The Man Who Laughs characters

Appears from the start

An itinerant philosopher, healer, playwright, and showman who travels in a small wagon. Cynical in speech but compassionate in practice, he shares his life with the trained wolf Homo and survives by selling remedies and staging performances.

Appears from the start

Ursus's tame wolf and constant companion. Intelligent, disciplined, and gentler than many of the people around him, Homo helps draw the wagon and belongs to the small family Ursus builds.

First appears in chapter 4

A ten-year-old boy abandoned on the coast during a winter storm. His mouth has been permanently shaped into a grin by deliberate mutilation, so that strangers read laughter in his face regardless of his feelings. He nevertheless shows courage and compassion when he finds an infant in the snow.

First appears in chapter 38

A blind infant whom Gwynplaine finds beside her dead mother in the snow. He carries her toward shelter despite his own exhaustion, and Ursus takes responsibility for them both.

First appears in chapter 54

A court-dependent who has advanced by attaching himself to powerful people and collecting secrets. Patient, resentful, and skilled at appearing useful, he looks for chances to profit from the vulnerabilities of the aristocrats around him.

Also known as Duchess Josiana

First appears in chapter 58

A wealthy duchess and the illegitimate half-sister of Queen Anne. Beautiful, privileged, and bored by conventional admiration, she becomes fascinated by Gwynplaine because his appearance and low social station offer a sensation outside her ordered world.

Also known as Tom-Jim-Jack

First appears in chapter 52

A strong, good-natured nobleman who sometimes moves among ordinary people under the name Tom-Jim-Jack. He is connected to Duchess Josiana by a marriage arranged for reasons of rank and inheritance.

First appears in chapter 53

The reigning queen, politically wary of her half-sister Josiana and attentive to questions of title and inheritance. Court dependents study her wishes closely because their positions can turn on her favor.

First appears in chapter 82

A criminal associated with the mutilation of children for profit. His recognition of Gwynplaine and testimony about the boy's origins give the authorities a way to recover a history that had been deliberately erased.

Also known as Lord Fermain Clancharlie

First appears in chapter 50

Gwynplaine's father, an English nobleman punished for remaining loyal to the Commonwealth after the Restoration. The fate of his title and infant heir forms the concealed political history behind Gwynplaine's abandonment.