Adelaide Henry is the central protagonist of Lone Women, and the novel is primarily told from her perspective. She is the daughter of the now-deceased Glenville and Eleanor Henry and the twin sister to the creature known as Elizabeth. Adelaide is initially depicted as a dutiful, loyal daughter who has finally reached her breaking point. At the start of the novel, she has been living with her parents in their farmhouse for her entire life. Up until her parents’ deaths, they spent their evenings together, reading from Adelaide’s favorite novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which also depicts a socially isolated, misunderstood protagonist, much like Adelaide.

Adelaide is also described as having a remarkable physical presence. She is tall, at times as much as a head taller than the other characters. She is also broad-shouldered and strong, both naturally so and because of her life of physically taxing farm labor. Most significantly, Adelaide’s physical form and unique abilities mean that she is the only one who has ever been able to subdue her sister. Adelaide recalls that, “[e]ver since she was a child, [she] could grip the creature’s scales and come away unscathed” (82).