The Charles Dickens Page
Charles Dickens' Characters R-S
R - S
Mrs Rachael ( Bleak House ) Esther Summerson's nurse. Later marries Rev Chadband. Very good woman, but austere. (top)
Rachael ( Hard Times ) Friend of Stephen Blackpool, who loves her but cannot gain release from his drunken wife. She defends Stephen when he is accused of theft from the bank. A quiet oval face, dark and rather delicate, irradiated by a pair of very gentle eyes, and further set off by the perfect order of her shining black hair. It was not a face in its first bloom; she was a woman five and thirty years of age. (top)
Raddle, Mary Ann ( Pickwick Papers ) Bob Sawyer's landlady in Lant Street. She berates her husband for not standing up for her. A little fierce woman. (top)
Raddle, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Much abused husband of Mary Ann Raddle. (top)
Radfoot, George ( Our Mutual Friend ) Third mate aboard the ship bringing John Harmon back to England. He and Harmon resemble each other and Harmon devises a plan to temporarily exchange clothes and identities with Radfoot so that he can secretly observe his intended bride, Bella Wilfer. Radfoot instead drugs and robs Harmon and is then murdered himself, his body taken for that of John Harmon (top)
Rairyganoo, Sally ( Mrs Lirriper's Legacy ) Maid in Mrs Lirriper's boarding house. I still suspect of Irish extraction though family represented Cambridge, else why abscond with a bricklayer of the Limerick persuasion and be married in pattens not waiting till his black eye was decently got round with all the company fourteen in number and one horse fighting outside on the roof of the vehicle. (top)
Ramsey ( Pickwick Papers ) Defendant in the case of Bullman and Ramsey described by the clerks of Dodson and Fogg. A precious seedy-looking customer. (top)
Raymond ( Great Expectations ) Husband of Camilla and another of Miss Havisham's toady relations. (top)
Redlaw ( The Haunted Man ) PIX Professor of chemistry who is visited by a phantom on Christmas Eve and given the gift of forgetting painful memories. The gift turns out to be a curse as it is passed on to those Redlaw touches. The adverse effects of the gift are finally reversed by Milly Swidger. (top)
Reynolds, Miss ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood ) Fellow student of Rosa Bud at the Nun's House. (top)
Riah ( Our Mutual Friend ) PIX An old Jewish man who fronts Fledgeby's money-lending business. He befriends Lizzie Hexam and Jenny Wren. an old Jewish man in an ancient coat, long of skirt, and wide of pocket. A venerable man, bald and shining at the top of his head, and with long grey hair flowing down at its sides and mingling with his beard. (top)
Richard ( The Chimes ) Blacksmith and fiance of Meg, they are married on New Year's Day. (top)
Richard ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Waiter at the Saracen's Head. (top)
Ricketts ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood ) Fellow student of Rosa Bud at the Nun's House. A junior of weakly constitution (top)
Riderhood, Pleasant ( Our Mutual Friend ) PIX Daughter of Rogue Riderhood. Pleasant is an unlicensed pawnbroker, she later overcomes her dislike of Mr Venus's occupation and agrees to marry him. Miss Pleasant Riderhood had some little position and connection in Limehouse Hole. Upon the smallest of small scales, she was an unlicensed pawnbroker, keeping what was popularly called a Leaving Shop, by lending insignificant sums on insignificant articles of property deposited with her as security. In her four-and-twentieth year of life, Pleasant was already in her fifth year of this way of trade. Her deceased mother had established the business, and on that parent’s demise she had appropriated a secret capital of fifteen shillings to establishing herself in it; the existence of such capital in a pillow being the last intelligible confidential communication made to her by the departed, before succumbing to dropsical conditions of snuff and gin, incompatible equally with coherence and existence...Similarly, she found herself possessed of what is colloquially termed a swivel eye (derived from her father), which she might perhaps have declined if her sentiments on the subject had been taken. She was not otherwise positively ill-looking, though anxious, meagre, of a muddy complexion, and looking as old again as she really was. (top)
Riderhood, Rogue ( Our Mutual Friend ) PIX Waterman and former partner of Gaffer Hexam who tries to pin blame on Gaffer for the Harmon murder to gain a reward. Riderhood later becomes a lock-keeper and tries to blackmail Bradley Headstone after Bradley tries to murder Eugene Wrayburn. In a quarrel both Riderhood and Headstone drown in the Thames. Rogue is also the father of Pleasant Riderhood. (top)
Rigaud/Blandois/Lagnier ( Little Dorrit ) PIX Villain of the novel. Rigaud attempts to blackmail Mrs Clennam and has her house fall on him for his efforts. He had a hook nose, handsome after its kind, but too high between the eyes, by probably just as much as his eyes were too near to one another. For the rest, he was large and tall in frame, had thin lips, where his thick moustache showed them at all, and a quantity of dry hair, of no definable color, in its shaggy state, but shot with red. The hand with which he held the grating (seamed all over the back with ugly scratches newly healed) was unusually small and plump; would have been unusually white, but for the prison grime...When Monsieur Rigaud laughed, a change took place in his face, that was more remarkable than prepossessing. His moustache went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache, in a very sinister and cruel manner.
