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Jack's mother -- A beautiful, "famished-cheeked" woman from Arkansas,
Jack's mother is brought back to Burden's Landing by the Scholarly
Attorney, but falls in love with Judge Irwin and begins an afiair with him;
Jack is a product of that afiair. After the Scholarly Attorney leaves her, she marries a succession of men (the Tycoon, the Count, the Young
Executive). Jack's realization that she is capable of love--and that she really loved Judge Irwin-- helps him put aside his cynicism at the end of the novel.

Sam MacMurfee -- Willie's main political enemy within the state's
Democratic Party, and governor before Willie. After Willie crushes him in the gubernatorial election, MacMurfee continues to control the Fourth
District, from which he plots ways to claw his way back into power.

Ellis Burden -- The man whom Jack believes to be his father for most of the book, before learning his real father is Judge Irwin. After discovering his wife's afiair with the judge, the "Scholarly Attorney" (as
Jack characterizes him) leaves her. He moves to the state capital where he attempts to conduct a Christian ministry for the poor and the unfortunate.

Theodore Murrell -- The "Young Executive," as Jack characterizes him;
Jack's mother's husband for most of the novel.

Governor Joel Stanton -- Adam and Anne's father, governor of the state when Judge Irwin was Attorney General. Protects the judge after he takes the bribe to save his plantation.

Hugh Miller -- Willie Stark's Attorney General, an honorable man who resigns following the Byram White scandal.

Joe Harrison -- Governor of the state who sets Willie up as a dummy candidate to split the MacMurfee vote, and thereby enables Willie's entrance onto the political stage. When Willie learns how Harrison has treated him, he withdraws from the race and campaigns for MacMurfee, who wins the election. By the time Willie crushes MacMurfee in the next election, Harrison's days of political clout are over.

Mortimer L. Littlepaugh -- The man who preceded Judge Irwin as counsel for the American Electric Power Company in the early 1900s. When Judge
Irwin took Littlepaugh's job as part of the bribe, Littlepaugh confronted
Governor Stanton about the judge's illegal activity. When the governor protected the judge, Littlepaugh committed suicide.

Miss Lily Mae Littlepaugh -- Mortimer Littlepaugh's sister, an old spiritual medium who sells her brother's suicide note to Jack, giving him the proof he needs about Judge Irwin and the bribe.

Gummy Larson -- MacMurfee's most powerful supporter, a wealthy businessman. Willie is forced to give Larson the building contract to the hospital so that Larson will call MacMurfee off about the Sibyl Frey controversy, and thereby preserve Willie's chance to go to the Senate.

Lois Seager -- Jack's sexy first wife, whom he leaves when he begins to perceive her as a person rather than simply as a machine for gratifying his desires.

Byram B. White -- The State Auditor during Willie's first term as governor. His acceptance of graft money propels a scandal that eventually leads to an impeachment attempt against Willie. Willie protects White and blackmails his enemies into submission, a decision which leads to his estrangement from Lucy and the resignation of Hugh Miller.

Hubert Coffee -- A slimy MacMurfee employee who tries to bribe Adam
Stanton into giving the hospital contract to Gummy Larson.

Sibyl Frey -- A young girl who accuses Tom Stark of having gotten her pregnant; Tom alleges that Sibyl has slept with so many men, she could not possibly know he was the father of her child. Marvin Frey -- Sibyl Frey's father, who threatens Willie with a paternity suit. (He is being used by
MacMurfee.)

Cass Mastern -- The brother of Jack's grandmother. During the middle of the nineteenth century, Cass had an afiair with Annabelle Trice, the wife of his friend Duncan. After Duncan's suicide, Annabelle sold a slave,
Phebe; Cass tried to track down Phebe, but failed. He became an abolitionist, but fought in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, during which he was killed. Jack tries to use his papers as the basis of his Ph.D. dissertation, but walked away from the project when he was unable to understand Cass Mastern's motivations.

Gilbert Mastern -- Cass Mastern's wealthy brother.

Annabelle Trice -- Cass Mastern's lover, the wife of Duncan Trice.
When the slave Phebe brings her Duncan's wedding ring following his suicide, Annabelle says that she cannot bear the way Phebe looked at her, and sells her.

Duncan Trice -- Cass Mastern's hedonistic friend in Lexington,
Annabelle Trice's husband. When he learns that Cass has had an afiair with
Annabelle, Duncan takes off his wedding ring and shoots himself.

Phebe -- The slave who brings Annabelle Trice her husband's wedding ring following his suicide. As a result, Annabelle sells her.

Summary

All the King's Men is the story of the rise and fall of a political titan in the Deep South during the 1930s. Willie Stark rises from hardscrabble poverty to become governor of his state and its most powerful political figure; he blackmails and bullies his enemies into submission, and institutes a radical series of liberal reforms designed to tax the rich and ease the burden of the state's poor farmers. He is beset with enemies--most notably Sam MacMurfee, a defeated former governor who constantly searches for ways to undermine Willie's power--and surrounded by a rough mix of political allies and hired thugs, from the bodyguard Sugar-Boy O'Sheean to the fat, obsequious Tiny Dufiy.

All the King's Men is also the story of Jack Burden, the scion of one of the state's aristocratic dynasties, who turns his back on his genteel upbringing and becomes Willie Stark's right-hand man. Jack uses his considerable talents as a historical researcher to dig up the unpleasant secrets of Willie's enemies, which are then used for purposes of blackmail.
Cynical and lacking in ambition, Jack has walked away from many of his past interests--he left his dissertation in American History unfinished, and never managed to marry his first love, Anne Stanton, the daughter of a former governor of the state.

When Willie asks Jack to look for skeletons in the closet of Judge
Irwin, a father figure from Jack's childhood, Jack is forced to confront his ideas concerning consequence, responsibility, and motivation. He discovers that Judge Irwin accepted a bribe, and that Governor Stanton covered it up; the resulting blackmail attempt leads to Judge Irwin's suicide. It also leads to Adam Stanton's decision to accept the position of director of the new hospital Willie is building, and leads Anne to begin an afiair with Willie.

When Adam learns of the afiair, he murders Willie in a rage, and Jack leaves politics forever. Willie's death and the circumstances in which it occurs force Jack to rethink his desperate belief that no individual can ever be responsible for the consequences of any action within the chaos and tumult of history and time. Jack marries Anne Stanton and begins working on a book about Cass Mastern, the man whose papers he had once tried to use as the source for his failed dissertation in American History.

Chapter 1

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