Hildred Castaigne (Hildred de Calvados Castaigne) is the primary character of The Repairer of Reputations, both protagonist and narrator, albeit unreliably. He begins his story by telling us about the world of alternate 1920s, which is either a possible future as viewed in 1895, when the story was first published, or the product of an unstable mind still living in 1895. Potentially, it contains elements of both. We learn that before his accident Hildred was "fond of fishing... You used to be fond of everything, athletics, yachting, shooting, riding..." but now he'd rather study.