Geolinks: The Adelphi (top)
Robert, Uncle ( Sketches by Boz: A Christmas Dinner ) With Aunt Jane, guests at the Christmas dinner. (top)
Robinson ( Sketches by Boz: The Boarding House ) Servant at Mrs Tibbs' boarding house. ‘Robinson, what do you want?’ said Mrs Tibbs to the servant who, by way of making her presence known to her mistress, had been giving sundry hems and sniffs outside the door during the preceding five minutes. (top)
Robinson, Mr ( Sketches by Boz: The Four Sisters ) Suitor of one of the Miss Willises. A gentleman in a public office, with a good salary and a little property of his own. (top)
Rodolph, Jennings, Mr and Mrs ( Sketches by Boz: The Mistaken Milliner (A Tale of Ambition) ) Musical couple who encourage Amelia Martin in her effort to become a singer. To hear them sing separately, was divine, but when they went through the tragic duet of 'Red Ruffian, retire!' it was, as Miss Martin afterwards remarked, 'thrilling.' (top)
Rogers ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Subject of one of Mrs Nickleby attempted remembrances. A lady in our neighbourhood when we lived near Dawlish, I think her name was Rogers; indeed I am sure it was if it wasn't Murphy, which is the only doubt I have. (top)
Rogers, Mr ( Sketches by Boz: The Parlour Orator ) The orator of the piece. A stoutish man of about forty, whose short, stiff, black hair curled closely round a broad high forehead, and a face to which something besides water and exercise had communicated a rather inflamed appearance. (top)
Rogers, Mrs ( Pickwick Papers ) Lodger at Martha Bardell's. (top)
Roker, Tom ( Pickwick Papers ) Turnkey at the Fleet Prison who introduces Samuel Pickwick to the wonderful accommodation there: 'You wouldn't think to find such a room as this in the Farringdon Hotel, would you?' (top)
Rokesmith, John ( Our Mutual Friend ) PIX Alias used by John Harmon when he is employed as secretary to the Boffins. A dark gentleman. Thirty at the utmost. An expressive, one might say handsome, face. A very bad manner. In the last degree constrained, reserved, diffident, troubled.
Geolinks: Clifford's Inn (top)
Rosa ( Bleak House ) Personal maid to Lady Dedlock after Hortense is dismissed. She marries Watt Rouncewell. A dark-eyed, dark-haired, shy, village beauty ...so fresh in her rosy and yet delicate bloom that the drops of rain which have beaten on her hair look like the dew upon a flower fresh gathered. (top)
Rose ( Sketches by Boz: The Black Veil ) Fiance of the young doctor. ...how happy it would make Rose if he could only tell her that he had found a patient at last, and hoped to have more, and to come down again, in a few months' time, and marry her, and take her home to gladden his lonely fireside, and stimulate him to fresh exertions. (top)
Ross, Frank ( Sketches by Boz: A Passage in the Life of Mr Watkins Tottle ) Friend of Gabriel Parsons. (top)
Rouncewell, George ( Bleak House ) PIX Son of the Dedlock's housekeeper Mrs Rouncewell. George ran away to join the army and cut himself off from his mother. After leaving the army George buys a shooting gallery in London with money borrowed from Smallweed. Smallweed pressures George to give over examples of Capt Hawdon's handwriting in order to help Tulkinghorn learn Lady Dedlock's secret. George is charged with the murder of Tulkinghorn by Bucket. Later George is exonerated of the crime and is reunited with his mother. He is a swarthy brown man of fifty, well made, and good looking, with crisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His sinewy and powerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently been used to a pretty rough life. What is curious about him is that he sits forward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing space for some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid aside. His step too is measured and heavy and would go well with a weighty clash and jingle of spurs. He is close-shaved now, but his mouth is set as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a great moustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the open palm of his broad brown hand upon it is to the same effect. Altogether one might guess Mr George to have been a trooper once upon a time.
