The Blue Castle characters

Valancy Stirling

Also known as Doss, Moonlight, Valancy Jane

The plain, timid twenty-nine-year-old spinster of the Stirling clan who, told she has only a year to live, casts off her family's tyranny to live for herself and find love. She has long escaped into a private daydream she calls her Blue Castle.

Bonds:AmeliaMother and daughterCousinCousinsBenjaminUncle and nieceJamesUncle and niece

Barney Snaith

Also known as Bernard Redfern, John Foster

The notorious, gossiped-about outlaw living on an island in Lake Mistawis whom Valancy asks to marry her; rumored a jail-bird and criminal, he is secretly the nature-writer John Foster and the estranged son of a patent-medicine magnate.

Bonds:AbelCompanions

Amelia Stirling

Also known as Mrs. Frederick, Mrs. Frederick Stirling, Mrs. Stirling

Valancy's cold, controlling widowed mother, who keeps up appearances, brooks no opposition, and sulks for days when offended.

Bonds:ValancyMother and daughterCousinHousehold relatives

Cousin Stickles

The elderly poor relation who lives with Valancy and her mother, sharing the housework and echoing Mrs. Frederick's disapproval of Valancy.

Bonds:ValancyCousinsAmeliaHousehold relativesJamesCousinsCousinCousins

Olive Stirling

Valancy's cousin, the acknowledged beauty and paragon of the whole Stirling clan, engaged and endlessly admired, held up to Valancy her whole life as everything she is not.

Bonds:ValancyFamily contrasts

Abel Gay

Also known as Roaring Abel, A. Gay

A hard-drinking, blaspheming old carpenter living "up back" near Mistawis whose household Valancy joins to nurse his dying daughter; loud, gallant, and fiercely protective of Valancy against the Stirlings.

Bonds:CeciliaFather and daughterBarneyCompanionsCousinSocial acquaintancesJamesLuggage courier

Cecilia Gay

Also known as Cissy

Roaring Abel's frail, dying daughter, disgraced and abandoned, whom Valancy comes to nurse and befriend in her final months.

Bonds:AbelFather and daughter

Benjamin Stirling

Valancy's wealthy, childless widower uncle, fond of tiresome riddles, whose money and will keep the family deferential; quick to declare Valancy "dippy" when she rebels.

Bonds:ValancyUncle and nieceWellingtonStirling relativesCousinFamily relatives

James Stirling

Also known as Jim

The clan's reputedly clever oracle, sarcastic and self-important, who writes controversial letters attacking Modernism and appoints himself Valancy's stern would-be rescuer.

Bonds:ValancyUncle and nieceCousinCousinsWellingtonStirling relativesCousinFamily relatives

Wellington Stirling

Valancy's uncle who fulfilled the clan ideal by "marrying money," given to a pig's-whisper teasing and to branding Barney a criminal.

Aunt Wellington

Wellington's imperious wife, of whom Valancy stands in abject awe; a stickler for long, solemn graces who first decides something is "wrong" with Valancy.

Bonds:ValancyAunt and nieceJamesStirling relativesBenjaminStirling relativesCousinFamily relatives

Cousin Georgiana

A meek, dreary little Stirling cousin preoccupied with deaths and funerals, yet the one relative who does not wholly cast Valancy off, gifting her a candlewick spread.

Bonds:ValancyCousinsJamesFamily relativesBenjaminFamily relativesCousinCousins

Dr. Trent

The gruff, blunt, absent-minded Deerwood doctor and recognized heart specialist whose mistaken letter tells Valancy she has only a year to live, setting the whole story in motion.

Dr. Stalling

The Presbyterian minister and Valancy's dreaded former spiritual guide, sent by the clan to command her home; a lifelong celibate who is routed by Roaring Abel.

Bonds:ValancyDoctor-patient