The Inheritors · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in The Inheritors by Joseph Conrad.
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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.