# The Woman in White — Character guide

> Key figures in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

- [Walter Hartright](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/walter_hartright.md): Walter Hartright takes a modest post as drawing instructor at Limmeridge House, only to fall hopelessly in love with his pupil, Laura Fairlie — a love he cannot act on once her engagement to Sir Percival Glyde is reveale
- [Marian Halcombe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/marian_halcombe.md): Marian Halcombe runs Limmeridge with brisk competence and loves her half-sister Laura with a fierce, unsentimental devotion. She is the first to distrust Sir Percival, the first to interrogate the mysterious letter about
- [Laura Fairlie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/laura_fairlie.md): Laura Fairlie is the soft-spoken, blue-eyed daughter of Limmeridge, bound by her late father's wishes to marry Sir Percival Glyde despite her own misgivings and her growing feelings for Walter Hartright. Her delicacy and
- [Sir Percival Glyde](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/sir_percival_glyde.md): Sir Percival Glyde presents himself as a respectable country gentleman and an old friend of the Fairlie family, but his brusque temper, his financial desperation, and his obsessive need to control his wife's fortune betr
- [Count Fosco](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/count_fosco.md): Count Fosco arrives at Blackwater Park as Sir Percival's ally and the husband of Laura's estranged aunt, and immediately dominates every room he enters with his wit, his learning, and his unnerving affability. He is a ma
- [Anne Catherick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/anne_catherick.md): Anne Catherick escapes from a private asylum and appears to Walter Hartright on the road to London, dressed all in white, asking about Limmeridge and speaking of Sir Percival Glyde with terror. She is gentle, unstable, a
- [Frederick Fairlie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/frederick_fairlie.md): As Laura's guardian and master of Limmeridge, Frederick Fairlie holds the power of consent over her marriage while professing himself too delicate for any business or company. His exquisite taste in engravings and his ho
- [Madame Fosco](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/madame_fosco.md): Disinherited by her brother for marrying an Italian count, Madame Fosco has become the mute, watchful shadow of her charismatic husband. Where she was once warm and impulsive, she is now unnervingly still, her devotion t
- [Professor Pesca](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/professor_pesca.md): Pesca is the small, effusive language master who taught Walter Italian and treats him with extravagant affection. His cheerful volubility conceals a political history he never discusses, and when Fosco flees the opera ra
- [Mrs. Catherick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/mrs_catherick.md): Mrs. Catherick married a decent man only after Sir Percival Glyde had already compromised her, and the secret she keeps has made her cold, pious, and evasive. Her husband vanished after a violent confrontation with Perci
- [Mr. Gilmore](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/mr_gilmore.md): Gilmore arrives at Limmeridge to settle the legal terms of Laura's marriage to Sir Percival, and he takes a fond, paternal interest in the young woman whose fortune he is arranging. His practical, unromantic view of the 
- [Mrs. Clements](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/mrs_clements.md): Mrs. Clements raised Anne after her mother cast her off, and she loves the strange, frightened girl with a mother's stubborn tenderness. When Walter seeks Anne, Mrs. Clements becomes his most honest source of information
- [Mr. Kyrle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/mr_kyrle.md): Kyrle is the family lawyer whose quiet professionalism becomes the lever that finally moves the immovable Mr. Fairlie. Where Fairlie whines and procrastinates, Kyrle states the alternatives plainly and waits, a steady pr
- [Eliza Michelson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/eliza_michelson.md): As housekeeper, Mrs. Michelson occupies the peculiar position of being both servant and witness, trusted with the running of the house yet alert to every irregularity in it. Her account is patient, orderly, and full of t
- [Hester Pinhorn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/hester_pinhorn.md): Cook in Count Fosco's household who gives testimony.
- [Jane Gould](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/jane_gould.md): Nurse who attended Anne Catherick and provides a narrative.
- [Mrs. Vesey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/mrs_vesey.md): Kind elderly woman who accompanies Laura.
- [Fanny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/fanny.md): Servant at Limmeridge House who helps Walter.
- [Mr. Merriman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/mr_merriman.md): Sir Percival's solicitor.
- [Louis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/louis.md): Count Fosco's loyal servant.
- [Goodricke](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/goodricke.md): Schoolmaster who knew Anne Catherick.
- [Mrs. Fairlie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_woman_in_white_se/characters/mrs_fairlie.md): Deceased mother of Laura and Marian.

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