Character guide

Sir Felix Carbury

major

Also known as Felix, Felix Carbury, Carbury, Sir Carbury

Sir Felix drifts through London clubs and drawing-rooms with charm enough to be forgiven and no income to justify it, forever calculating what a good marriage might pay off. His pursuit of the Melmotte heiress is less romance than arithmetic, and his casual cruelty toward his sister and mother exposes how little he thinks of anyone who cannot fund him. He matters because his gambling, borrowing, and bluster drag the Carbury name into the very circles where Melmotte's money is being made and tested.

Augustus Melmotte

major

Also known as Mr. Melmotte, Melmotte, old Melmotte, the great Melmotte

Melmotte arrives in London with a fortune made abroad, a wife who barely speaks English, and a talent for making money dear or cheap as he pleases; within a year a Royal Prince and the cream of duchesses are dining at his table. He is purse-proud, bullying, and magnificent, a man whose power redeems his vulgar face but never quite his reputation. He matters because every ambition in the novel—social, financial, marital—must pass through him, and no one, including his own daughter, can decide whether he is a genius or a fraud.

Marie Melmotte

major

Also known as Marie, Melmotte, poor Marie

Marie is small, plain, and overwhelmed by the position her father's wealth has thrust upon her, with no real mother and a papa who beats her when she disobeys. She pours her trust into Felix Carbury with a desperate, unguarded eagerness, insisting that her money is hers to give and that love should make anything possible. She matters because her rebellion against Melmotte turns the marriage market into a battlefield, and because her loneliness makes the novel's glittering world look suddenly cruel.

Hetta Carbury

major

Also known as Hetta, Poor Hetta, young Carbury

Hetta moves through the novel as the one Carbury who sees clearly and loves honestly, patient with her mother's ambitions and ashamed of Felix's conduct. She is caught between Roger Carbury's steady, unpoetic devotion and Paul Montague's more troubled suit, and her refusal to be managed by anyone makes her both admirable and vulnerable. She matters because her choices test what love and duty can mean in a world where marriage is mostly a transaction, and because her loyalty to her family keeps costing her.

Paul Montague

major

Also known as Mr. Montague, Montague, Paul

Paul is a junior partner in Fisker, Montague, and Montague, sent to England to draw Melmotte into the Great Railway to Vera Cruz, and he carries the taint of that association wherever he goes. He is decent, a little weak, and genuinely in love with Hetta, but his entanglement with the formidable Mrs. Hurtle follows him like a debt he cannot discharge. He matters because his divided loyalties force the novel's central question—whether a man can be honest in business and in love at the same time—and because Roger Carbury's friendship with him curdles into rivalry.

Roger Carbury

major

Also known as Mr. Carbury, Roger, the Carbury, Master Roger

Roger is the head of the Carbury family, a man of small means and stubborn integrity who lives on his own land among his own people and has never learned to dress his feelings in romance. He loves Hetta with an aching, unadorned longing, and when she cannot return it he sits alone on the bridge at Carbury telling himself there is nothing left in life. He matters because he is the novel's moral measure—generous to Paul, patient with the feckless Felix, and quietly heartbroken—and because his disappointment exposes how little goodness is rewarded in the world Trollope is describing.

Lady Carbury

major

Also known as Carbury, a Lady Carbury, Dear Lady Carbury

Lady Carbury spent fifteen years smiling within five minutes of ill-usage, hiding her husband's drunken brutality from the world, and learning to live by manoeuvres. Released at forty, she has no intention of enduring the penances of widowhood; she wants a big house, respect, and a future for her son Sir Felix. Her charm, her literary hustle, and her willingness to lie make her the novel's engine of social ambition.

Mrs. Hurtle

major

Also known as Hurtle, Winifred Hurtle, Dear Winifred

Mrs. Hurtle is a lady, a widow, and one as has seen the world — and she is not afraid to say so in Mrs. Pipkin's lodging-house or anywhere else. She has an unsettling hold on Paul Montague, who cannot quite break with her, and her presence in London complicates every respectable plan he makes. Her mixture of frankness, experience, and unrelenting will makes her the most dangerous woman in the book.

Ruby Ruggles

supporting

Also known as Miss Ruby Ruggles, Ruby, Poor Ruby

Ruby Ruggles is twenty-three, engaged to John Crumb of Bungay, and utterly unimpressed by the prospect of a life in the meal and pollard line. When a letter from Sir Felix Carbury arrives, she slips out to Sheepstone Birches to meet the most beautiful gentleman she has ever seen. Her reckless pursuit of a world beyond her ken sets in motion consequences she cannot foresee.

