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Newland Archer

A young New York lawyer and junior partner at Letterblair, Lamson and Low, known for his dilettante sensibilities, love of European travel and 'clever people,' and habit of using two silver-backed monogrammed hairbrushes. He becomes engaged to and marries May Welland, but falls into a consuming, unconsummated love for her cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, whose divorce case he is asked to handle professionally.

May Welland (later May Archer)

A beautiful, athletic young woman of unimpeachable social standing, described repeatedly as having a 'Diana-like' aloofness, fair braids, and cloudless blue eyes. She wins archery prizes, wears gowns imported from Paris, and marries Newland Archer at Grace Church with eight bridesmaids; she is more perceptive of her husband's feelings for Ellen than she ever admits aloud.

Countess Ellen Olenska (Ellen Mingott)

May Welland's cousin, who fled her abusive marriage to a Polish count and returned to New York carrying only 'bits of wreckage'—small dark-wood tables, a Greek bronze, Italian pictures—to furnish her rented house on Twenty-third Street. Thin, quiet, and unfashionable by New York standards but possessed of a trained, magnetic presence, she scandalizes society by attending parties with Julius Beaufort and the Duke, and by refusing to return to her husband despite family pressure and his offer of a generous settlement.

Mrs. Manson Mingott (old Catherine)

The immensely obese, sharp-witted matriarch of the Mingott clan, born Catherine Spicer of Staten Island with a disreputable father, who married into money and scandalized New York by building a cream-colored French-style house near Central Park, far uptown. She married two daughters to European 'foreigners,' champions Ellen Olenska's independence to the end, and suffers a stroke that brings the family rushing to her bedside.

Julius Beaufort

A wealthy banker of murky English origin, rumored to have been 'helped' to leave England by his former banking house, who hosts New York's most lavish annual ball complete with imported red velvet carpet and hot canvas-back duck. Married to Regina Dallas Beaufort, he keeps a mistress (later rumored to be Fanny Ring) in 'another establishment,' and is eventually ruined by scandalous, dishonest speculations that bring social and financial disgrace on his wife's family.

Mrs. Regina Beaufort

Julius Beaufort's popular, fashionable wife, connected to the respectable Dallas family, who continues to receive guests and maintain appearances even after rumors of her husband's ruinous speculations and infidelities become common knowledge.

Mrs. Archer

Newland's widowed mother, who lives with her son and daughter Janey, permits smoking only in the Gothic library, and prizes 'beautiful behaviour' above all else. She is anxious about the Olenska scandal touching her son's engagement and reminisces about a more genteel era when literary men like Washington Irving were considered proper society.

Janey Archer

Newland's unmarried sister, an inveterate gossip and confidante of her mother's, prone to melodramatic pronouncements and fascinated by her brother's correspondence; she reads Swinburne and French contes and delivers society news like a 'Cassandra.'

Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden

Henry and Louisa van der Luyden, an immensely powerful and reclusive old New York couple whose approval can make or break a social outcast; they never reach a decision independently, always 'talking it over' with each other, and their patronage of Ellen Olenska (via a formal dinner) is decisive in her acceptance.

Mr. Letterblair

The senior partner of Archer's law firm, a cautious and moralizing figure who handles the Mingott family's legal affairs, including the Olenska separation and eventual divorce settlement, and who counsels Archer with veiled insinuations about Ellen's conduct with a 'young champion' (M. Rivière).

M. Rivière

A resourceful, sensitive Frenchman who had served as secretary and something like a rescuer to Count Olenski's household, and who later crosses the Atlantic to plead, on his own initiative rather than the family's, that Ellen Olenska should not be pressured to return to her husband.

Medora Manson (the Marchioness)

Ellen Olenska's eccentric, much-married aunt, given to sighing pronouncements and foreign exclamations ('Que voulez-vous?'), who once tried to run a failed 'literary salon' and later travels with faddish figures like Dr. Agathon Carver.

