Character guide

Maggie Campion

major

Also known as May, Miss Maggie, Miss May, Marie, May Campion, little May

Maggie is the eldest Campion daughter — bold as brass one moment, crimson with shyness the next, forever tearing petticoats and carrying hop-toads in her hat. Her love expresses itself in gruff boasts and awful faces, and it fixes most dangerously on her little brother Victor, whose happiness she treats as her own life's work. As the family's emotional center of gravity, she holds the household together even as her fierce loyalty threatens to bind her to a life she never chose.

Victor Campion

major

Also known as Victor, Campion, Little Victor, Cousin Victor, the elder Mr. Campion

The only son of the Campion family, Victor has been treated as too sensitive for ordinary life since childhood — every resource spent on him, every comfort arranged around him. He drifts through romances and Sunday baths, blowing soap bubbles and promising himself exercises he'll never do, while the women who love him wait for decisions he cannot make. His indecision is not cruelty but a kind of helplessness, and it quietly determines the shape of his sisters' lives.

Mamma Campion

major

Also known as Mamma, XI Mamma

Mamma Campion presides over The Maples with an eye toward her children's marriages and social standing, already walking daughters down imaginary aisles and holding phantom grandchildren. Her efforts to make things pleasant — ice cream for a suitor, a treat for her friends — are met with anguish and rebellion, and she retreats into wounded dignity. She is the family's social architect, and her ambitions and disappointments set the emotional weather of the Campion household.

Lily Campion

supporting

Also known as Lillie, Fat little Lily, Miss Lily, Poor Lily, Lily

Lily is the Campion sister who stays — the one who reads the Sunday papers cover to cover, cuts out poems with a hairpin, and sits up late making candy for Victor's return. She loves her brother with a quiet, watchful anxiety, dreading the day someone will take him away and leave her alone in the house. Her discovery of a name in the society columns sets the story's later machinery in motion, but her real weight is in her loneliness and her loyalty.

Aunt Priscilla

supporting

Also known as Priscilla, Poor Priscilla, Poor Aunt Priscilla

Aunt Priscilla is the elderly relative whose visits bring commentary, wine, and fruitcake, and whose eyes miss nothing — especially Victor's susceptibility to a certain perfumed caller. She speaks in a quaint, old-fashioned register ('methinks, my lady's auriferous tresses are too good to be true') that makes her both comic and quietly authoritative. Her presence sharpens the family's sense of itself, and her observations give the reader a knowing ally inside the parlor.

Lucy Hawthorn

supporting

Also known as Lucy, Hawthorn, XX Twice Lucy

Lucy is the girl Victor believed himself engaged to — until her letter arrives declaring her intention to marry Count René de la Villeblanche and calling their romance the friendship of children. She is offstage for much of the early story, but her decision reverberates through Victor's life and Maggie's fierce protective rage. When she reappears years later as a widow, she becomes the test of whether Victor can ever choose anything at all.

Edward Post

supporting

Also known as Edward, Teddy, XVI Edward

Edward is the absent beloved whose fat letters from the Far West turn Maggie into a dazzled stranger to her own family, and whose homecoming the household awaits with breathless curiosity. The tension is the gap between the ecstatic written word and the awkward flesh: at the station he cannot really kiss her, the hat gets in the way, and Albert's ears loom over the carriage. His arrival tests whether longing survives proximity, anchoring the novel's early meditation on romance versus the ordinary.

Daisy Blow

minor

Also known as Daisy, Maggie

A character with a name suggesting innocence, possibly a contrast to others.

Mr. Alfred Lacey

supporting

Also known as Mr. Lacey, Alfred, kind Mr. Lacey, the rich Mr. Lacey

Mr. Lacey is the wealthy, self-satisfied visitor whose teatime calls stretch past the hour for lighting the wax candles, discoursing on Darwinism and mannish ladies while Mamma flutters between horror and delight. His note declaring his heart can no longer keep silence turns him into a suitor whose intentions unsettle the household's comfortable rituals. He matters as the embodiment of respectable masculine attention, forcing the family to weigh propriety, piety, and the small tyrannies of courtship.

Margaret Southmayd

supporting

Also known as Margaret

Margaret is the soft, appealing bride whose helplessness charms Victor into fetching her thimble and abandoning his attempts to improve her mind. She dozes through poetry, dreads cold water and horses, and cheerfully lets him amuse himself without her, prompting Lizzie Blow's warning that she may lose him. Her serene domesticity, set against Victor's restless energies, quietly seeds the novel's questions about marriage, compatibility, and what women are permitted to want.

Papa

minor

The father figure in the Campion household, often referenced.

