Character guide

Unknown Narrator

major

Also known as me, I, myself

He is Etchingham Granger, an unsuccessful novelist who takes journalistic work and drifts into the orbit of the Duc de Mersch's expedition and the men who finance it. His vanity as a neglected artist and his weakness for a woman who treats him as a relic of an obsolete order leave him perpetually a step behind the plotters. His baffled, self-mocking narration is the reader's only guide through a world where allegory and conspiracy blur.

Mr. Fox

major

Also known as Fox, little Fox, spoof old Fox

Fox runs the Hour and recruits the narrator, dispensing with ceremony while lunching with actresses and sizing up copy between courses. He is a founder fighting a cynical Chancellor for the soul of a government, using men like Soane and Granger as pieces. His charm and ruthlessness make him the narrator's patron and, eventually, a casualty of the very game he taught others to play.

Mr. Callan

supporting

Also known as Callan

Callan is the great man whose home life the narrator visits, a slow-speaking stage-hogger surrounded by local admirers and possessed of immense influence over a class of readers. He is being maneuvered into writing an exposure of the Duc de Mersch's Greenland that will detonate a political scandal. His squeamishness and vanity make him both a weapon and a liability for the plotters who need his pen.

The Duc de Mersch

major

Also known as de Mersch, the Duc, old de Mersch, Mersch

De Mersch is the grand duc whose Greenland scheme is promoted by Churchill's railway bill and bankrolled by the colossal Halderschrodt. He is courted, flattered, and ultimately treated as a detail by the woman who uses him as a public front while engineering his ruin. His crumbling fortunes become the test case through which the novel's rival powers fight for the future.

Soane

supporting

Soane arrives ill, demands champagne, settles for coffee, and writes Fox's leaders from a sofa with the grand manner of a man who has lived and does not care a curse. His metaphor of the tall clock with the mainspring breaking captures the moment the de Mersch boom reverses. His lapses and snubs are tolerated because, when the wind is tight, he produces the real thing.

Mr. Gurnard

supporting

Also known as Gurnard

Gurnard is the narrator's brother-in-law and, by the sister's account, a Dimensionist who uses Fox and Churchill as pieces before discarding them. He passes for a cynic while Fox plays the Old Morality business against him, and the two duel for control of the coming order. His cold calculation and the narrator's estrangement from him frame the novel's final judgment on who truly inherits the earth.

Mr. Churchill

supporting

Also known as Churchill, the Right Honourable Mr. Churchill

Churchill moves through drawing rooms and Arctic schemes with the air of a man of the world among men of the world, yet his slow commercial English and sub-sulkiness betray a resentment at having left some higher sphere. He is father to Miss Churchill and a connection whose suffrage of accidents can elevate a journalist into a symbol of incomprehensible power. His blend of portentous probity and challenge matters because he embodies the respectable English scaffolding behind the Duc de Mersch's colonial philanthropy.

Miss Churchill

supporting

Also known as de Mersch? Miss Churchill, Churchill

Miss Churchill occupies the drawing rooms of the great as the Duc's intended, a figure whose sculptured white hand and lithe, serpentine motion linger in the narrator's mind. She is the woman whose tirades he cannot comprehend, and whose departure through a door leaves him alone with the man she has chosen. Her tension with the Duc, and the narrator's inability to read her, make her the quiet pressure point in the novel's early social world.

The Jenkins

minor

Also known as Jenkins

A family or group referenced by the narrator, possibly servants.

Cromwell

minor

A historical figure referenced in political discussions.

Mrs. Hartly

minor

Also known as Hartly

A woman of society, possibly a landlady or hostess.

Mr. Polehampton

minor

Also known as Polehampton

A minor official or acquaintance of the narrator.

Miss Etchingham Granger

minor

Also known as Granger, Miss Granger, Etchingham

A young woman from a prominent family, connected to the Grangers.

Monsieur Radet

minor

Also known as Radet, the good Radet

A French associate of the Duc de Mersch.

Arthur Edwards

minor

Also known as Arthur

A minor character, possibly a servant or acquaintance.

Mrs. Etchingham Granger

minor

Also known as Granger

A matriarch of the Etchingham Granger family.

Mr. Lea

minor

Also known as Lea

An acquaintance of the narrator, involved in literary circles.

Mr. Etchingham Granger

minor

Also known as Granger, Mr. Granger, Mr. Etchingham

A member of the Etchingham Granger family, possibly a father.

Baron Halderschrodt

minor

Also known as Halderschrodt, de Halderschrodt

A European baron involved with the expedition.

Mr. Evans

minor

Also known as Evans

A minor character, possibly a servant or clerk.

Old Cal

minor

Also known as Cal, the great Cal, poor old Cal

An elderly man, possibly a servant or local figure.

Miss Polehampton

minor

Also known as Polehampton

A young woman, possibly daughter of Mr. Polehampton.

Neighbour Slingsby

minor

Also known as Slingsby

A neighbor of the narrator, briefly mentioned.

Willoughby

minor

A friend or acquaintance of the narrator.

Kenny Granger

minor

Also known as Kenny, Granger

A younger member of the Granger family.

Charles Gurnard

minor

Also known as the Right Honourable Charles Gurnard, Gurnard

A politician, possibly related to Mr. Gurnard.

Jack

minor

A minor character, possibly a friend or servant.

Effie

minor

A young girl, possibly a servant or child.