Geolinks: Astley's, Leicester Square, Blackfriars Road (top)
Rouncewell, Mr ( Bleak House ) An iron master and son of Mrs Rouncewell, brother of Mr George, father of Watt. He is a little over fifty perhaps, of a good figure, like his mother, and has a clear voice, a broad forehead from which his dark hair has retired, and a shrewd though open face. He is a responsible-looking gentleman dressed in black, portly enough, but strong and active. Has a perfectly natural and easy air and is not in the least embarrassed by the great presence into which he comes. (top)
Rouncewell, Mrs ( Bleak House ) PIX Longtime housekeeper of Chesney Wold, home of Sir Leicester Dedlock. Mother of George and another son who is an important ironmaster in northern England. She is rather deaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. She is a fine old lady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a back and such a stomacher that if her stays should turn out when she dies to have been a broad old-fashioned family fire-grate, nobody who knows her would have cause to be surprised. (top)
Rouncewell, Watt ( Bleak House ) Grandson of Mrs Rouncewell, son of Rouncewell the iron master, and nephew of Mr George. He marries Rosa. You are a fine young fellow. You are like your poor uncle George. (top)
Ruddle ( Nicholas Nickleby ) One of the debtors whose mortgage belongs to Ralph Nickleby. (top)
Rudge ( Barnaby Rudge ) Father of Barnaby and husband of Mary. He was the Steward at the Warren and murdered his employer, Reuben Haredale. With the murder pinned on the gardener and Rudge assumed dead, he went into hiding and resurfaces years later trying to extort money from his wife. He is finally captured by Geoffrey Haredale and executed at Newgate. (top)
Rudge, Barnaby ( Barnaby Rudge ) PIX Son of Rudge Sr and Mary. Simple but good hearted young man who, along with his pet raven Grip, unwittingly gets involved in the Gordon Riots when he falls into bad company. He is later arrested and sentenced to death but gains reprieve through the help of Gabriel Varden. He was about three-and-twenty years old, and though rather spare, of a fair height and strong make. His hair, of which he had a great profusion, was red, and hanging in disorder about his face and shoulders, gave to his restless looks an expression quite unearthly – enhanced by the paleness of his complexion, and the glassy lustre of his large protruding eyes. Startling as his aspect was, the features were good, and there was something even plaintive in his wan and haggard aspect. But the absence of the soul is far more terrible in a living man than in a dead one; and in this unfortunate being its noblest powers were wanting. His dress was of green, clumsily trimmed here and there – apparently by his own hands – with gaudy lace; brightest where the cloth was most worn and soiled, and poorest where it was at the best. A pair of tawdry ruffles dangled at his wrists, while his throat was nearly bare. He had ornamented his hat with a cluster of peacock’s feathers, but they were limp and broken, and now trailed negligently down his back. Girded to his side was the steel hilt of an old sword without blade or scabbard; and some parti-coloured ends of ribands and poor glass toys completed the ornamental portion of his attire. The fluttered and confused disposition of all the motley scraps that formed his dress, bespoke, in a scarcely less degree than his eager and unsettled manner, the disorder of his mind, and by a grotesque contrast set off and heightened the more impressive wildness of his face.
Geolinks: Bloomsbury, Newgate Prison, Westminster Bridge (top)
Rudge, Mary ( Barnaby Rudge ) PIX Barnaby's mother and a former sweetheart of Gabriel Varden. She goes to great lengths to keep Barnaby away from his father who has murdered Reuben Haredale. She was about forty – perhaps two or three years older – with a cheerful aspect, and a face that had once been pretty. It bore traces of affliction and care, but they were of an old date, and Time had smoothed them. Any one who had bestowed but a casual glance on Barnaby might have known that this was his mother, from the strong resemblance between them; but where in his face there was wildness and vacancy, in hers there was the patient composure of long effort and quiet resignation.
Geolinks: Westminster Bridge (top)
Rugg, Anastatia ( Little Dorrit ) Daughter of Mr Rugg. She was engaged to Bawkins who broke the engagement which resulted in a breach of promise suit. She had little nankeen spots, like shirt buttons, all over her face, and whose own yellow tresses were rather scrubby than luxuriant. (top)
Rugg, Mr ( Little Dorrit ) Landlord of Pancks who assists in finding William Dorrit's fortune. Had a round white visage, as if all his blushes had been drawn out of him long ago, and who had a ragged yellow head like a worn-out hearth-broom. (top)
S
Saggers, Mrs ( The Uncommercial Traveller - Titbull's Alms-Houses ) Next to the oldest pensioner in the Titbull's Almshouse in east London and the cause of much internal dissension. (top)
Marquis de St Evremonde ( A Tale of Two Cities ) Uncle of Charles Darnay. He shows unconcern when his carriage runs over and kills the child of the Parisian peasant Gaspard. Gaspard follows the Marquis to his country home and kills him in his bed. He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and with a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent paleness; every feature in it clearly defined; one set expression on it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top of each nostril. In those two compressions, or dints, the only little change that the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changing colour sometimes, and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted by something like a faint pulsation; then, they gave a look of treachery, and cruelty, to the whole countenance. Examined with attention, its capacity of helping such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much too horizontal and thin; still, in the effect of the face made, it was a handsome face, and a remarkable one. (top)
St Julien, Horatio (aka Jem Larkins) ( Sketches by Boz: Private Theatres ) Actor in a private theatrical. Gentleman in the white hat and checked shirt, brown coat and brass buttons, lounging behind the stage-box on the O.P. side, is Mr Horatio St Julien, alias Jem Larkins. His line is genteel comedy – his father's, coal and potato. He does Alfred Highflier in the last piece, and very well he'll do it – at the price. (top)