Lord Nidderdale

supporting

Also known as Nidderdale, young Lord Nidderdale, Dear Lord Nidderdale

Lord Nidderdale is a very good fellow whom everybody likes, a Member of Parliament who never does anything there, and the son of a marquis who wants Melmotte's money paid down before any wedding. He is bashful, hard up, and caught between his father's determination to stand to their guns and his own easygoing reluctance to press the matter. His courtship of Marie Melmotte is a comedy of manners with a fortune at stake.

Dolly Longestaffe

supporting

Also known as Dolly, Longestaffe, a Longestaffe

Adolphus Longestaffe, called Dolly, is the heir to the Longestaffe fortune and the despair of his sisters, who note that he does just what he pleases while they are sacrificed to Caversham. He drifts through London society with an easy indolence, tangling himself in Melmotte's affairs and his father's money without ever quite meaning harm. His fecklessness is both comic relief and a quiet indictment of the class that produces him.

Georgiana Longestaffe

supporting

Also known as Georgiana, Miss Longestaffe, Miss Georgiana

Georgiana Longestaffe has endured tedium for years on the promise of eventual relief, but to be kept at Caversham all summer is as bad as hearing a bishop preach forever. When her father's finances force the family to give up the London house, she finds herself considering Mr. Brehgert, a Jewish merchant, and discovers that her father would rather turn her out than consent. Her struggle between pride, desperation, and independence exposes the marriage market's cruelty.

Mr. Broune

supporting

Also known as Broune, Poor Mr. Broune, this Mr. Broune

Broune edits the Morning Breakfast Table and holds real power over the literary fortunes of Lady Carbury, who cultivates him with calculated charm while angling for better payment and gentler reviews. When a moment of enthusiasm leads him to put his arm round her waist, she rebukes him with a smile rather than a rupture, preserving a friendship she needs more than he does. His mixture of professional authority and susceptible good nature makes him both useful and vulnerable in the novel's economy of favours.

John Crumb

supporting

Also known as Mr. Crumb, Crumb, Poor Mr. Crumb

Crumb belongs to the rural world of the Squire and Ruby's grandfather, a plain man whose blunt sincerity stands against Sir Felix Carbury's careless charm. He loves Ruby without cleverness, and his coming to London in wrath is a threat Sir Felix never bothers to consider. His dogged devotion makes him the moral counterweight to the fashionable seducer, and his fate hangs on whether Ruby can be made to mind herself in time.

Miles Grendall

supporting

Also known as Miles, Grendall, Mr. Grendall

Grendall moves easily through the Beargarden's card rooms and the Melmotte household, a man whose chief currency is knowing things and being owed favours. He takes a secretary's post in the great railway office, where his presence signals how much of the scheme is performance rather than work. His honest indignation at being called a brute is comic, but his real function is to show how the fashionable world's hangers-on feed on the fortunes of men like Melmotte.

Lord Alfred Grendall

supporting

Also known as Lord Alfred, Alfred, old Grendall

Lord Alfred is the father of Miles and a fixture of the Beargarden set, a man whose title survives his fortune and whose perennial income depends on buying and selling what he does not own. He is one of hundreds admitted into Melmotte's good things, a small shareholder in the great man's schemes and a small ornament of his drawing-room. His presence shows how readily the aristocracy mortgages itself to new money, and how the line between gentleman and parasite thins under financial pressure.

Hamilton K. Fisker

supporting

Also known as Fisker, Mr. Fisker, Hamilton Fisker

Fisker is the emissary of the Mexican railway, the man who brings the prospectus to Melmotte and draws Paul Montague into the firm of Fisker, Montague, and Montague. His mind is not capacious, but it is entirely his own, and he knows how to use it to flatter, snub, and keep a scheme moving. He embodies the transatlantic confidence that London cannot quite resist, and his partnership with Melmotte sets the financial plot in motion.

Mr. Bideawhile

supporting

Also known as Bideawhile, old Bideawhile, Slow and Bideawhile

Bideawhile acts for the Longestaffes in the sale of Pickering Park, and his dealings with Melmotte expose the gap between old-fashioned commercial honour and the new finance's casual insolence. When Melmotte proposes to pay for a great estate with bills at three and six months, Bideawhile is nearly beside himself, convinced that he and his client have been robbed. His dismay is the sound of the respectable City discovering what it has let into its drawing-room.

Squercum

supporting

Also known as Mr. Squercum

Squercum is the sharp little attorney Dolly Longestaffe hires to pry his share of the Pickering purchase money out of his own father's hands, and he is everything the stately Bideawhiles are not: quick, cheap, unkempt, and unbothered by family piety. His bright blue eyes and dirty gaiters conceal a genuinely effective legal mind that has made him fashionable with elder sons at war with their fathers. When Dolly's money fails to arrive, Squercum's suspicion of Melmotte becomes one of the early cracks in the financier's glittering facade.

