The King in Yellow

Character Guide

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Hildred Castaigne

The narrator of 'The Repairer of Reputations,' a man recovering from a head injury who has become obsessed with an old family claim to an imperial American throne and with the forbidden play 'The King in Yellow.'

Mr. Wilde (the Repairer of Reputations)

A grotesque, disfigured man with artificial ears and fingers who runs a strange business restoring ruined reputations and keeps elaborate ledgers; he shares Hildred's conspiratorial ambitions.

Louis Castaigne

Hildred's cousin, a dashing cavalry officer in a New York dragoon regiment, who is courting Constance Hawberk.

Constance Hawberk

The daughter of an armorer whose shop Louis frequents; she is the object of Louis's affections.

Boris Yvain

A young sculptor in 'The Mask' who has discovered a chemical solution that turns living organic matter to stone-like marble, which he demonstrates on flowers and fish.

Genevieve

A woman loved by both Boris and the narrator Alec in 'The Mask,' caught in a Pre-Raphaelite-style love triangle.

Alec

The narrator of 'The Mask,' an artist and close friend of Boris who is also drawn to Genevieve.

Tessie

A young model in 'The Yellow Sign' who becomes emotionally entangled with the narrator, an artist, after a sinister churchyard watchman begins appearing near his studio.

The Narrator (The Yellow Sign)

An unnamed painter who becomes fixated on a disturbing watchman he glimpses from his studio window, and who owns a mysterious onyx clasp bearing the Yellow Sign.

Philip

The narrator of 'The Demoiselle d'Ys,' a modern-day hunter who becomes lost in a strange stretch of Breton moorland and meets a noblewoman skilled in falconry.

Jeanne d'Ys (the Demoiselle d'Ys)

A beautiful, old-fashioned noblewoman Philip encounters, who teaches him the archaic art of falconry and captivates him completely.

Clifford

A young art student in the Latin Quarter, part of a circle of bohemian friends, who becomes preoccupied with a mysterious, aloof young woman.

Rue Barrée

A striking young woman in the Latin Quarter who keeps her distance from the students who pursue her attention, including Clifford.

Glossary

Carcosa

A mysterious, doom-laden city referenced in the cursed play and its verses; a place of dread whose exact nature is never explained, only evoked.

The Yellow Sign

A sinister symbol/glyph associated with the King in Yellow; wearing or recognizing it marks a character as ensnared by the play's curse.

Hastur

A name invoked alongside Carcosa and the Hyades in the lore of the King in Yellow, suggesting a god, place, or being of ambiguous, ominous significance.

Lake of Hali

A dreamlike, doom-tinged lake mentioned in the play's fragments, associated with twin suns and the setting of Carcosa.

The Pallid Mask

An image/motif from the cursed play representing false faces and hidden horror; recurs as a symbol of concealed truth or dread.

Latin Quarter

The bohemian artists' and students' district of Paris where several of the book's stories (including 'The Mask' and 'Rue Barrée') are set.

Lethal Chamber

A fictional government-run facility for state-sanctioned euthanasia/suicide, established in Chambers's imagined future New York in 'The Repairer of Reputations.'

niais / branchier / sors / mué / hagard

Archaic falconry terms used in 'The Demoiselle d'Ys' for stages of a hawk's development, from nestling to a wild bird caught after molting.

dressage (in falconry)

The training process by which a falcon is tamed and taught to return to its handler, used metaphorically for courtship in 'The Demoiselle d'Ys.'

Cassilda's Song

The haunting verse epigraph quoted from the play-within-the-book, evoking 'strange... black stars' and 'Lost Carcosa,' one of the collection's most famous fragments.

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