Salcy Family ( The Uncommercial Traveller - In the French-Flemish Country ) Theatrical family who entertains the Uncommercial Traveller in a French-Flemish town. The members of the Family P. Salcy were so fat and so like one another - fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, uncles, and aunts - that I think the local audience were much confused about the plot of the piece under representation, and to the last expected that everybody must turn out to be the long-lost relative of everybody else. (top)
Sally, Old ( Oliver Twist ) Old hag present at Oliver's birth. She steals the locket and ring from Oliver's mother as she lays dying. She pawns the locket and as she is dying gives the pawn ticket to Mrs Corney. (top)
Sally ( Great Expectations ) Wife of Compeyson. (top)
Sally ( Sketches by Boz: London Recreations ) Niece of the Wit of the party, Uncle Bill, at a rural tea-garden. (top)
Sam ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Hostler at the Blue Dragon. (top)
Sam ( Pickwick Papers ) Coachman at the Golden Cross who mistakes Samuel Pickwick's notetaking and believes him to be an informant. Sam becomes violent until Alfred Jingle appears and restores calm. (top)
Samba, Quanko ( Pickwick Papers ) Faithful attendant of Sir Thomas Blazo who finally bowls out Alfred Jingle during a cricket match in the West Indies. (top)
Sampson, George ( Our Mutual Friend ) Longsuffering former beau of Bella Wilfer and present lover of her sister Lavinia. (top)
Sanders, Susannah ( Pickwick Papers ) Friend of Martha Bardell who testifies during the trial of Bardell and Pickwick. A big, fat, heavy-faced personage...Thought Mrs. Bardell fainted away on the morning in July, because Mr. Pickwick asked her to name the day; knew that she (witness) fainted away stone dead when Mr. Sanders asked her to name the day, and believed that every body as called herself a lady would do the same. (top)
Sapsea, Ethelinda (nee Brobity) ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood ) Deceased wife of Thomas Sapsea, dead three quarters of a year. In her maiden days as Miss Brobity she kept what Thomas described as... I will not call it the rival establishment to the establishment at the Nuns’ House opposite, but I will call it the other parallel establishment down town.. (top)
Sapsea, Thomas ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood ) PIX Pompous auctioneer turned mayor of Cloisterham. Accepting the Jackass as the type of self-sufficient stupidity and conceit—a custom, perhaps, like some few other customs, more conventional than fair—then the purest jackass in Cloisterham is Mr. Thomas Sapsea, Auctioneer...He possesses the great qualities of being portentous and dull, and of having a roll in his speech, and another roll in his gait; not to mention a certain gravely flowing action with his hands, as if he were presently going to Confirm the individual with whom he holds discourse. Much nearer sixty years of age than fifty, with a flowing outline of stomach, and horizontal creases in his waistcoat; reputed to be rich. (top)
Sarah ( Sketches by Boz: The Curate - The Old Lady - The Half-pay Captain ) Servant of the old lady. Just as neat and methodical as her mistress. (top)
Sauteuse, Madame ( Our Mutual Friend ) Georgiana Podsnap's dance instructor. (top)
Sawyer, Bob ( Pickwick Papers ) Medical student, and drinking buddy of Benjamin Allen. Sawyer and Allen, unsuccessful at a medical practice in Britain, receive surgical appointments with the East India Company and enjoy success in Bengal. Had about him that sort of slovenly smartness, and swaggering gait, which is peculiar to young gentlemen who smoke in the streets by day, shout and scream in the same by night, call waiters by their christian names, and do various other acts and deeds of an equally facetious description. He wore a pair of plaid trousers, and a large rough double-breasted waistcoat; and out of doors, carried a thick stick with a big top. He eschewed gloves, and looked, upon the whole, something like a dissipated Robinson Crusoe.
Geolinks: Guy's Hospital, Lant Street (top)
Scadder, Zephaniah ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) PIX Unscrupulous agent of the Eden Land Corporation in America who sells swamp land to Martin Chuzzlewit. He was a gaunt man in a huge straw hat, and a coat of green stuff. The weather being hot, he had no cravat, and wore his shirt collar wide open; so that every time he spoke something was seen to twitch and jerk up in his throat, like the little hammers in a harpsichord when the notes are struck. Perhaps it was the Truth feebly endeavouring to leap to his lips. If so, it never reached them. Two gray eyes lurked deep within this agent’s head, but one of them had no sight in it, and stood stock still. With that side of his face he seemed to listen to what the other side was doing. Thus each profile had a distinct expression; and when the moveable side was most in action, the rigid one was in its coldest state of watchfulness. It was like turning the man inside out, to pass to that view of his features in his liveliest mood, and see how calculating and intent they were. Each long black hair upon his head hung down as straight as any plummet line, but rumpled tufts were on the arches of his eyes, as if the crow whose foot was deeply printed in the corners, had pecked and torn them in a savage recognition of his kindred nature as a bird of prey. (top)
Scadgers, Lady ( Hard Times ) Mrs Sparsit's great aunt. An immensely fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for butcher's meat, and a mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen years. (top)
Scaley, Mr ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Bailiff who, along with Tom Tix, comes to take possession of the Mantalini's business for debt. A white hat, and a red neckerchief, and a broad round face, and a large head. (top)
Scarton, Charley ( Sketches by Boz: Private Theatres ) Takes the part of an English sailor in a private theatrical and fight a broadsword combat with six unknown bandits, at one and the same time (one theatrical sailor is always equal to half a dozen men at least). (top)
Scott, Tom ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) Quilp's boy, always at odds with his master, but expresses regret at Quilp's death. Tom has a penchant for standing on his head and walking on his hands. He later becomes a professional tumbler. (top)
Scrooge, Ebenezer ( A Christmas Carol ) PIX Probably Dickens' best known character, the miserly Scrooge, with his familiar cry of "Bah, Humbug!", is visited by the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley, who sends three more spirits in hopes of reforming Scrooge's heartless and penny-pinching ways. Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.