Lady Monogram

supporting

Also known as Georgiana, Dear Lady Monogram

Lady Monogram moves through the novel's drawing rooms as a barometer of who currently matters, dispensing and withholding invitations with the precision of a woman who knows that social capital is the only capital she has. Her friendship with Lady Carbury is real enough to be useful but conditional enough to sting, and she keeps one eye always on the Melmottes' astonishing rise. She matters because she shows how the novel's marriages, alliances, and humiliations are negotiated in ballrooms and at dinner tables long before they are settled in law.

Sir Damask Monogram

minor

Also known as Sir Damask, Damask

A wealthy baronet and husband of Lady Monogram.

Mr. Cohenlupe

supporting

Also known as Cohenlupe, Samuel Cohenlupe, Sam

Cohenlupe is the shadowy associate whose respectability Melmotte borrows and whose disappearance, when the Mexican Railway and the great house of cards begin to tremble, is the first clear signal that ruin is coming. He is not a man of grand gestures but of quiet arrangements, and his name in the mouths of City men carries both the promise of profit and the smell of fraud. His vanishing act forces Melmotte to face his creditors alone, and it is one of the hinges on which the novel's financial catastrophe turns.

Madame Melmotte

supporting

Also known as Melmotte, the Melmotte, Poor Madame Melmotte

Madame Melmotte presides over the great house in Grosvenor Square with the anxious obedience of a woman who knows her position is borrowed and may be reclaimed at any moment. She is devoted to her daughter Marie in her helpless way, but her real condition is fear: of solitude, of sudden change, of the revelation that she was never fit to stand beside duchesses and cabinet ministers. When catastrophe arrives, her hysterical collapse exposes how much of the Melmotte edifice was always held up by nothing but nerve.

Lady Pomona Longestaffe

supporting

Also known as Lady Pomona, Pomona, poor Lady Pomona

Lady Pomona Longestaffe is one of the proudest women in England, a country gentlewoman whose sense of rank is so finely tuned that she can persuade herself the arriviste Melmottes are quite her particular friends when it suits her daughter's prospects. She presides over Caversham and over the marriage ambitions of Georgiana and the fecklessness of Dolly with equal anxiety, forever scheming to keep the family's position intact. Her snobbery and her financial innocence make her a perfect mark for Melmotte's dealings, and her household becomes one of the stages on which the novel's social comedy of climbing and falling is played out.

Adolphus Longestaffe

supporting

Also known as Mr. Longestaffe, Longestaffe, old Mr. Longestaffe

Mr. Longestaffe is an old-fashioned landowner whose estates are encumbered and whose pride is enormous, and he has convinced himself that the great City conjuror Melmotte can boil his ruined fortunes back into freshness. He takes a seat on Melmotte's board, sells Pickering Park, and accepts shares paid for out of purchase money that never quite arrives, all because it seems vulgar to press a man like Melmotte for cash. His inability to demand what he is owed, and his son Dolly's determination to do exactly that, set up one of the novel's sharpest conflicts between old gentility and new finance.

Father Barham

minor

Also known as John Barham, Father John, the Rev. Mr. Barham

A Catholic priest and friend of Roger Carbury.

Mrs. Pipkin

minor

Also known as Pipkin, aunt Pipkin

Ruby Ruggles's aunt, who provides her lodging in London.

Ezekiel Brehgert

supporting

Also known as Brehgert, Mr. Brehgert, Herr Brehgert

Brehgert moves through the City with the wealth and credit that Melmotte only pretends to possess, and when he offers marriage to the impoverished Georgiana, her parents recoil not from his character but from his faith and his trade. He is, by Melmotte's own reckoning, the most good-natured man alive — a quality that makes his handling of the forged documents all the more startling. His courtship forces the Longestaffes, and the reader, to weigh what English society claims to value against what it actually does.

Lord Grasslough

minor

Also known as Grasslough, young Lord Grasslough

A young nobleman and member of the Beargarden club.

Mr. Ferdinand Alf

minor

Also known as Mr. Alf, Alf, Mr. Ferdinand Alf

A newspaper editor and rival to Mr. Broune.

Mr. Booker

minor

Also known as Dear Mr. Booker, poor Mr. Booker

A literary man and friend of Lady Carbury.

Herr Croll

minor

Also known as Croll, Mr. Croll

Melmotte's German clerk and confidant.

Joe Mixet

minor

Also known as Mixet, Mr. Mixet

A radical politician and friend of John Crumb.

