# The Vicar of Wakefield — Character guide

> Key figures in The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith.

- [Dr. Primrose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/unknown_narrator.md): Dr. Primrose presides over a household of modest comfort, gooseberry wine, and open-door hospitality, counting himself rich chiefly in happy faces around his table. His serene confidence in Providence and his own judgmen
- [Mr. Thornhill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/mr_thornhill.md): Thornhill moves through Wakefield society as its wealthiest and most eligible young man, dispensing favors and flattery with equal ease. His charm is genuine enough to fool the Primroses and calculated enough to serve hi
- [Mr. Burchell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/mr_burchell.md): Burchell appears at the vicar's fireside as a penniless traveler with a taste for gooseberry wine and an inconvenient habit of telling the family the truth about themselves. He is by turns benefactor and irritant — savin
- [Sir William Thornhill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/sir_william_thornhill.md): Sir William stands as the neighborhood's model of honor, a man whose reputation for virtue gives weight to every judgment he delivers. His tragedy is domestic: the nephew he has raised and indulged turns out to be the au
- [Olivia Primrose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/olivia.md): Olivia is the sister who reads novels, dreams of elegance, and finds the quiet of Wakefield narrower than her ambitions. Her beauty and sensibility attract Thornhill's attention, and her willingness to believe in refined
- [Sophia Primrose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/sophia.md): Sophia is the family's peacemaker, softer-spoken than Olivia and content with the rural pleasures her sister chafes against. Her modesty attracts both Burchell's silent devotion and Thornhill's opportunistic notice, plac
- [Moses Primrose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/moses.md): Moses Primrose is the family's scholar, sent to market with the household's money and returning with nothing but a gross of green spectacles and a pocketful of regret. His credulity and appetite for knowledge make him ea
- [George Primrose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/george.md): George Primrose is the family's adventurer, sent into the world with little more than a good education and a willingness to try his luck at anything from acting to teaching. His love for the wealthy Arabella Wilmot is th
- [Mr. Jenkinson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/mr_jenkinson.md): Mr. Jenkinson is the wandering trickster who relieves Moses of the family's money at the fair with a tale of a wonderful horse and a gross of green spectacles. He is a professional deceiver, practiced at reading the vani
- [Miss Arabella Wilmot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/miss_arabella_wilmot.md): Arabella Wilmot is the vicar's former pupil and the heiress whose marriage to Mr. Thornhill is arranged by her father, Sir William, largely for the match's advantage. She is generous, affectionate, and loyal to the Primr
- [Deborah Primrose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/deborah.md): Deborah Primrose is the vicar's wife of many years, a notable woman who can pickle, preserve, and contrive with the best of country ladies, though her contrivances never seem to make the family richer. She is proud of he
- [Mr. Wilmot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/mr_wilmot.md): Arabella's father, a clergyman and friend of Dr. Primrose.
- [Farmer Williams](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/farmer_williams.md): A respectable farmer who courts Olivia before Mr. Thornhill.
- [Miss Carolina Wilelmina Amelia Skeggs](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/miss_skeggs.md): A fashionable lady who visits the Primroses with Lady Blarney.
- [Dick Primrose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/dick.md): One of the younger Primrose children.
- [The Miss Flamboroughs](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_vicar_of_wakefield_se/characters/miss_flamboroughs.md): Daughters of Farmer Flamborough, friends of the Primrose girls.

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