Geolinks: Bedlam, The City, Royal Exchange (top)
Seraphina ( Mrs Lirriper's Lodging ) Schoolmaster's daughter in Jemmy Jackman Lirriper's story. She was the most beautiful creature that ever was seen, and she had brown eyes, and she had brown hair all curling beautifully, and she had a delicious voice, and she was delicious altogether. (top)
Sharp, Mr ( David Copperfield ) First master at Salem House where David attends school. He was a limp, delicate-looking gentleman, I thought, with a good deal of nose, and a way of carrying his head on one side, as if it were a little too heavy for him. His hair was very smooth and wavy; but I was informed by the very first boy who came back that it was a wig (a second-hand one HE said), and that Mr Sharp went out every Saturday afternoon to get it curled. (top)
Sharpeye ( The Uncommercial Traveller - Poor Mercantile Jack ) One of the policeman who accompanies the Uncommercial Traveller to sailor's haunts in Liverpool. Sharp-eye, I soon had occasion to remark, had a skilful and quite professional way of opening doors - touched latches delicately, as if they were keys of musical instruments - opened every door he touched, as if he were perfectly confident that there was stolen property behind it - instantly insinuated himself, to prevent its being shut. (top)
Shepherd, Miss ( David Copperfield ) A passing infatuation of David Copperfield's while at Doctor Strong's school. A boarder at the Misses Nettingalls establishment. She is a little girl, in a spencer, with a round face and curly flaxen hair. (top)
Short (Short Trotter, Harris) ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) PIX Proprietor, along with partner Codlin, of a traveling Punch and Judy show that Nell and her grandfather meet on their travels through the English countryside. Short's job was performing with the puppets while his partner took the money. (top)
Sikes, Bill ( Oliver Twist ) PIX A vicious thief working on the fringes of Fagin's band of pickpockets. He uses Oliver in an attempt to burglarize the Maylie home. When Nancy tries to help Oliver she is found out by Fagin. Fagin relates the information to Sikes who murders Nancy. While fleeing police after the murder he accidentally hangs himself. He is accompanied by Bull's-Eye, his white shaggy dog with a face scratched and torn in twenty different places. A stoutly-built fellow of about five-and-thirty, in a black velveteen coat, very soiled drab breeches, lace-up half boots, and grey cotton stockings which inclosed a bulky pair of legs, with large swelling calves;--the kind of legs, which in such costume, always look in an unfinished and incomplete state without a set of fetters to garnish them. He had a brown hat on his head, and a dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck: with the long frayed ends of which he smeared the beer from his face as he spoke. He disclosed, when he had done so, a broad heavy countenance with a beard of three days' growth, and two scowling eyes; one of which displayed various parti-coloured symptoms of having been recently damaged by a blow.
