# The Vampire — Character guide

> Key figures in The Vampire by John William Polidori.

- [Aubrey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vampire_se/characters/aubrey.md): Aubrey enters London's drawing rooms rich, frank, and eager, but his guardians have cultivated his fortune rather than his mind, leaving him with more imagination than judgment. When the enigmatic Lord Ruthven crosses hi
- [Lord Ruthven](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vampire_se/characters/lord_ruthven.md): Lord Ruthven is the man Aubrey cannot stop watching: a figure so entirely absorbed in himself that he seems to grant external objects existence only by avoiding contact with them. His affairs are embarrassed, his manner 
- [Ianthe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vampire_se/characters/ianthe.md): Ianthe belongs to the older, folkloric world Aubrey encounters on his travels, where tales of the living dead are told without irony or aesthetic distance. She warns him about vampires with the seriousness of someone rep
- [Lady Mercer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vampire_se/characters/lady_mercer.md): A society woman who becomes a victim of Lord Ruthven.
- [Jura](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vampire_se/characters/jura.md): A servant or guide in the Greek setting.

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