# Mr. Callan — The Inheritors character guide

> Mr. Callan in The Inheritors by Joseph Conrad.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Callan

**First appearance:** 0003-i

## Snapshot

A celebrated novelist who moves in carpet slippers and eavesdrops round screens, gathering copy and fainting at the sight of blood.

## Who they are

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.

## In the story

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inheritors_se/chapters/ii)

Hosts the narrator at his home, speaks in a slow, authoritative manner, and offers him the writing commission from Fox.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inheritors_se/chapters/iii)

Callan is the pompous novelist who confides in the woman about the 'Hour' and the Duc de Mersch, and later employs the narrator to write a fawning article.

### [IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inheritors_se/chapters/iv)

Mentioned as having recommended the narrator to Fox, and as part of the syndicate behind the paper.

### [Chapter XII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inheritors_se/chapters/xii)

Mentioned as a tool in the woman's plot to expose Greenland's secrets and write a damning article.

### [XIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inheritors_se/chapters/xiii)

Not directly present in this chapter.

### [XIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inheritors_se/chapters/xiv)

Not directly present; referenced indirectly through the narrator's past.

### [XVII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inheritors_se/chapters/xvii)

His article exposes the Greenland fraud, threatening ruin for many.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inheritors_se/characters/callan
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inheritors_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_inheritors_se/characters