Character guide

Professor St. Peter

major

Also known as Godfrey, Godfrey St. Peter, St. Peter, Professor, Doctor St. Peter, Doctor

Godfrey St. Peter has spent decades building his eight-volume Spanish history and a household that now feels foreign to him. When his daughters marry into money and his wife turns her energies toward their sons-in-law, he finds himself withdrawing into the old house and the solitary habits of a scholar. His quiet refusal to move forward—symbolized by his refusal to abandon his cramped study—sets the emotional stakes for everything that follows.

Tom Outland

major

Also known as Outland, young Outland

Tom Outland walks into St. Peter's life with a Stetson hat, a canvas telescope, and fifty lines of the Aeneid on his tongue, having read Latin with a Belgian missionary priest instead of attending high school. His manly, experienced voice and resolute eyes mark him as something rare—a self-made intellect whose discoveries will reshape the fortunes of everyone around him. Though he is already gone when the novel opens, his presence haunts the St. Peter household and the marriages of both daughters.

Lillian St. Peter

major

Also known as Lillian, Mrs. St. Peter, Lillian Ornsley

Lillian has always kept the St. Peter household free of shabbiness and ugly compromises, but since Rosamond's marriage to Louie Marsellus she has changed and hardened, throwing herself into the social world of Hamilton with a new intensity. She is tactful and patient with the touchy Scott, coquettish with both sons-in-law, and increasingly bewildered by her husband's withdrawal. When she asks Godfrey what has come over him, her question exposes the fault line running through their marriage.

Rosamond

major

Also known as Rosamond St. Peter

Rosamond was married before her younger sister Kathleen, and her union with the wealthy, effusive Louie Marsellus has transformed both her circumstances and her character. She is building an ambitious country house on Lake Michigan and moving through the world with a confidence that her father finds bewildering. When St. Peter declines to join the family's new life, Rosamond is incredulous and piqued, unable to understand a refusal of what seems to her simple generosity.

Kathleen

major

Also known as Little Kathleen

Kathleen married before Rosamond, and her husband Scott McGregor is a restless, jealous man who prowls among the books at family gatherings. She is pale and spirited, with wide cheekbones and a figure her father likens to an interrogation point, and she occupies a quieter, more marginal place in the family's social ascent than her sister. Her marriage and her husband's resentment of Louie Marsellus add a note of friction beneath the St. Peter family's polished surface.

Louie Marsellus

major

Also known as Mr. Marsellus, Marsellus

Louie Marsellus is generous, demonstrative, and utterly unlike anyone else in the St. Peter family circle—he kisses his mother-in-law on the cheek at faculty receptions, hurries audibly through his soup, and arranges elaborate hospitalities for the professor without being asked. His fortune derives from Tom Outland's discovery, a fact that complicates his place in the family and the town. Lillian adores him, Scott resents him, and St. Peter finds himself accepting favors he would rather refuse.

Scott McGregor

supporting

Also known as McGregor, Scott

Scott McGregor is the Professor's neighbor and son-in-law, an artist who needles the Marselluses' new wealth while cheerfully refusing to be impressed by anyone. He treats St. Peter's stubborn attachment to the shabby old house as a joke, but his offhand remark that a man has a right to two houses if he wants them lands with unexpected weight. His easy irreverence gives the novel a counterweight to its quieter griefs, and his read on the family's shifting fortunes helps frame the Professor's growing detachment.

Augusta

supporting

Augusta has dressed the St. Peter women for years and knows the family's rhythms better than most of its members. Her running argument with the Professor about the Church—she scolds him for slighting remarks his students repeat, he teases her about the Magnificat—reveals a mutual affection built on honesty rather than sentiment. When the family scatters and the new house sits empty, she is the one summoned to open it, and her competence throws the Professor's drift into relief.

