Characters
- Hercule Poirot – retired detective who investigates the central murder
- Roger Ackroyd – country gentleman, distressed about the recent death of his paramour, Mrs. Ferrars
- Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd – Mr. Ackroyd's sister-in-law
- Flora Ackroyd – Mr. Ackroyd's niece and Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd's daughter
- Ralph Paton – Mr. Ackroyd's stepson, often referred to as his "adopted" son
- Ursula Bourne – Mr. Ackroyd's parlourmaid, recently quit
- Major Hector Blunt – big game hunter, Roger Ackroyd's friend and houseguest
- Geoffrey Raymond – Mr. Ackroyd's secretary
- John Parker – Mr. Ackroyd's butler
- Elizabeth Russell – Mr. Ackroyd's housekeeper
- Charles Kent – Elizabeth Russell's son and drug addict
- Dr. James Sheppard – the doctor, Poirot's assistant (and the story's narrator)
- Caroline Sheppard – Dr. Sheppard's spinster sister
- Mrs. Ferrars – who poisons herself at the very beginning of the book
- Ashley Ferrars – late husband of Mrs. Ferrars, who was poisoned by his wife
- Inspector Raglan
Read more about this topic: The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“For the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have no task to keep you at home?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the human currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of human history.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)