Geolinks: Jacob's Island, Smithfield (top)
Simmery, Frank ( Pickwick Papers ) Associate and wagering partner of stockbroker Wilkins Flasher. A very smart young gentleman who wore his hat on his right whisker. (top)
Simmons ( Sketches by Boz: The Beadle - The Parish Engine - The Schoolmaster and The Election for Beadle ) Parish beadle. (top)
Simmons, Henrietta ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) Friend of Betsy Quilp and her mother. (top)
Simmons, William ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Wagon driver who gives Martin Chuzzlewit a ride from Salisbury to Hounslow. A red-faced burly young fellow; smart in his way, and with a good-humoured countenance. (top)
Simmonds, Miss ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Employee of Madame Mantalini. (top)
Simpson, Mr ( Sketches by Boz: The Boarding House ) Boarder at Mrs Tibbs' boarding house. He marries Julia Maplesone, another boarder, who later leaves him when he finds himself in deptor's prison. Mr Simpson, having the misfortune to lose his wife six weeks after marriage (by her eloping with an officer during his temporary sojourn in the Fleet Prison, in consequence of his inability to discharge her little mantua-maker's bill), and being disinherited by his father, who died soon afterwards, was fortunate enough to obtain a permanent engagement at a fashionable hair-cutter's; hairdressing being a science to which he had frequently directed his attention. (top)
Simon ( Barnaby Rudge ) Servant of the country gentleman who abuses Barnaby Rudge and his mother and wants to buy Grip. (top)
Single Gentleman, The ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) PIX Mysterious lodger of the Brasses who is trying to find Nell and her grandfather. He is revealed to be the brother of the grandfather and finds the pair shortly before his brother's death. In the original serialization of the novel in Master Humphrey's Clock the Single Gentleman turns out to be the original narrator of the story, Master Humphrey. brown-faced sun-burnt man. (top)
Skettles, Sir Barnet ( Dombey and Son ) Father of Master Skettles and husband of Lady Skettles. Expressed his personal consequence chiefly through an antique gold snuffbox, and a ponderous silk pocket-kerchief, which he had an imposing manner of drawing out of his pocket like a banner and using with both hands at once. Sir Barnet's object in life was constantly to extend the range of his acquaintance. (top)
Skettles, Lady ( Dombey and Son ) Wife of Sir Barnet and mother of Master Skettles. She has designs on Florence for her son. (top)
Skettles, Master ( Dombey and Son ) A fellow student at Blimber's academy with Paul Dombey. (top)
Skewton, Mrs (Cleopatra) ( Dombey and Son ) PIX Mother of Edith Granger who is 70-years-old but tries to appear much younger through the use of cosmetics and various devices. Dickens describes Mrs Skewton, in being dismantled for bed by her maid, taking off of paint, clothes, wig, etc as being tumbled into ruins like a house of painted cards. Edith resents her mother who has packaged Edith to lure rich gentlemen from a child. The discrepancy between Mrs Skewton's fresh enthusiasm of words, and forlornly faded manner, was hardly less observable than that between her age, which was about seventy, and her dress, which would have been youthful for twenty-seven. Her attitude in the wheeled chair (which she never varied) was one in which she had been taken in a barouche, some fifty years before, by a then fashionable artist who had appended to his published sketch the name of Cleopatra: in consequence of a discovery made by the critics of the time, that it bore an exact resemblance to that Princess as she reclined on board her galley. Mrs Skewton was a beauty then, and bucks threw wine-glasses over their heads by dozens in her honour. The beauty and the barouche had both passed away, but she still preserved the attitude, and for this reason expressly, maintained the wheeled chair and the butting page: there being nothing whatever, except the attitude, to prevent her from walking. (top)
Skiffins, Miss ( Great Expectations ) Wemmick's particular friend. Wemmick later surprises Pip on an outing by suddenly ("here's a church, lets go in") marrying Miss Skiffins. [Miss Skiffins] was of a wooden appearance, and was, like her escort, in the post-office branch of the service. She might have been some two or three years younger than Wemmick, and I judged her to stand possessed of portable property. The cut of her dress from the waist upward, both before and behind, made her figure very like a boy's kite; and I might have pronounced her gown a little too decidedly orange, and her gloves a little too intensely green. But she seemed to be a good sort of fellow, and showed a high regard for the Aged. I was not long in discovering that she was a frequent visitor at the Castle. (top)
Skiffins ( Great Expectations ) Brother of Miss Skiffins. An agent and accountant who helps Wemmick in aiding Pip to secretly set up Herbert Pocket in the shipping business with Clarriker. (top)
Skimpin, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Junior counselor to Serjeant Buzfuz in the Bardell and Pickwick trial. A promising young man of two or three and forty. (top)
Skimpole, Arethusa ( Bleak House ) Harold Skimpole's beauty daughter, married with two children. (top)
Skimpole, Harold ( Bleak House ) PIX Friend of John Jarndyce who claims he is a mere child and understands nothing of money. Through this smooth act he manages to have everyone else pay his way through life. Dickens modeled Skimpole on Leigh Hunt, causing a stir among Hunt and his friends. He is a musical man, an amateur, but might have been a professional. He is an artist too, an amateur, but might have been a professional. He is a man of attainments and of captivating manners. He has been unfortunate in his affairs, and unfortunate in his pursuits, and unfortunate in his family; but he don't care--he's a child! (top)
Skimpole, Kitty ( Bleak House ) Harold Skimpole's comedy daughter. (top)