Cousin Lizzie

supporting

Also known as Lizzie, Cousin Lizzie Blow, Lizzie Blow, Elizabeth, Betty

Cousin Lizzie exists in the family's talk as both a sympathy and a lesson: married to the foolish sixty-five-year-old Cousin Sam, who has taken the painted young Daisy, she is the woman Maggie and Aunt Priscilla pity while noting her resemblance to the restless May. Her advice to Margaret—join in Victor's pleasures or lose him—carries the weight of experience. She matters as the quiet pattern of wifely neglect and its costs, shadowing the younger women's choices.

Uncle Willie

minor

Also known as Willie

An uncle, possibly with a jovial or problematic personality.

Mr. Robinson

minor

A gentleman mentioned in the social circle, possibly a suitor or friend.

Mrs. Hawthorn

minor

Lucy's mother, part of the family network.

Fannie Page

minor

Also known as Frances, little Francie, Fannie

A young woman from the Page family, possibly a friend of the Campions.

Old Mother

minor

Also known as Mother Hubbard, Mother

A generic older woman, possibly a servant or local figure.

Poor May

minor

Also known as May, Poor Maggie, Maggie

Maggie Campion, referred to with pity in certain contexts.

Lady Peggy

minor

Also known as May, Maggie

A character with a title, possibly a nickname for Maggie.

Marie Antoinette

minor

Also known as May

A historical figure, possibly referenced in a tableau.

Frances Brincklerbee

minor

Also known as The Perennial Bachelor, the Bachelor

A character whose name appears in the title, possibly a pseudonym.

Margery Page

minor

Also known as Maggie

A character possibly confused with Maggie, but distinct in the narrative.

Miss Snaith

minor

A woman with a recurring presence, possibly a governess or companion.

Airy Fairy Lilian

minor

Also known as Lily, Lil-lee, Lily pet

A poetic or whimsical figure, possibly a nickname for a character.

Mr. Menjou

minor

A character with a French-sounding name, possibly a visitor or local.

Albert Leaf

minor

Also known as Robert Leaf, Robert

A member of the Leaf family, possibly a suitor or relative.

Prentice Page

minor

Also known as Prentice

A member of the Page family, possibly a young man with a role.

Miss Judy O'Connor

minor

A woman with an Irish name, possibly a servant or local character.

Mr. Page

minor

Also known as Old Mr. Page, old Mr. Page

The patriarch of the Page family, possibly a neighbor.

Cousin Daisy

minor

Also known as Daisy, Maggie

Another cousin named Daisy, possibly confused with Daisy Blow.

Miss Hopper

minor

Also known as Hopper

A woman with a recurring presence, possibly a spinster or friend.

Mrs. Mittendorf

minor

A married woman in the social circle, possibly a neighbor.

Fannie Leaf

minor

Also known as Fannie, pretty Fannie, Poor old Fannie

A member of the Leaf family, possibly with a romantic subplot.

Willie Fitzgibbons

minor

A young man, possibly a suitor or local character.

Martha Washington

minor

Also known as Martha, Washington

A historical name-drop, possibly used in a tableau or conversation.

Miss Hessie Farley

minor

Also known as Miss Hessie, Hessie, Hessie Farley, XII Miss Hessie Farley

A young woman with a name suggesting a specific role in the plot.

Miss Campion

minor

An unmarried Campion woman, possibly a sister or aunt.

Mr. Neff

minor

A gentleman mentioned in the social circle.

Poor Victor

minor

Also known as Victor

Victor Campion, referred to with pity in certain contexts.

The Campions

minor

Also known as Willie, the Willie Campions, Will, Freddie

The extended Campion family, often referred to collectively.

Frank

minor

A character with a common name, possibly a servant or friend.

Cousin Sam

minor

Also known as Sam, Sammy

A cousin, possibly with a jovial or problematic personality.

Mrs. Leaf

minor

The matriarch of the Leaf family.

Jesus

minor

Also known as Lord Jesus

A religious reference, possibly in prayer or conversation.

Mrs. Jenkins

minor

A married woman, possibly a servant or neighbor.

Miss Proctor

minor

A woman with a recurring presence, possibly a teacher or companion.

Dorothy Spear

minor

Also known as Dorothy

A young woman, possibly a friend or romantic interest.

Old Chloe

minor

Also known as Chloe

An older woman, possibly a servant with a name.

Cousin Jennie Blodgett

minor

Also known as Cousin Jennie, Jennie

A cousin with a specific surname, possibly married.

Pompon

minor

A pet or a character with a whimsical name.

Trusty

minor

Also known as And Trusty, black Trusty

A dog or a loyal servant, possibly named Trusty.

Old Toot

minor

Also known as Toot, Old Toot

A character with a nickname, possibly a child or elderly person.

Carpus

minor

A character with an unusual name, possibly a servant or foreigner.

