# The Well of Loneliness — Character guide

> Key figures in The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall.

- [Stephen Gordon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/stephen_gordon.md): Stephen Gordon inherits Morton, her father's estate, along with his unspoken understanding of her nature—and her mother's unyielding disapproval. In London she channels grief and isolation into fiction, smoking and pacin
- [Mary Llewellyn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/mary_llewellyn.md): Mary Llewellyn loves Stephen with an ardor that makes their Paris years feel like a shared dream, but she is quietly starved for the things a home confers—security, respect, the goodwill of neighbours. Walking the Rue Ja
- [Puddle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/puddle.md): Puddle has watched Stephen since the Morton schoolroom and now runs her London household like an anxious Vestal Virgin tending a sacred flame. She finds the flat on the Embankment, pays the rent, coaxes the recalcitrant 
- [Angela Crossby](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/angela_crossby.md): Angela Crossby is the restless wife of a neighbouring landowner, and her attention to Stephen—first at Upton-on-Severn, then by the lakes at Morton—feels like sunlight breaking through years of loneliness. But she is car
- [Sir Philip Gordon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/sir_philip_gordon.md): Sir Philip Gordon rides to hounds with Stephen and quietly engineers her triumphs, racking his brain for little jokes so the field will see her laughing. He loves her too well to correct her, and his silent, watchful ten
- [Lady Anna Gordon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/anna_gordon.md): Lady Anna Gordon presides over Morton with the cool correctness of her class, and from Stephen's childhood she has registered her daughter as something wrong, something to be managed. When scandal breaks over Angela Cros
- [Jonathan Brockett](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/jonathan_brockett.md): Brockett moves through Parisian and London society with an easy brilliance, gathering shekels from his plays and dropping affectionate notes when convenient. His charm is real but conditional: when Stephen no longer fits
- [Martin Hallam](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/martin_hallam.md): Martin belongs to the world of Morton — the meadows, the lakes, the old brick house — and his affection for Stephen carries the easy assumptions of that world. He wants a conventional life with her, a desire that collide
- [Valérie Seymour](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/valerie_seymour.md): Valérie presides over a Rive Gauche circle where Brockett chatters and guests are weighed and approved, and she reads Stephen at once — though Stephen bristles at being approved for her stigmata rather than her mind. Ben
- [Raftery](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/raftery.md): An Irish groom at Morton who becomes a loyal friend to Stephen.
- [Collins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/collins.md): The elderly, half-blind butler at the Gordon family estate.
- [Jim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/jim.md): A stable boy and childhood friend of Stephen at Morton.
- [Wanda](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/wanda.md): A Polish woman who briefly stays with Stephen and Mary in Paris.
- [Mademoiselle Duphot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/mademoiselle_duphot.md): A kind French governess who teaches Stephen as a child.
- [Roger Antrim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/roger_antrim.md): A local boy who teases Stephen during her childhood.
- [Mrs. Breakspeare](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/mrs_breakspeare.md): A motherly ambulance unit leader during World War I.
- [Barbara](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/barbara.md): A friend of Stephen and Mary in the Parisian circle.
- [David](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/david.md): A friend who interacts with Mary and Stephen in Paris.
- [Violet Antrim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/violet_antrim.md): Roger's sister, a childhood acquaintance of Stephen.
- [Colonel Antrim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/colonel_antrim.md): A neighbor and father of Roger and Violet Antrim.
- [Lady Massey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/lady_massey.md): A society woman who visits Morton and gossips about Stephen.
- [Pat](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/pat.md): A servant or acquaintance at Morton who reacts to Stephen.
- [Dickie West](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/dickie_west.md): A friend from Stephen's ambulance unit during the war.
- [Pedro](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/pedro.md): A Spanish man who works or stays in the Parisian circle.
- [Adèle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/adele.md): A French woman who is part of the Parisian lesbian circle.
- [Adolphe Blanc](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/adolphe_blanc.md): A French acquaintance in the Parisian arts scene.
- [Blakeney](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/blakeney.md): A friend from the ambulance unit during World War I.
- [Mrs. Antrim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/mrs_antrim.md): Mother of Roger and Violet Antrim, a neighbor of the Gordons.
- [Jean Maurel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/jean_maurel.md): A young French woman in the Parisian circle.
- [Mrs. Bingham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/mrs_bingham.md): A woman who interacts with Stephen during the war.
- [Violet Peacock](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/violet_peacock.md): A woman in the Parisian lesbian circle, possibly a rival.
- [Alec Peacock](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/alec_peacock.md): A young man in the Parisian circle, possibly Violet's brother.
- [Miss Bless](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/miss_bless.md): A minor acquaintance in the Parisian social scene.
- [Margaret Roland](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/margaret_roland.md): A woman who appears in the later part of the novel.
- [Miss Delmé-Howard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/miss_delme_howard.md): A woman in the Parisian social circle.
- [Esmeralda](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/esmeralda.md): A woman in the Parisian circle of friends.
- [Agnes Massey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/agnes_massey.md): A society woman who gossips about Stephen.
- [Miss Thurloe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/miss_thurloe.md): A woman who appears in the later part of the story.
- [Nanny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/nanny.md): Stephen's childhood nurse at Morton.
- [Comtesse de Mirac](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_well_of_loneliness_se/characters/comtesse_de_mirac.md): A French countess in the Parisian social circle.

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