Charles Dickens is generally considered the greatest English novelist of the Victorian era. He populated his novels and other works with dozens of distinctive characters. This list identifies more than 40 of the most notable ones. All works are identified by the date and form of their first publication.
Inspector Bucket
Inspector Bucket is the detective who solves the mystery of Dickens’s novel Bleak House (serialized 1852–53). For Dickens’s 19th-century readers, his colourless but skillful and decent methods became the standards by which to judge all policemen. Bucket has been called the first important detective in English literature. Husky and middle-aged with a friendly and honest appearance, he has a temperament that renders him philosophical and tolerant of human follies. Nevertheless, his tenacity and omnipresence are his outstanding qualities as a policeman, as he patiently walks the streets or observes people in their homes. His wife helps him solve the murder that is the central mystery of the novel.
Little Nell
Little Nell is a frail child who is a major figure in Dickens’s novel The Old Curiosity Shop (serialized 1840–41). His account of her death after many vicissitudes is often considered the apotheosis of Victorian sentimentality.
Ebenezer Scrooge
Ebenezer Scrooge is the irascible businessman who is the protagonist of Dickens’s tale A Christmas Carol, published in book form in 1843. Despite his transformation at the end of the story, he is more often remembered today as the embittered miser and not as the reformed sinner, and the word scrooge has entered the English language as a synonym for a miserly person.
Seth Pecksniff
Seth Pecksniff is an unctuous English architect whose insincere behaviour made the name Pecksniff synonymous with hypocrisy. He appears in Dickens’s novel Martin Chuzzlewit (serialized 1843–44).
David Copperfield
David Copperfield is the young hero of Dickens’s semiautobiographical novel David Copperfield (serialized 1849–50).
Mrs. Jellyby
Mrs. Jellyby is a satiric character in Dickens’s novel Bleak House (serialized 1852–53) and one of his more memorable caricatures. Matronly Mrs. Jellyby is a philanthropist who devotes her time and energy to setting up a mission in Africa while ignoring the needy in her own family and neighbourhood.
Uriah Heep
Uriah Heep is the villain in Dickens’s novel David Copperfield (serialized 1849–50). The name Uriah Heep has become a byword for a falsely humble hypocrite.
Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist is a young orphan who is the hero of Dickens’s Oliver Twist (serialized 1837–39), a novel that illustrates how poverty nurtures crime.
Samuel Pickwick
Samuel Pickwick is the kindly protagonist of Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers (serialized 1836–37). He is the head of the group of friends known as the Pickwick Club whose adventures the novel documents.
Madame Defarge
Madame Thérèse Defarge is a character in Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities (serialized and published in book form 1859), which is set during the French Revolution. A symbol of vengefulness and revolutionary excess, Madame Defarge sits outside her Paris wine shop endlessly knitting a scarf that is—in effect—a list of those to be killed. Incorporated into the scarf’s pattern are the names of hated aristocrats—including the St. Evrémondes, the family of Charles Darnay, a leading character.
Sam Weller
Sam Weller is a humorous Cockney bootblack who becomes Samuel Pickwick’s devoted companion and servant in Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers (serialized 1836–37).
Lady Dedlock
In Dickens’s novel Bleak House (serialized 1852–53) Lady Dedlock is a beautiful woman who harbours the secret that she bore a daughter before her marriage to a wealthy baronet. Privilege and wealth have not fulfilled her expectations of life. When she learns that her daughter is alive and that her own past is in danger of being exposed, she runs away in shame and despair.
Nicholas Nickleby
Nicholas Nickleby is the protagonist of Dickens’s novel Nicholas Nickleby (serialized 1838–39).
Miss Havisham
Miss Havisham is a half-crazed, embittered jilted bride in Dickens’s novel Great Expectations (serialized 1860–61).
Tiny Tim
Tiny Tim is the physically disabled young son of Bob Cratchit, clerk to the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (published in book form in 1843). Tim’s father is underpaid and overworked by Scrooge, and he does not have the money needed to cure Tiny Tim. The boy is fated to die young unless he receives proper treatment, but his spirit is strong and generous even as he becomes physically weaker. He has only kind, cheerful thoughts and words of encouragement for all, typified by his toast “God bless us, every one!”
Edwin Drood
Edwin Drood is the alleged victim in Dickens’s unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood (written 1870).
Esther Summerson
Esther Summerson is the strong, motherly heroine of Dickens’s novel Bleak House (serialized 1852–53).
Sairey Gamp
Sairey Gamp, a comic character in Dickens’s novel Martin Chuzzlewit (serialized 1843–44), is a high-spirited old Cockney who is a sketchily trained nurse-midwife as enthusiastic at laying out a corpse as she is at delivering a baby.
The Artful Dodger
In Dickens’s Oliver Twist (serialized 1837–39) the Artful Dodger is a precocious streetwise boy who introduces the protagonist Oliver to the thief Fagin and his gang of children, who work as thieves and pickpockets.
Jacob Marley
Jacob Marley is the deceased business partner of Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (published in book form in 1843). Marley’s ghost visits Scrooge on Christmas Eve at the beginning of the story.