Elise Didon

minor

Also known as Didon, Madame Didon

Marie Melmotte's French maid and confidante.

Daniel Ruggles

minor

Also known as old Ruggles, Daniel Ruggles, Mr. Ruggles

Ruby's stern grandfather, a farmer in Suffolk.

Mr. Lupton

minor

Also known as Lupton, Lionel Lupton

A young man about town, member of the Beargarden.

Mr. Leadham

minor

Also known as Leadham

A publisher who works with Lady Carbury.

Marquis of Auld Reekie

minor

Also known as Auld Reekie, The Marquis

An elderly Scottish nobleman and father of Lord Nidderdale.

Lord De Griffin

minor

A nobleman mentioned in passing.

Mr. Brown

minor

Also known as Brown, poor Mr. Brown

A minor character, possibly a servant or tradesman.

Sophia Longestaffe

minor

Also known as Sophia, Sophy

The younger Longestaffe sister, who marries well.

Mr. Alf Jones

minor

Also known as Jones, Alf, Mr. Alf

A journalist and associate of Mr. Alf.

Beauchamp Beauclerk

minor

Also known as Mr. Beauclerk, Beauclerk

A fashionable young man about town.

Herr Vossner

minor

Also known as Vossner, Herr

The steward of the Beargarden club.

George Whitstable

minor

Also known as Mr. Whitstable, George, Mr. George Whitstable

A suitor to Ruby Ruggles, favored by her grandfather.

Lady Julia Start

minor

Also known as Lady Julia

A friend of Lady Carbury, involved in charitable works.

Lord Buntingford

minor

Also known as Buntingford

A nobleman and member of Parliament.

Mr. Batherbolt

minor

A clergyman who assists Lady Carbury.

Sir Patrick Carbury

minor

Also known as Sir Patrick, Sir Carbury

The deceased husband of Lady Carbury, often mentioned.

Mr. Goldsheiner

minor

Also known as young Mr. Goldsheiner, Goldsheiner

A young Jewish man who courts Georgiana Longestaffe.

Lady Julia Goldsheiner

minor

Also known as Julia, young Goldsheiner

Mother of Mr. Goldsheiner, a social climber.

Mr. Loiter

minor

Also known as Loiter

A member of the Beargarden club.

Mr. Ramsbottom

minor

A friend of Roger Carbury from Suffolk.

Mr. Hepworth

minor

Also known as Hepworth of Eardly

A neighbor of the Carburys in Suffolk.

Lord Frederic Framlinghame

minor

Also known as Lord Frederic, Frederic

A young aristocrat and friend of Lord Nidderdale.

Mr. Primero

minor

Also known as the Primero, old Primero

A neighbor of the Longestaffes in Suffolk.

Sir Gregory Gribe

minor

Also known as Sir Gregory

A baronet and member of Parliament.

Mr. Flatfleece

minor

Also known as Flatfleece

A stockbroker involved with Melmotte's schemes.

Mr. Wilson

minor

Also known as Wilson

A clerk in Melmotte's office.

Mr. Septimus Blake

minor

Also known as Mr. Blake

A clergyman who marries John Crumb and Ruby.

Caradoc Hurtle

minor

Also known as Caradoc Carson Hurtle

The deceased husband of Mrs. Hurtle, mentioned in backstory.

Mr. Splinter

minor

Also known as Old Splinter, old Splinter

An old friend of Roger Carbury.

Sir David Boss

minor

Also known as Sir David

A baronet and political figure.

Mr. Bumby

minor

A minor character at the Beargarden club.

Mrs. Buggins

minor

A woman who keeps a lodging house.

Matilda Carbury

minor

Also known as The Carbury

A relative of the Carbury family, mentioned briefly.

Mrs. Fisker

minor

Also known as Fisker

The wife of Hamilton K. Fisker, who appears late in the novel.

Mrs. Yeld

minor

A friend of Lady Pomona Longestaffe.

Julia Triplex

minor

Also known as Julia

A young woman friend of the Longestaffe sisters.

Mrs. John Crumb

minor

Also known as Crumb, Mrs. Crumb

John Crumb's mother, a farmer's wife.

Mr. Smith

minor

Also known as Smith

A generic name used for a minor character.

Mr. Todd

minor

Also known as Todd, old Todd

A neighbor in Suffolk.

Mr. Bungay

minor

Also known as Bungay

A publisher, rival to Mr. Leadham.

Mr. Pickering

minor

Also known as Pickering

A man mentioned in connection with a property.

Mr. Caversham

minor

Also known as Caversham

The Longestaffe family estate, used metonymically.

Messrs. Leadham and Loiter

minor

Also known as Leadham, Loiter

A publishing firm.