It characters

Also known as Stuttering Bill, Big Bill, William Denbrough

Appears from the start

William 'Bill' Denbrough, an eleven-year-old boy in Derry, Maine, whose severe stutter marks him out but who is the natural leader of his circle of friends. In the autumn of 1957 he is sick in bed when he builds a paper boat for his little brother, Georgie, to sail in the flooded gutters - the last time he sees him alive. Georgie's death breaks something in Bill and in his grieving parents, and his guilt and fury at whatever took his brother drive him to face it. As an adult in 1985 he has become a successful horror novelist living in England, his stutter long gone, when a phone call summons him back to a town he had almost entirely forgotten.

Also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, Pennywise

Appears from the start

A malevolent presence beneath the town of Derry, Maine, that preys on the town's children. To Georgie Denbrough it appears from a storm drain as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, a grinning figure in a silver-buttoned suit who charms him close and kills him. It is plainly not human - a shape-shifting predator that makes the drains and sewers of Derry its hunting ground.

Also known as George Denbrough

Appears from the start

George 'Georgie' Denbrough, Bill's six-year-old brother. On a rainy day in October 1957 he chases his paper boat down a flooded street and meets a clown in a storm drain who calls himself Pennywise. His death is the first killing in the creature's new cycle and the loss that sets his brother Bill on a lifelong collision with It.

Also known as Haystack

First appears in chapter 3

Ben Hanscom, an overweight, bookish, lonely boy newly arrived in Derry and mercilessly bullied for his size. Clever and gentle, with a gift for building and design, he finds his first real friends among the outcasts who will name themselves the Losers' Club, and quietly falls in love with Beverly Marsh. As an adult he has become a lean, celebrated architect, the fat boy remade almost past recognition, when the call comes to return.

Also known as Beverly Rogan

First appears in chapter 3

Beverly Marsh, the only girl in the Losers' Club, a brave and quick-tempered redhead growing up poor under a violent, controlling father. Loyal and the best shot among them with a slingshot, she is the object of both Ben's and Bill's affection. As an adult she becomes a fashion designer trapped in a marriage to an abusive husband that grimly echoes her childhood.

First appears in chapter 3

Eddie Kaspbrak, a small, anxious boy convinced by his smothering, hypochondriac mother that he is chronically ill; he clutches an asthma inhaler he treats as a lifeline. Braver than he believes and fiercely loyal, he is a steadfast member of the Losers. As an adult he runs a limousine company and has married a woman much like his mother.

Also known as Trashmouth, Richard Tozier

First appears in chapter 3

Richard 'Richie' Tozier, a wisecracking, bespectacled boy who cannot stop talking, forever slipping into funny voices and comic 'Voices' routines that get him into trouble. His humour masks real fear and real courage. As an adult he becomes a successful radio disc jockey in California.

First appears in chapter 3

Mike Hanlon, one of the few Black children in Derry and the last to join the Losers' Club. Steady and thoughtful, he alone stays in the town as an adult, becoming its librarian and the group's self-appointed watchman. When the killings begin again in 1985, it is Mike who recognises the pattern and makes the phone calls that summon the others home.

Also known as Stanley Uris

First appears in chapter 3

Stanley Uris, a neat, orderly, rational boy who loves birds and dislikes disorder, and the member of the group least able to accept the impossible thing they face. As an adult he is a prosperous accountant in Atlanta. When Mike's call reaches him and the buried memories start to return, the prospect of confronting It again proves more than he can bear.

First appears in chapter 5

Henry Bowers, a vicious older teenager who leads a gang that terrorises the younger children, and who is tormented in turn by his own brutal, unstable father. His cruelty toward the Losers escalates from beatings into something murderous, and It works on his madness like a tool.

First appears in chapter 3

Audra Phillips, a film actress and Bill Denbrough's wife, who knows almost nothing of his childhood in Derry. When Bill abruptly leaves England to answer Mike's call, she follows him to America, walking unknowing into the town's danger.

Also known as Maturin

First appears in chapter 15

An immense, benign cosmic being, ancient beyond reckoning, glimpsed by the children in a shared vision of It's arrival on Earth long before humanity. The Turtle is presented as a counterweight to It within a wider order of things - vast, weary, and largely detached from human affairs, yet the source of a faint help the children can draw on against the creature that hunts them.