# The Secret Garden — Character guide

> Key figures in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

- [Mary Lennox](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/mary_lennox.md): Mary Lennox arrives at Misselthwaite Manor as a girl nobody has ever really wanted, least of all herself; servants fled the cholera that killed her parents, and her mother scarcely looked at her. Her only defense is a st
- [Colin Craven](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/colin_craven.md): Colin Craven is the hidden heir of Misselthwaite, kept in a curtained room by servants who obey his tantrums and his terror of his own back. He has never wanted to see anyone or anything, and he clings to the prophecy th
- [Dickon Sowerby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/dickon_sowerby.md): Dickon Sowerby is one of twelve in a cottage where porridge is thin, yet he moves through the world as if it belonged to him and he to it. He found a wild pony on the moor, fed it bread, and made a friend; animals follow
- [Martha Sowerby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/martha_sowerby.md): Martha Sowerby is no fine lady's maid; she was raised in a moorland cottage where children wait on themselves and each other, and she talks to Mary as an equal whether Mary likes it or not. Her outspokenness about hunger
- [Ben Weatherstaff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/ben_weatherstaff.md): Ben Weatherstaff keeps the grounds at Misselthwaite and keeps his own counsel, answering questions with grunts until a robin or a rose softens him. He was fond of Colin's mother, and when she asked him to care for her ro
- [Mrs. Medlock](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/mrs_medlock.md): Mrs. Medlock runs Misselthwaite with a firm hand and a comfortable, well-paid place she will not risk by asking Mr. Craven questions. She thinks Mary unattractive and says so, and she is exactly the kind of woman who wil
- [Archibald Craven](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/archibald_craven.md): He owns the manor and everything in it, yet keeps himself a stranger to his own house, forbidding the closed garden and the sickly son who reminds him of the wife he lost. In an Austrian valley he feels something quietly
- [Dr. Craven](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/dr_craven.md): Colin's physician cousin who indulges Colin's belief that he is ill.
- [Mrs. Sowerby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/mrs_sowerby.md): She is Dickon and Martha's mother, poor in coin but rich in sense, and the one adult the children trust with their secret. When she sees Colin's uplifted face she calls him 'dear lad' instead of 'Mester Colin,' and tells
- [Mr. Roach](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/mr_roach.md): The head gardener at Misselthwaite Manor who oversees the outdoor staff.
- [Basil](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/basil.md): A boy Mary played with briefly in India before her parents died.
- [Mrs. Craven](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/mrs_craven.md): Archibald's late wife who died in the secret garden accident.
- [Captain Lennox](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/captain_lennox.md): Mary's father, a British army officer who died of cholera in India.
- [Mrs. Crawford](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters/mrs_crawford.md): A woman who knew Mary's mother in India.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_garden_se/characters