A Room with a View characters

Lucy Honeychurch

Also known as Miss Honeychurch, Lucy

A young Englishwoman from Surrey travelling in Florence who is torn between the passionate life awakened by the Emersons and the respectable conventions urged by her chaperone and fiance. A gifted, impulsive pianist whose Beethoven reveals the feeling she suppresses in conversation.

As drawn: A girl of about twenty, slender and youthful, with an earnest, mobile face that lights up when she plays the piano; dressed in the muslin summer frocks and travelling clothes of an Edwardian gentlewoman. Compared by Cecil to a Leonardo painting.

Bonds:EmersonRoom disputantsArthurOld acquaintancesCharlotteTravel companionsGeorgeChance helpers

George Emerson

Also known as young Emerson, Mr. Emerson, George

The thoughtful, brooding young son of Mr. Emerson, a railway clerk who falls in love with Lucy in Italy and kisses her among the violets. Prone to melancholy over the meaning of life until love gives him purpose.

As drawn: An athletic, well-built young man with a dark, black-haired head and a fine, serious face; his moody expression can break into a sudden radiant smile. Dressed plainly in Edwardian day clothes.

Bonds:EmersonFather and sonLucyChance helpers

Cecil Vyse

Also known as Cecil

Lucy's cultured, supercilious London fiance who regards her as a work of art to be improved. Self-conscious and celibate in temperament, he ultimately proves too aloof to truly love her.

As drawn: Tall, refined, and clean-shaven, with square-braced shoulders and a head tilted a little higher than usual, resembling the fastidious saints who guard the portals of a French cathedral; medieval, like a Gothic statue. Wears fashionable, formal London dress.

Charlotte Bartlett

Also known as Miss Bartlett, Charlotte, Cousin Charlotte

Lucy's older, poor spinster cousin who serves as her anxious, fussy chaperone in Florence and later meddles in her affairs. Skilled in the delicacies of respectability but powerless before brutality.

As drawn: A middle-aged genteel spinster with a long, narrow head that drives backwards and forwards when agitated; primly and modestly dressed in the travelling clothes of a shabby-genteel lady.

Bonds:EmersonRoom disputantsLucyTravel companionsArthurSocial acquaintancesEleanorTravel companions

Mr. Emerson

Also known as old Mr. Emerson, the old man, George's father

George's warm-hearted, unconventional freethinking father, whose blunt honesty scandalizes the Pension Bertolini but whose kindness ultimately guides Lucy to the truth of her own heart.

As drawn: An old man of heavy build with a fair, shaven face and large eyes holding something childish in them; his clothes are unfashionable and do not attract the genteel. Speaks with fists planted on the table.

Bonds:LucyRoom disputantsGeorgeFather and sonCharlotteRoom disputantsCuthbertChapel antagonists

Arthur Beebe

Also known as Mr. Beebe, the clergyman, the Reverend Arthur Beebe

The genial clergyman who becomes rector of Summer Street and remains the Emersons' one friend in Florence, an amused, tolerant observer of Lucy's romantic entanglements who nonetheless mistrusts marriage.

As drawn: A stout but attractive clergyman with a cheerful, hurrying manner, dressed in clerical black.

Bonds:LucyOld acquaintancesCharlotteSocial acquaintancesCuthbertSocial acquaintances

Eleanor Lavish

Also known as Miss Lavish, the clever lady

A self-styled emancipated lady novelist at the Pension Bertolini who loves to shed the trammels of respectability, and who later fictionalizes Lucy and George's kiss in her novel.

As drawn: A vigorous, clever middle-aged Englishwoman of bohemian, unconventional dress and emphatic manner, forever proclaiming her scorn for respectability.

Bonds:LucyNew friendsCharlotteTravel companionsCuthbertSocial acquaintances

Cuthbert Eager

Also known as Mr. Eager, the chaplain, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager

The censorious English chaplain of the resident colony in Florence who lectures on art and disdains the Emersons, embodying the snobbish respectability Lucy must escape.

As drawn: A bland-mannered but supercilious English clergyman, dressed in the black of a chaplain.

Bonds:EmersonChapel antagonistsEleanorSocial acquaintancesArthurSocial acquaintances

Mrs. Honeychurch

Also known as mother

Lucy and Freddy's sensible, plain-spoken widowed mother, mistress of Windy Corner, who values social ease over pretension and is baffled by her daughter's inner turmoil.

As drawn: A homely, practical middle-aged English matron in the comfortable dress of a country widow, given to writing letters and fussing over her new carpet.

Bonds:VyseSocial acquaintances

Freddy Honeychurch

Also known as Freddy, the boy

Lucy's boisterous younger brother, a medical student who befriends George and prefers bathing in the woods and playing tennis to social niceties.

As drawn: A gawky boy of nineteen, boyish and restless, seen studying a small manual of anatomy with a bone on the piano; casually dressed in country summer clothes.

Mrs. Vyse

Also known as Cecil's mother

Cecil's polished, worldly London mother, who presides over a well-appointed flat and hopes to see her son married to Lucy.

As drawn: An elegant, well-groomed elderly London lady of refined, fashionable dress and cosmopolitan manner.

Bonds:HoneychurchSocial acquaintances

Catharine Alan

Also known as Miss Alan, the Miss Alans

One of the two timid, proper elderly Miss Alan sisters at the Pension Bertolini who stand for good breeding and are scandalized by the Emersons, later planning a genteel tour of Greece.

As drawn: A small, genteel elderly spinster with shawls hung over the back of her chair, dressed with prim old-fashioned decorum.