Heroine (The Bloody Chamber)
A poor, seventeen-year-old pianist who marries a Marquis. She narrates the story many years later, having escaped murder and remarried.
The Marquis (The Bloody Chamber)
A French nobleman who takes pleasure in challenging his wives to disobey him and then murdering them. His favorite room is his "bloody chamber," the room in which he keeps their corpses.
Jean-Yves (The Bloody Chamber)
A kindly blind piano tuner who helps the heroine escape from the Marquis and later marries her.
Heroine's Mother (The Bloody Chamber)
A brave woman who grew up in "Indo-China" and then married a man who was poorer than her. When he died at war, she was left penniless with her daughter.
The Opera Singer (The Bloody Chamber)
The Marquis's first wife, whom he strangled to death, and whose body lies on a catafalque in his forbidden room.
The Evening Star Walking on the Rim of Night (The Bloody Chamber)
The Marquis's second wife, whose skull hangs suspended by cords in his forbidden room.
The Romanian Countess (The Bloody Chamber)
The Marquis's latest wife before the heroine, whom he murders by Iron Maiden. The narrator drops the key to the forbidden room into her pooling blood.
The Beast/Mr. Lyon (The Courtship of Mr. Lyon)
A creature with a lion's head, who lives isolated in his gated mansion until Beauty transforms him back into a man.
Beauty (The Courtship of Mr. Lyon)
A young woman who is forced to live with the Beast as payment for the rose her father stole from him. After she transforms him back into a human, she marries him and becomes Mrs. Lyon.
Beauty's Father (The Courtship of Mr. Lyon)
A widower who goes to the Beast's house for help when he is stranded in a snowstorm. When he steals a rose from the Beast's estate, he is forced to send his only daughter to live with the Beast as payment.
King Charles Spaniel (The Courtship of Mr. Lyon)
The Beast's only companion, who summons Beauty back to his mansion when The Beast is dying.
The Beast (The Tiger's Bride)
A tiger disguised as a man that lives in a remote region of Italy alone save his valet, an ape. He wins the heroine from her father at cards and promises to return her and the rest of his winnings if he can glimpse her naked. When she refuses, he undresses for her instead and eventually transforms her back into a tigress.
Heroine (The Tiger's Bride)
A young Russian woman whom her father loses to The Beast at cards. While she is living with The Beast, she realizes that men treat her as though she is an animal, and in fact she feels closer to animals than to men. At the story's end, The Beast licks off her skin to reveal that she is actually a tigress.
Heroine's Father (The Tiger's Bride)
A Russian man with a gambling addiction who loses his daughter and all his possessions to The Beast at cards.
Valet (The Tiger's Bride)
The Beast's servant, an ape disguised as a man who tends to the heroine while she is living with the Beast.
Soubrette (The Tiger's Bride)
A mechanical wind-up maid that powders the heroine's cheeks and shows her her face in the mirror. She is called the heroine's "twin" because she resembles her so much.
Puss-in-Boots
An arrogant cat who wears boots and serves as valet to a young man. Puss helps his Master win the young woman's love and eventually marries her cat, Tabby.
Puss's Master (Puss-in-Boots)
A lecherous young man whom love strikes dumb. His love for the young woman turns him from a lecherous bachelor into a faithful husband.
The Young Woman (Puss-in-Boots)
The wife of Signor Panteleone, whom her husband keeps pent up in a tower. When Signor Panteleone dies, she marries Puss's master.
The Hag (Puss-in-Boots)
A crone who serves as governess to the young woman.
Signor Panteleone (Puss-in-Boots)
An old impotent miser who keeps his wife pent up in a tower. He dies of a broken neck after Tabby trips him on the stairs.
Tabby (Puss-in-Boots)
The young woman's cat, who plots with Puss to bring her mistress and his master together. She trips Signor Panteleone on the stairs so that he breaks his neck and dies. At the story's end, she marries Puss and has kittens with him.
The Erl-King
A creature who lives in harmony with the forest and is able to control its creatures. He lures young women with a birdcall, and then transforms them into birds, whom he keeps in cages. The narrator plots to kill him at the story's end.
Narrator (The Erl-King)
A young woman whom the Erl-King enchants and plans to cage. At the story's end, she plots to kill him and release all his birds.
The Count (The Snow Child)
A nobleman who wishes the Snow Child into existence. When she dies, he rapes her corpse.
The Countess (The Snow Child)
The Count's wife, who tries to kill the Snow Child out of jealousy. She succeeds when she makes the girl pick her a rose, which pricks the latter's finger and kills her.
The Snow Child
A naked girl "white as snow," "red as blood," and "black as [a] raven's feather," whom the Count wishes into existence. She dies when she pricks her finger on a rose. After the Count rapes her corpse, it dissolves, leaving behind only a rose, a feather, and a bloodstain.
The Countess (The Lady of the House of Love)
Queen of the Vampires, she lives in a remote and abandoned Romanian village. She loathes being a vampire. The Countess turns into a human briefly, only to die.
Governess (The Lady of the House of Love)
The Countess's caretaker, who lures young men for her and then buries their corpses.
Soldier (The Lady of the House of Love)
A young, British soldier vacationing in Romania. He transforms the Countess into a human by kissing a bleeding gash on her hand.
Child (The Werewolf)
A young woman, who is worldly because she lives in a harsh, mountainous country where people die young. She cuts off the paw of a werewolf who attacks her, only to discover that the werewolf is her grandmother. With neighbors' help, she stones her grandmother to death, then moves into her house and prospers.
Grandmother (The Werewolf)
A werewolf who tries to kill her own granddaughter in the forest. Her neighbors and granddaughter stone her to death when they discover her identity.
Child (The Company of Wolves)
A young woman who is not worldly like other children in her village because she is sheltered. She becomes enamored of a young hunter in the woods, who turns out to be a werewolf. After the werewolf eats her grandmother, the child seduces him.
Hunter (The Company of Wolves)
A werewolf who eats the child's grandmother and then tries to eat her, but instead lets himself be seduced.
Granny (The Company of Wolves)
The child's grandmother, a pious old woman whom the werewolf eats.
Wolf-Alice
A child raised by wolves, who is sent to live with the Duke. She restores the Duke's health after a townsperson shoots him in the shoulder.
The Duke (Wolf-Alice)
An ostracized werewolf who employs Wolf-Alice as his maid. He casts no reflection in the mirror until Wolf-Alice restores him to health.
The Bridegroom (Wolf-Alice)
A young man who tries to kill the Duke to avenge his bride's death.