Rodney Blake

supporting

Also known as Roddy, Blake

Rodney Blake met Tom Outland in a railroad camp and took him under his wing after nursing him through pneumonia, then threw up his job so the two could ride the Sitwell range together. A man who can do anything for somebody else and nothing for himself, he'd been burned by his mother's remarriage, a faithless fiancée, and a swindled oil investment. The mesa he and Tom dream of climbing becomes the emblem of their partnership, and his loyalty—and its limits—shape how Tom's story ends.

Henry Atkins

minor

Also known as old Henry

An old man who works for the St. Peters, often seen in the garden.

Mrs. Crane

supporting

Also known as Crane

Mrs. Crane comes to the old house in the rain, wearing her daughter's hat, to argue that her ailing husband deserves a share of the Outland patent. Married to a man no one else thought of courting, raising three plain daughters on a doctor's salary, she has learned to advance her case with meek determination rather than charm. Her visit forces St. Peter to confront how Tom's fortune has been dispersed—and how little of it ever touched him.

Dr. Crane

supporting

Also known as Crane, Professor Crane, Doctor Crane

Dr. Crane is a poor, ailing scientist whose health has crippled the family finances and whose quiet assistance to Tom Outland went formally unrecognized in Tom's will. His wife speaks for him—without his knowledge—insisting that Tom could never have worked out his theory without Robert's help. His situation embodies the novel's uncomfortable question of who deserves credit for another man's invention, and his wife's visit becomes one of the pressures closing in on the Professor.

Father Duchene

supporting

Also known as Father

Father Duchene is the priest Tom turns to for books and conversation in the rough railroad town, a man of genuine erudition who takes the boy's hunger for knowledge seriously. He advises Tom to give up night work and live in the open after his pneumonia, setting in motion the range summer that leads to the mesa. His blend of faith and intellectual curiosity offers Tom a model of the life of the mind that the Professor, years later, will recognize as kindred.

Bill Hook

minor

Also known as Hook

A member of Tom Outland's crew in the Southwest.

John Rapp

minor

Also known as Rapp

A man connected to the Crane family and the legal dispute.

Dr. Ripley

minor

A doctor mentioned in the narrative.

Lily Langtry

minor

Also known as Langtry, Lily of Zion

A famous actress mentioned as a comparison for Lillian's beauty.

Professor Horace Langtry

minor

Also known as Langtry, Horace, The Professor

A professor and friend of the St. Peters, often at their dinner parties.

Sir Edgar Spilling

minor

Also known as Sir Edgar, Ned

An English historian who visits the St. Peters.

Kitty

minor

Also known as Kit

A young woman who appears in Tom Outland's story, possibly a romantic interest.

Robert Crane

minor

Also known as Robert

Son of Dr. and Mrs. Crane, involved in the dispute over Outland's legacy.

Appelhoff

minor

Also known as Old Appelhoff

An old friend or acquaintance of the St. Peter family.

Virginia Ward

minor

Also known as Virginia

A young woman who is a friend of the family, possibly a student.

Dr. Dudley

minor

Also known as Dudley

A doctor who attends to the St. Peter family.

Charles Thierault

minor

Also known as Charles, Thierault

A Frenchman connected to Tom Outland's story.

Fred

minor

A minor character, possibly a servant or acquaintance.

Homer Bright

minor

Also known as Bright

A man who appears in Tom Outland's story.

Mrs. Bixby

minor

Also known as Bixby

A neighbor or acquaintance of the St. Peters.

Dr. Fox

minor

A doctor mentioned in passing.

Mother Eve

minor

Also known as Mother

A mummy found by Tom Outland in the cliff dwellings.

Madame Thierault

minor

Charles Thierault's mother, mentioned in Tom Outland's story.

Mr. Wagner

minor

A minor character, possibly a tradesman or neighbor.

The Captain

minor

A captain mentioned in Tom Outland's story.

The Family Doctor

minor

The doctor who attends the St. Peter family.

Jenny

minor

A minor female character, possibly a servant.

Sam

minor

A minor character, possibly a servant or worker.

Mrs. O'Brien

minor

Also known as O'Brien

A neighbor or acquaintance of the St. Peters.

Fechtig

minor

A minor character mentioned in the narrative.