Marcel

minor

A character with a French name, possibly a servant or visitor.

Mr. Marshall

minor

A gentleman mentioned in the social circle.

Miss Lola

minor

Also known as Dolly, Lo

A woman with a stage name or nickname, possibly a performer.

Isabel Leaf

minor

Also known as Isabel, Leaf

A member of the Leaf family, possibly a young woman.

John

minor

Also known as Jackie Coogan

A common name, possibly a servant or child.

Mr. Thompson

minor

Also known as Thompson

A gentleman mentioned in the social circle.

Mrs. Spear

minor

The matriarch of the Spear family.

Sam Blow

minor

Also known as Sam, Mrs. Blow, Mrs. Sam Blow

A member of the Blow family, possibly married to Daisy.

Lossie

minor

A character with a nickname, possibly a child or pet.

Jake

minor

Also known as Jacob

A common name, possibly a servant or laborer.

Mr. Bates

minor

A gentleman mentioned in the social circle.

Edward

minor

A character with a common name, possibly Edward Post.

Allen Jermayne

minor

Also known as Jermayne, Captain Allen Jermayne, Captain Jermayne

A captain, possibly a military man or sailor.

Miss Martin

minor

A woman with a recurring presence, possibly a teacher or companion.

Stewy Grant

minor

Also known as Stewy

A character with a nickname, possibly a young man.

Carter Thompson

minor

Also known as Carter

A member of the Thompson family, possibly a young man.

Caesar

minor

A historical name, possibly a pet or servant.

Jo

minor

Also known as Aunt Jo, lame Joseph, Josie

A character with a nickname, possibly a relative.

Mrs. Clark

minor

Also known as old Mrs. Clark

A married woman, possibly a neighbor.

Mercy

minor

Also known as mercy

A character with a virtue name, possibly a servant.

Cobina

minor

A character with an unusual name, possibly a socialite.

Margaret Campion

minor

Also known as Margaret

A Campion with the full name, possibly Maggie's formal name.

Lassie

minor

Also known as little Lassie

A pet dog, possibly a collie.

Mr. Post

minor

Also known as Post

A member of the Post family, possibly Edward's father.

Lily Langtry

minor

Also known as Lily

A historical figure, possibly referenced in conversation.

Bump

minor

A character with a nickname, possibly a child.

Father Nelson

minor

Also known as Father

A priest, possibly a local clergyman.

Mr. Baron

minor

A gentleman mentioned in the social circle.

Dolly

minor

Also known as Dora, Dotty, Dot

A character with a nickname, possibly a young woman.

Homer

minor

A historical name, possibly referenced in a literary context.

Madame de Griche

minor

A French woman, possibly a visitor or acquaintance.

Henry Allen

minor

Also known as Henry, Uncle Henry Allen

An uncle, possibly with a specific role in the family.

Mr. B.

minor

A gentleman referred to by initial, possibly to hide identity.

Emily

minor

Also known as Em, Emma, Emmie Holly

A character with a common name, possibly a friend or relative.

Mr. Almond

minor

Also known as Mr. and Mrs. Almond, Mrs. Almond

A married man, possibly a neighbor.

Miss Perry

minor

Also known as And poor Miss Perry

A woman with a recurring presence, possibly a spinster.

Bonny

minor

A character with a nickname, possibly a child or pet.

Mrs. Willie Campion

minor

Also known as Mrs. Campion

The wife of Willie Campion, possibly a sister-in-law.

Sir Lancelot

minor

Also known as Lancelot

A legendary figure, possibly referenced in a tableau.

Mrs. Latter

minor

Also known as old Mrs. Latter

An older married woman, possibly a neighbor.

Bessie Schmalsweiden

minor

Also known as Bessie

A character with a German-sounding surname, possibly a servant.

Mr. Craig

minor

A gentleman mentioned in the social circle.

Gregory Hart

minor

Also known as Gregory, Greg

A character with a common name, possibly a suitor.

Dr. Chase

minor

Also known as Dr. Livingstone

A doctor, possibly a historical reference.

Brownie

minor

A character with a nickname, possibly a child or pet.

Mrs. Farley

minor

The mother of Miss Hessie Farley.

Mrs. Webster

minor

A married woman, possibly a neighbor.

Mrs. Pennock

minor

A married woman, possibly a neighbor.

Ping Wing

minor

A character with a Chinese-sounding name, possibly a servant.

Mr. Duncan

minor

A gentleman mentioned in the social circle.

Maggie

minor

A character with a common name, possibly Maggie Campion.

Bayard Spears

minor

Also known as the rich Bayard Spears, the Spears

A wealthy member of the Spears family.

Wellington Carter

minor

A character with a full name, possibly a historical reference.

Stella

minor

A character with a name meaning star, possibly a young woman.