An American minister who buys an English country estate, bringing his family across the Atlantic. He approaches life with a strictly modern mindset, refusing to entertain superstition or fear. When confronted with supernatural phenomena, he applies practical, commercial solutions, such as offering machine oil to quiet rattling spectral chains.

The fifteen-year-old daughter of Hiram and Lucretia Otis. She stands apart from her boisterous relatives by displaying a gentle, delicate constitution and a quiet artistic temperament. As the only family member to show true empathy rather than annoyance or hostility, she acts as a bridge between her American upbringing and her traditional English surroundings.

A sixteenth-century English nobleman who murdered his wife and has haunted his former home for three hundred years. Accustomed to terrifying residents with elaborate theatrical scares, he is bewildered by the new American tenants' complete lack of fear. The constant disrespect drains his vitality and forces him to reconsider his eternal purpose.

The robust wife of Hiram B. Otis, formerly a celebrated beauty in New York City. She embodies an unflappable American self-sufficiency, treating the haunted history of her new home as a mild domestic inconvenience. She prescribes household tinctures for unearthly wails and hosts clam-bakes in the ancient halls.

The eldest son of the Otis family, named after the first American president. He aggressively applies modern cleaning products to historical problems, determined to erase the supernatural legacy of the estate. He possesses a youthful enthusiasm for challenging the ghost's attempts to maintain an atmosphere of terror.

The youngest children of the Otis family, twin boys affectionately nicknamed after the American flag. Rambunctious and highly inventive, they treat the terrifying phantom of the house as a target for their elaborate pranks. They build traps and fling pillows, completely dismantling the established dynamic of fear in the home.

An English aristocrat who sells his family's ancestral home to the Otis family. He openly acknowledges the resident phantom out of a sense of honorable duty to the buyer. He embodies the declining peerage of England, rich in land and history but burdened by both debt and ghosts.

The elderly housekeeper at Canterville Chase who remains at her post after the estate is sold. Deeply fearful of the ghost, she embodies Old World superstition and dramatic dread. She attempts to warn her new employers of the impending doom but faints when faced with their practical irreverence.

A young English nobleman and a devoted suitor to Virginia Otis. He represents traditional patriarchal protection and genuine affection. He willingly braves the haunted estate to be near the girl he hopes to marry, maintaining a polite and respectful demeanor in the face of her family's eccentricities.