_the_jest_se/characters/felix_kennaston)

_romantic_

Felix is romantically entangled with Kathleen, a real-world counterpart to his fictional ideal.

### [Felix Kennaston](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_cream_of_the_jest_se/characters/felix_kennaston)

_romantic_

Felix is romantically entangled with Kathleen, a real-world counterpart to his fictional ideal.

## In the story

### [IX: Beyond Use and Wont Fares the Road to Storisende](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_cream_of_the_jest_se/chapters/ix-beyond-use-and-wont-fares-the-road-to-storisende)

Mentioned as the woman Kennaston married after Margaret Hugonin; she is the subject of Marian Winwood's revenge publication.

### [Evolution of a Vestryman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_cream_of_the_jest_se/chapters/xvii-evolution-of-a-vestryman)

Recalled in Kennaston's reflection on marriage and the loss of long talks.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_cream_of_the_jest_se/characters/kathleen_saumarez
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_cream_of_the_jest_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_cream_of_the_jest_se/characters