A Room with a View

Character Guide

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Lucy Honeychurch

A young Englishwoman touring Italy with her older cousin as chaperone, she is intelligent and passionate but constrained by the manners of her class. Her encounters in Florence, especially with George Emerson, begin to unsettle her conventional outlook on life.

Charlotte Bartlett (Cousin Charlotte)

Lucy's older, unmarried cousin and chaperone, fussy and self-consciously unselfish, prone to declaring her own inconvenience while quietly steering events.

George Emerson

The introspective, moody young son of Mr. Emerson, staying at the same pension as Lucy; he is drawn to her and unsettles her sense of propriety.

Mr. Emerson

George's blunt, unconventional father, given to plain-spoken philosophical remarks that scandalize the more genteel tourists; he offers his room with a view to Lucy and Charlotte.

Mr. Beebe

A genial clergyman staying in Florence who later becomes rector of Lucy's home parish, Summer Street; he is an observant, tolerant presence in Lucy's life.

Miss Eleanor Lavish

A self-styled 'emancipated' lady novelist at the pension, fond of eschewing guidebooks in favor of finding the 'true Italy,' and secretly gathering material for her fiction.

Cuthbert Eager (Mr. Eager)

The resident English chaplain in Florence, cultured and a bit snobbish, who organizes outings for favored tourists and disapproves of the Emersons.

Cecil Vyse

A refined, intellectual Englishman Lucy knows from home, who reappears in her life after Italy and represents a cultivated, London-bred alternative to the world she is discovering abroad.

Mrs. Honeychurch

Lucy's warm, practical mother, mistress of Windy Corner, who values good sense over pretension.

Freddy Honeychurch

Lucy's younger brother, easygoing and irreverent, quick to befriend new acquaintances like George Emerson.

Miss Catharine Alan

One of two elderly, fussily proper sisters at the pension, given to gentle gossip and excessive travel precautions.

Miss Teresa Alan

The sharper-tongued of the two Alan sisters, sharing her sister's old-fashioned notions of propriety and travel.

Mrs. Vyse

Cecil's mother, a socially seasoned London hostess who takes an interest in refining Lucy.

Glossary

Baedeker

A popular brand of guidebook for European travelers; used in the novel to symbolize shallow, by-the-book tourism versus authentic experience.

Pension

A small, often family-run boarding house or guesthouse for travelers, such as the Pension Bertolini where much of the novel opens.

Signora

Italian for 'Mrs.' or 'madam'; here refers to the (comically Cockney-accented) landlady of the pension.

Partie carrée

French for a 'foursome' or party of four people, used to describe a planned small group outing.

Mrs. Grundy

A stock figure in English idiom representing narrow-minded conventional opinion and propriety, invoked when characters worry about social judgment.

Loggia

An Italian architectural term for a covered outdoor gallery or balcony, notably the setting for a symbolic kiss and later a novel's title, 'Under a Loggia.'

the true Italy

A phrase used ironically by characters like Miss Lavish who claim to seek 'authentic' Italian experience beyond tourist guidebooks.

Suburbia

A dismissive term for conventional, unimaginative middle-class London life, used by Lucy and others to contrast with the vitality of Italy.

Cockney

A term for a working-class London accent or person, used somewhat snobbishly by the English tourists to describe the pension's landlady.

the Sacred Lake

The novel's playful name for a small woodland pond near Windy Corner where male characters bathe nude, a scene charged with pagan, Edenic symbolism.

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