Skimpole, Laura ( Bleak House ) Harold Skimpole's sentiment daughter. (top)
Skimpole, Mrs ( Bleak House ) Wife of Harold Skimpole who had once been a beauty but was now a delicate high-nosed invalid suffering under a complication of disorders. (top)
Slackbridge ( Hard Times ) Trade-union agitator seeking to unionize the workers of Coketown. He was not so honest, he was not so manly, he was not so good-humoured; he substituted cunning for their simplicity, and passion for their safe solid sense. An ill-made, high-shouldered man, with lowering brows, and his features crushed into an habitually sour expression, he contrasted most unfavourably, even in his mongrel dress, with the great body of his hearers in their plain working clothes. (top)
Sladdery, Mr ( Bleak House ) Librarian with high connexion. (top)
Slammer, Dr ( Pickwick Papers ) Surgeon of the 97th, almost duels Nathaniel Winkle whom he mistakes for Alfred Jingle. One of the most popular personages, in his own circle, present, was a little fat man, with a ring of upright black hair round his head, and an extensive bald plain on the top of it. (top)
Slammons, Mr ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Name by which Mrs Nickleby mistakenly calls Smike. (top)
Slasher, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Skillful surgeon discussed at Bob Sawyer's party. Took a boy's leg out of the socket last week--boy ate five apples and a gingerbread cake-- exactly two minutes after it was all over, boy said he wouldn't lie there to be made game of, and he'd tell his mother if they didn't begin. (top)
Slaughter, Lieutenant ( Sketches by Boz: The Tuggs's at Ramsgate ) Friend and partner-in-crime of the Waters. Two iron-shod boots and one gruff voice were heard by Mr Cymon to advance, and acknowledge the honour of the introduction. The sabre of the lieutenant rattled heavily upon the floor, as he seated himself at the table. (top)
Sleary, Mr ( Hard Times ) Proprietor of Sleary's Circus. Speaks with a lisp ("People mutht be amuthed"). He helps Tom Gradgrind escape abroad after the bank robbery. A stout man as already mentioned, with one fixed eye, and one loose eye, a voice (if it can be called so) like the efforts of a broken old pair of bellows, a flabby surface, and a muddled head which was never sober and never drunk...who was troubled with asthma, and whose breath came far too thick and heavy for the letter s. (top)
Sleary, Josephine ( Hard Times ) Daughter of Mr Sleary, she marries E. W. B. Childers. A pretty fair-haired girl of eighteen, who had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had made a will at twelve, which she always carried about with her, expressive of her dying desire to be drawn to the grave by the two piebald ponies. (top)
Sleek, Dr ( The Uncommercial Traveller - Birthday Celebrations ) Professor at the City Free School. (top)
Sliderskew, Peg ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Housekeeper of Arthur Gride. Peg is jealous when Gride plans to marry the much younger Madeline Bray. Peg steals documents relating to Madeline's inheritance which are recovered and help undo Gride. For the theft Peg is transported. A short, thin, weasen, blear-eyed old woman, palsy-stricken and hideously ugly.
Sloppy ( Our Mutual Friend ) Orphan who lives with Betty Higden so named because he was found on a sloppy night. Sloppy is taken in by the Boffins and helps expose the rascal Silas Wegg. He later becomes a carpenter. A very long boy, with a very little head...A love-child, parents never known; found in the street. (top)
Slout, Mr ( Oliver Twist ) Master of the workhouse where Oliver Twist is born. When he dies Mr Bumble takes his position. (top)
Slowboy, Tilly ( Cricket on the Hearth ) Angular and clumsy nurse to the Peerybingle's infant son. (top)
Sludberry, Thomas ( Sketches by Boz: Doctors' Commons ) Subject of a trial, accused of brawling with Michael Bumple during a vestry meeting in a parish church during a vestry meeting in a parish church. A little, red-faced, sly-looking, ginger-beer-seller. (top)
Sluffen, Mr ( Sketches by Boz: The First of May ) Celebrated speaker at the master sweeps anniversary dinner at White Conduit House. (top)
Slum, Mr ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) Poet who writes advertisements for Mrs Jarley's waxwork. His heart is broken when Jarley marries her driver George. A tallish gentleman with a hook nose and black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight in the sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all over but was now sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare - dressed too in ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg, and a pair of pumps in the winter of their existence. (top)
Slumkey, Samuel ( Pickwick Papers ) Blue candidate in the election at Eatanswill. He defeats the Buff candidate, Horatio Fitzkin. (top)
Slummintowkens Family ( Pickwick Papers ) Part of Mayor George Nupkins' social circle introduced to Captain Fitz-Marshall (Alfred Jingle). (top)
Slurk, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Editor of the Eatanswill Independent and sworn enemy of Mr Pott, editor of the Eatanswill Gazette. He was a shortish gentlemen, with very stiff black hair, cut in the porcupine or blacking-brush style, and standing stiff and straight all over his head; his aspect was pompous and threatening; his manner was peremptory; his eyes sharp and resdess; and his whole bearing bespoke a feeling of great confidence in himself, and a consciousness of immeasurable superiority over all other people. (top)
Slyme, Chevy ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Nephew of old Martin Chuzzlewit who works with Montague Tigg to try to squeeze money from the family. Later a London police officer. His sharp features being much pinched and nipped by long waiting in the cold, and his straggling red whiskers and frowzy hair being more than usually dishevelled from the same cause, he certainly looked rather unwholesome and uncomfortable than Shakspearian or Miltonic...[His] great abilities seemed one and all to point towards the sneaking quarter of the moral compass. (top)
