Where Angels Fear to Tread characters

Appears from the start

A young English widow living under the strong influence of her late husband's family. Lilia is impulsive, emotionally restless, and tired of the Herritons' supervision. She leaves for an extended visit to Italy with Caroline Abbott as her companion.

Appears from the start

A serious, independent woman from Sawston who accompanies Lilia to Italy. The Herritons rely on Caroline's judgment, but she is more open than they are to unfamiliar people and places and does not see her task simply as enforcing their wishes.

Appears from the start

Lilia's young brother-in-law and the most culturally curious member of the Herriton family. Philip has traveled in Italy and considers himself more broad-minded than his relatives. His mother sends him to prevent Lilia from making a socially disastrous marriage.

Appears from the start

The controlling matriarch of the Herriton household and Lilia's mother-in-law. Mrs. Herriton protects her family's respectability through pressure, planning, and the loyal service of her children, treating Lilia's independence as a threat to the family.

Appears from the start

Philip's forceful sister and Lilia's sister-in-law. Harriet shares her mother's certainty about English respectability and has little of Philip's attraction to Italy or willingness to question the family's judgments.

Appears from the start

Lilia's young daughter by her first husband. Irma remains in Sawston with the Herritons while her mother travels, and the family treats the girl's upbringing as part of its responsibility and authority.

Also known as Gino

First appears in chapter 2

The handsome young Italian whom Lilia marries in Monteriano before Philip can stop the wedding. Gino is the son of a dentist and has neither the rank nor the fortune the Herritons had imagined from Lilia's first announcement.

First appears in chapter 4

The infant son born to Lilia and Gino. He becomes the focus of competing claims about family, nationality, duty, and love after Lilia's death.