Mr. Sillerton Jackson

An elderly gossip and self-appointed authority on New York's genealogies and scandals, whose casual dinner-table remarks about Beaufort's finances or the Countess's reputation carry the weight of social verdicts.

Lawrence Lefferts

A self-appointed arbiter of 'form' and correct behavior in New York society who publicly denounces moral laxity while privately conducting his own affairs (implied with a typewriter/secretary), exposing the hypocrisy underlying the code he claims to enforce.

The Academy of Music

New York's old, shabby but socially cherished opera house, valued by conservatives for being small and exclusive enough to keep out 'new people,' where Christine Nilsson sings Faust in the story's opening scene and where fashionable families occupy hereditary boxes.

Mrs. Manson Mingott's House

A large house of pale cream-colored stone built 'above Thirty-fourth Street' near Central Park, considered daringly located and styled like a Parisian private hotel, with French windows that open like doors; furnished with pre-Revolutionary pieces and souvenirs of the Tuileries under Louis Napoleon.

The Beaufort House

A grand mansion known for hosting New York's premier annual ball, notable for owning its own red velvet stair carpet, having footmen roll it out under a private awning, and allowing ladies to remove cloaks in the hall rather than climbing to the hostess's bedroom to recurl their hair.

Countess Olenska's House, West Twenty-third Street

Ellen Olenska's modest rented home in an unfashionable part of the city, decorated with 'bits of wreckage' from her European life—small dark-wood tables, a Greek bronze on the mantel, red damask nailed over discolored wallpaper, and Italian paintings—and staffed by a Sicilian-seeming maid.

Skuytercliff

The van der Luydens' country estate, where they retreat after entertaining a visiting Duke, and where Newland Archer visits Ellen Olenska and is interrupted by the arrival of Julius Beaufort.

St. Augustine, Florida

A winter resort where the Welland family travels each year for Mr. Welland's health (based on a pneumonia attack he never actually had), and where Newland Archer visits May during their engagement, feigning a cold to prolong his stay.

Newport

A fashionable summer resort where the Wellands and other New York families summer, site of an archery contest that May Welland wins, and near the Blenker household where Ellen Olenska sometimes stays.

Grace Church

The fashionable New York church where Newland Archer and May Welland are married at noon on the Tuesday after Easter, with eight bridesmaids and eight ushers, and the Mendelssohn Wedding March played on the organ.

The Mingott-Welland Clan

An interconnected network of old New York families (Mingotts, Wellands, Archers, Chiverses, Dallases) bound by strict unwritten rules of loyalty, respectability, and mutual obligation, who convene in 'family council' to manage crises such as Ellen Olenska's separation and the Beaufort financial scandal.

The Sapphire Engagement Ring

A large, thick sapphire set in invisible claws, given by Newland Archer to May Welland to mark their engagement, formally approved by old Mrs. Manson Mingott during the couple's introductory visit.

The Code of 'Form'

New York society of the 1870s operates by an elaborate, unspoken system of signs and conventions—what is or is not 'the thing'—in which real feelings and facts are almost never stated directly but communicated through ritualized gestures, arriving times, dress, and euphemism, likened by the narrative to 'a kind of hieroglyphic world' and to totemic tribal law.

The Olenska Divorce Case

Countess Ellen Olenska's attempt to formally divorce her husband, Count Olenski, is opposed by her own family (the Mingotts and Wellands) as scandalous, even though her husband's cruelty is implied; Newland Archer is assigned to dissuade her from pursuing legal action, and she eventually accepts a financial settlement instead of a full divorce, at the cost of never returning to Europe or her husband.

Beaufort's Financial Ruin

Late in the story, Julius Beaufort is revealed to have engaged in dishonest speculations, resulting in social and financial disgrace for his family; New York society, which tolerated his private infidelities, cannot forgive dishonesty in business, and the Beauforts are effectively cast out despite Regina Beaufort's popularity.