Ghost Stories of an Antiquary characters

Appears from the start

An English scholar visiting the old church at Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges to examine and photograph its antiquities. Dennistoun's professional curiosity leads him to a remarkable manuscript owned by the nervous sacristan.

Appears from the start

The wary custodian of the church at Saint-Bertrand. He possesses an old scrapbook made by Canon Alberic and is urgently eager to sell it, though his fear suggests that the volume is more burden than treasure.

First appears in chapter 2

A recently orphaned boy sent to live at Aswarby Hall with an older relative he has never met. Stephen is observant and initially grateful for a comfortable home, but troubling glimpses of other children disturb his new security.

First appears in chapter 2

Stephen Elliott's elderly cousin and new guardian, a respected scholar of ancient religions. Mr Abney welcomes the boy to Aswarby Hall and takes an unusual interest in the exact date of his arrival and in details of his age.

First appears in chapter 3

The curator of a university art collection. Mr Williams is methodical and sociable, with no taste for supernatural explanations, until a newly acquired mezzotint begins to show details that were not present before.

First appears in chapter 4

An eighteenth-century resident near Castringham Hall accused of witchcraft by a member of the Fell family. Mrs Mothersole's condemnation and final words become part of the house's inherited history.

First appears in chapter 5

An English researcher staying at an old inn in Viborg while studying Danish church history. Anderson prides himself on rational observation, making the nightly appearance of a room absent from the hotel's daytime plan especially unsettling.

First appears in chapter 6

An English travel writer in Sweden who searches family papers for material about the notorious Count Magnus. Wraxall is curious, persistent, and inclined to treat old fears as useful local color until his research begins to have physical consequences.

First appears in chapter 7

A Cambridge professor on a solitary golfing holiday at Burnstow. Parkins is skeptical of ghosts and dismissive of superstition, a position tested after he finds an old whistle among the ruins of a religious house.

First appears in chapter 7

A retired colonel staying at the same seaside hotel as Parkins. Wilson is interested in the possibility of supernatural events and tries to warn the professor that complete disbelief can be its own kind of rashness.

First appears in chapter 8

A clergyman and antiquary who applies his knowledge of inscriptions, biblical references, and church art to a puzzle left by Abbot Thomas. Somerton approaches the hunt as an intellectual exercise before recognizing that its warnings are literal.

First appears in chapter 8

Somerton's loyal servant and practical assistant. Brown helps with the physical search for Abbot Thomas's hidden wealth and responds more quickly than his learned employer when the investigation turns dangerous.