Gradgrind
In Dickens’s novel Hard Times (serialized and published in book form in 1854) Gradgrind is the proprietor of an experimental school where only facts are taught. For Dickens he embodies the unsympathetic qualities of the utilitarian social philosophy prevalent in Victorian England.
Charles Darnay
Charles Darnay—the byname of Charles St. Evrémonde—is one of the protagonists of Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities (serialized and published in book form in 1859). He is a highly principled young French aristocrat who is caught up in the events leading up to the French Revolution and is saved from the guillotine by Sydney Carton.
Mr. Bumble
Mr. Bumble is the cruel, pompous beadle of the poorhouse where the orphaned Oliver Twist is raised in Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist (serialized 1837–39). The word bumbledom, derived from his name, characterizes the meddlesome self-importance of the petty bureaucrat. Mr. Bumble marries the poorhouse matron, Mrs. Corney, a tyrannical woman who completely dominates him. In response to learning that a husband bears legal responsibility for his wife’s actions, Mr. Bumble utters the often-quoted line “If the law supposes that—the law is a ass.” The Bumbles become paupers in the same poorhouse where they once inflicted such damage and unhappiness.
Infant Phenomenon
Infant Phenomenon—the byname of Ninetta Crummles—is a child performer who appears in Dickens’s novel Nicholas Nickleby (serialized 1838–39). Ninetta is the beloved eight-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Crummles, the manager-actors of a troupe of strolling players in which Nicholas Nickleby is a performer.
Jarndyce family
The Jarndyces are the family of principal characters of Dickens’s novel Bleak House (serialized 1852–53). The dreary, seemingly endless Jarndyce v. Jarndyce lawsuit contesting a will provides the background for the novel.
Pip
Pip is the young orphan whose growth and development are the subject of Dickens’s novel Great Expectations (serialized 1860–61).
Sydney Carton
Sydney Carton is one of the protagonists of Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities (serialized and published in book form in 1859). He first appears as a cynical drunkard who serves as a legal aide to a London barrister. He is secretly in love with Lucie Manette, whose French émigré husband, Charles Darnay, physically resembles Carton. This coincidence enables Carton to stand in for Darnay, who has been sentenced to die on the guillotine. By this act Carton gives meaning to his misspent life.
Fagin
Fagin is one of the villains in Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist (serialized 1837–39) and one of the most notorious anti-Semitic portraits in English literature. He is an old man in London who teaches young homeless boys how to be pickpockets and then fences their stolen goods. Although a miser and exploiter, he shows a certain loyalty and solicitude toward the boys. The Artful Dodger is one of Fagin’s thieves and, for a time, so is the young Oliver Twist. At the novel’s end Fagin is executed for complicity in a murder.
Bill Sikes
Bill Sikes is a violent, brutish thief and burglar in Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist (serialized 1837–39).
Clara Peggotty
Clara Peggotty is a devoted servant in Dickens’s novel David Copperfield (serialized 1849–50).
Abel Magwitch
Abel Magwitch is an escaped convict who plays a major role in the growth and development of Pip, the protagonist in Dickens’s novel Great Expectations (serialized 1860–61).
Cratchit family
The Cratchits are an impoverished, hardworking, and warmhearted family in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (published in book form in 1843). The family comprises Bob Cratchit, his wife, and their six children: Martha, Belinda, Peter, two smaller Cratchits (an unnamed girl and boy), and the ever-cheerful Tiny Tim.
Flora Finching
In Dickens’s novel Little Dorrit (serialized 1855–57) Flora Finching, the daughter of mean-spirited Christopher Casby, is a widow who was once a sweetheart of Arthur Clennam and still cherishes a passion for him. Now middle-aged, she is kindhearted and sympathetic.
Richard Carstone
Richard Carstone is the heir of John Jarndyce in Dickens’s Bleak House (serialized 1852–53).
Josiah Bounderby
Josiah Bounderby is a wealthy businessman in Dickens’s novel Hard Times (serialized and published in book form 1854). He uses everyone around him to further his own interests. He keeps the existence of his mother a secret as he perpetuates the myth that he began life as an orphan who had to struggle to survive and to establish himself.
Mr. Merdle
Mr. Merdle is a financier in Dickens’s novel Little Dorrit (serialized 1855–57).
Mr. Jaggers
Mr. Jaggers is the honest and pragmatic lawyer in Dickens’s novel Great Expectations (serialized 1860–61) who handles the affairs of the protagonist Pip as well as those of most of the characters in the book.
Alexander and Lucie Manette
Alexander Manette is a French doctor, and Lucie is his daughter, in Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities (serialized and published in book form 1859).
Arthur Clennam
Arthur Clennam is the kindly middle-aged man who loves Amy Dorrit, the heroine of Dickens’s novel Little Dorrit (serialized 1855–57).
Joe Gargery
Joe Gargery is the kindhearted and loyal blacksmith who is married to Pip’s mean-spirited sister in Dickens’s novel Great Expectations (serialized 1860–61).
Martin Chuzzlewit
Martin Chuzzlewit is the protagonist of Dickens’s novel Martin Chuzzlewit (serialized 1843–44). He is an apprentice architect who is fired by Seth Pecksniff and disinherited by his grandfather; he travels with a servant, Mark Tapley, to the United States, where they are swindled and have other adventures.
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