# The Three Impostors — Character guide

> Key figures in The Three Impostors by Arthur Machen.

- [Mr. Dyson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/dyson.md): Dyson befriends Charles Phillipps over tobacco and argument, the two idling on inherited money while debating whether imagination or science should rule a story. He champions pure invention against Phillipps's ethnology,
- [Mr. Charles Phillipps](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/mr_charles_phillipps.md): Phillipps shares Dyson's idle Bohemia but not his credulity, insisting literature and life alike must answer to physical science and ethnology. His composure is tested when a distressed young woman on a park bench draws 
- [Mr. Burton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/mr_burton.md): Burton trades in rare gems and odd objects, a self-made connoisseur whose diplomacy was honed frightening an Eastern ruler out of a prized opal. Hearing Dyson describe a pale young man with black side-whiskers and large 
- [Professor Gregg](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/professor_gregg.md): Gregg hires Miss Lally on a London bench, installs her in a book-crammed manor house, and treats her less as governess than secretary while he finishes his Textbook of Ethnology. Beneath the sober scholarship she detects
- [Mr. Joseph Walters](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/mr_joseph_walters.md): Walters never appears in the prologue's opening scene, only in the conspirators' chatter as the man staying the night — the bait, or the victim, of a plot they consider finished. Davies, Richmond, and the hazel-eyed girl
- [Mr. Smith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/mr_smith.md): A mysterious figure encountered in various adventures.
- [Frank Burton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/frank_burton.md): Frank Burton moves through the narrative as both witness and participant, comparing notes with Dyson on the nervous young man in large spectacles who seems to be everywhere and nowhere. His account of the man tallies exa
- [Dr. Lipsius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/dr_lipsius.md): A doctor with knowledge of occult matters.
- [Dr. Haberden](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/dr_haberden.md): A physician who treats a patient with a strange malady.
- [Miss Lally](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/miss_lally.md): A woman who appears in the incident of the private bar.
- [Mr. Wilkins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/mr_wilkins.md): An acquaintance involved in the decorative imagination episode.
- [Miss Leicester](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/miss_leicester.md): A woman who tells a story of a recluse in Bayswater.
- [Mr. James Headley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/mr_james_headley.md): An unfortunate man whose story is recounted in the novel of the iron maid.
- [Mr. Leicester](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/mr_leicester.md): The recluse of Bayswater, a man with a tragic past.
- [Mr. Davies](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/davies.md): A smooth-talking man involved in the adventure of the missing brother.
- [William Robbins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/william_robbins.md): A fallacious character in the novel of the black seal.
- [Mr. Edgar Russell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/mr_edgar_russell.md): A man who appears in the incident of the private bar.
- [Mrs. Cradock](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/mrs_cradock.md): The unfortunate mother of Jervase Cradock.
- [Signor Melini](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/signor_melini.md): An Italian man involved in the adventure of the gold Tiberius.
- [Signora Melini](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/signora_melini.md): The wife of Signor Melini.
- [Mr. Meyrick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/mr_meyrick.md): A man mentioned in the novel of the white powder.
- [Professor Memys](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_three_impostors_se/characters/professor_memys.md): A scholar referenced in the novel of the black seal.

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