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Characters

Major characters

• Tess Durbeyfield — The protagonist, eldest daughter in a poor rural working family; a fresh, pretty country girl.
• Angel Clare — The son of a clergyman; Tess's husband and true love. He considers himself a freethinker, but his notions of morality turn out to be fairly conventional: he rejects Tess on their wedding night when she confesses that she isn't a virgin, even though he, too, has engaged in premarital sex. He works at the Talbothay's dairy to gain practical experience because he hopes to buy a farm of his own.
• Alec Stoke-d'Urberville — The libertine son of Simon Stoke and Mrs. d'Urberville. He either rapes or seduces Tess when she is no more than seventeen years old, and later pursues her relentlessly until she agrees to become his mistress again.
• Jack Durbeyfield (Sir John d'Urberville) — Tess's father, a carter in Marlott (based on the Dorset village of Marnhull) who is lazy and given to drinking. When he learns that his family is descended from nobility, he works less and less and starts pretending that he is an aristocrat.
• Joan Durbeyfield — Tess's hardworking mother who has a practical outlook on life. This includes being prepared to use her daughter for her own gains.

Minor characters

• Mrs. Brooks — Landlady of The Herons, the seaside boarding house where Tess murders Alec.
• James Clare — A charitable and moral clergyman; Angel Clare's father.
• Mrs. Clare — Angel Clare's mother, a kindly woman. She wants Angel to marry a pure, virtuous, and true Christian woman.
• Felix Clare — Angel's brother, a priest's assistant.
• Cuthbert Clare — Angel's other brother, a classical scholar.
• Mercy Chant — The young lady that Angel's parents had thought to be the perfect wife for him. She later marries Cuthbert.
• Richard Crick — The owner of the Talbothay Farm for whom Angel and Tess work.
• Car Darch (Dark Car) — One of Alec's former mistresses, discarded in favour of Tess.
• Eliza Louisa (Liza-Lu) Durbeyfield — Tess's younger sister, who closely resembles her. Shortly before her arrest, Tess asks Angel to marry her. Tess says she has "all the best of me, and none o' the bad".
• Farmer Groby — Tess's employer at Flintcombe-Ash, a churlish man who knows about her relationship with Alec. Groby is knocked down by Angel in their sojourn before their wedding, Angel thinking Groby had offended Tess' honour. Groby says to his friend afterwards that he "didn't have the heart" to tell Angel the truth at the time. His recognition of Tess sparks her fears, and reintroduces the threat of her past into the tragedy.
• Jonathan Kail — A Talbothays dairyman who informs Angel and Tess in the D'Urberville mansion right after the marriage, that Retty Priddle tried to commit suicide, Marian got "dead drunk", and that Izz Huett is walking around depressed.
• Abraham, Hope & Modesty — The son and daughters of the Durbeyfields.
• Mrs. Stoke-D'Urberville — The wealthy mother of Alec, a blind widow.
• Izz Huett, Retty Priddle, and Marian — Dairy maids at the Talbothay Farm. Izz is sensible, Retty sensitive, and Marian stolid, but all are in love with Angel Clare and fare poorly after he marries Tess.
• Parson Tringham — An elderly parson from whom John learns about his noble ancestors.
• Sorrow — The illegitimate child of Tess and Alec who lives only a few weeks. Tess loves him, despite her painfully ambivalent feelings about the circumstances of his conception. She christens him herself on the night he dies.