Character guide

Philip Herriton

major

Also known as Philip, Mr. Philip, Uncle Phil

Philip is the clever, sardonic son of a domineering Sawston family, dispatched to Italy to manage his sister-in-law's disgraceful marriage. He adores Italy as an idea — Etruscan ruins, Renaissance beauty — but recoils when the actual Italians turn out to be dentists' sons with pretty faces and no money. His fastidious snobbery and his genuine longing for beauty pull against each other, making him both the novel's sharpest observer and its most self-deceived.

Caroline Abbott

major

Also known as Miss Abbott, Caroline, Miss Caroline Abbott, Abbott

Miss Abbott travels to Monteriano as the Herritons' companion, but she is the one who first told Lilia to follow her heart — and she carries that guilt like a stone. Earnest, self-scrutinizing, and braver than she looks, she keeps pressing Philip to admit what they both did and failed to do. Her moral seriousness becomes the novel's conscience, forcing everyone to reckon with the consequences of well-meant meddling.

Gino Carella

major

Also known as Gino, Poor Gino, Signor Carella

Gino is young, charming, and utterly outside the Herritons' social world — exactly the kind of person Philip's Italy-worship never imagined. He loves Lilia with real passion, but he is also proud, quick-tempered, and unimpressed by English condescension. As the family tries to reclaim what they consider theirs, Gino becomes the immovable obstacle that exposes how little the Herritons understand about love, grief, or the country they claim to admire.

Lilia Theobald

major

Also known as Lilia, Poor Lilia, Lilia Theobald

Lilia is the Herritons' sister-in-law, shipped off to Italy to recover from her husband's death and promptly seduced by Monteriano's warmth and a handsome stranger. Impulsive, gauche, and starved of affection, she mistakes passion for freedom and marries Gino against every family expectation. Her brief, defiant happiness sets the plot in motion and becomes the wound the Herritons spend the rest of the novel trying to dress.

Harriet Herriton

supporting

Also known as Harriet, Aunt Harriet, the reluctant Harriet

Harriet is the Herriton conscience at its most inflexible — a woman who measures the world by Sawston standards and finds Italy wanting. She accompanies Philip to Monteriano not to understand but to correct, and her certainty that she is doing right makes her blind to the harm she causes. Her eventual shock and remorse reveal how brittle that righteousness always was, and how little it prepared her for real grief.

Mrs. Herriton

supporting

Also known as dear Mrs. Herriton

Mrs. Herriton rules Sawston from her drawing-room, dispensing judgments wrapped in good manners and expecting her children to obey without question. She sees Lilia's Italian marriage as a stain to be scrubbed out, and she deploys Philip and Harriet as instruments of her will. Her serene confidence that she knows best is the engine of the novel's central conflict — and the thing that makes her family's eventual reckoning so inevitable.

Irma

minor

Also known as little Irma

Lilia's young daughter from her first marriage, left in England.

Perfetta

minor

Gino's devoted and sharp-tongued servant in Monteriano.

Spiridione

minor

A friend of Gino's in Monteriano who assists with local matters.

Mrs. Theobald

minor

Also known as old Mrs. Theobald

Lilia's mother, a minor figure in the family background.

Mr. Herriton

minor

The late Mr. Herriton, mentioned as Philip and Harriet's deceased father.

Mr. Kingcroft

minor

Also known as a Mr. Kingcroft

A suitor of Lilia's from England, mentioned but not appearing in scenes.

Santa Deodata

minor

A local saint referenced in the Italian town's culture and church.

Fra Filippo

minor

A historical painter mentioned in passing during the Italian setting.