Smallweed, Bartholomew (Bart) (Chick Weed) ( Bleak House ) Grandson of Joshua, twin brother of Judy, and friend of William Guppy. Whether Young Smallweed (metaphorically called Small and eke Chick Weed, as it were jocularly to express a fledgling) was ever a boy is much doubted in Lincoln's Inn. He is now something under fifteen and an old limb of the law. He is facetiously understood to entertain a passion for a lady at a cigar-shop in the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane and for her sake to have broken off a contract with another lady, to whom he had been engaged some years. He is a town-made article, of small stature and weazen features, but may be perceived from a considerable distance by means of his very tall hat. To become a Guppy is the object of his ambition. He dresses at that gentleman (by whom he is patronized), talks at him, walks at him, founds himself entirely on him. He is honoured with Mr Guppy's particular confidence and occasionally advises him, from the deep wells of his experience, on difficult points in private life. (top)
Smallweed, Joshua (Grandfather) ( Bleak House ) PIX Grandfather (Joshua) Smallweed is a usurer to whom George Rouncewell owes money. Smallweed uses this leverage to obtain from George a sample of Captain Hawdon's handwriting in an attempt to help Tulkinghorn learn Lady Dedlock's secret. He is in a helpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper, limbs, but his mind is unimpaired...The excellent old gentleman being at these times a mere clothes-bag with a black skull-cap on the top of it, does not present a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two operations at the hands of his granddaughter of being shaken up like a great bottle and poked and punched like a great bolster. (top)
Smallweed, Judith ( Bleak House ) PIX Granddaugher of Joshua and twin sister of Bart. She accompanies her grandfather wherever he goes in order to "shake him up." A lean female with a face like a pinched mask...Judy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played at any game. She once or twice fell into children's company when she was about ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with Judy, and Judy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like an animal of another species, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. It is very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. She has so rarely seen the thing done that the probabilities are strong the other way. Of anything like a youthful laugh, she certainly can have no conception. If she were to try one, she would find her teeth in her way, modelling that action of her face, as she has unconsciously modelled all its other expressions, on her pattern of sordid age. Such is Judy. (top)
Smallweed, Grandmother ( Bleak House ) Wife of Joshua, who throws cushions at her when she ventures to utter a sound. Weak in her intellect and...in a childish state. (top)
Smangle, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Fellow prisoner with Samuel Pickwick in the Fleet Prison. He was a tall fellow, with an olive complexion, long dark hair, and very thick bushy whiskers meeting under his chin. He wore no neckerchief, as he had been playing rackets all day, and his Open shirt collar displayed their full luxuriance. On his head he wore one of the common eighteenpenny French skull-caps, with a gaudy tassel dangling therefrom, very happily in keeping with a common fustian coat. His legs, which, being long, were afflicted with weakness, graced a pair of Oxford-mixture trousers, made to show the full symmetry of those limbs. Being somewhat negligently braced, however, and, moreover, but imperfectly buttoned, they fell in a series of not the most graceful folds over a pair of shoes sufficiently down at heel to display a pair of very soiled white stockings. There was a rakish, vagabond smartness, and a kind of boastful rascality, about the whole man, that was worth a mine of gold. (top)
Smart, Tom ( Pickwick Papers ) Employee of Bilson and Slum who marries a widow with property in The Bagman's Tale. (top)
Smiggers, Joseph ( Pickwick Papers ) Perpetual Vice President - Member Pickwick Club. (top)
Smauker, John ( Pickwick Papers ) Footman of Angelo Cyrus Bantam who invites Sam Weller to to 'a friendly "swarry", consisting of a boiled leg of mutton with the usual trimmings.' A powdered-headed footman in gorgeous livery, and of symmetrical stature. (top)
Smif, Putnam (America Junior) ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Shopkeeper Messrs Hancock & Floby, Dry Goods Store who writes to young Martin Chuzzlewit in America seeking patronage. 'I am young, and ardent. For there is a poetry in wildness, and every alligator basking in the slime is in himself an Epic, self-contained. I aspirate for fame. It is my yearning and my thirst. (top)
Smifser ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Former suitor of Mrs Nickleby. (top)
Smike ( Nicholas Nickleby ) PIX Abandoned as a child at Dotheboys Hall in the care of the evil Squeers, Smike is mistreated for years before being rescued by Nicholas. He travels to Portsmouth with Nicholas and performs in Crummles stage troupe and is welcomed as part of the family when he and Nicholas return to London. He is briefly retaken in London by Squeers and escapes with the help of John Browdie. Smike later dies from the treatment he received as a child. After his death it is discovered that he was Ralph Nickleby's son, making him the cousin of Nicholas and Kate. A tall lean boy...although he could not have been less than eighteen or nineteen years old, and was tall for that age, he wore a skeleton suit, such as is usually put upon very little boys, and which, though most absurdly short in the arms and legs, was quite wide enough for his attenuated frame. In order that the lower part of his legs might be in perfect keeping with this singular dress, he had a very large pair of boots, originally made for tops, which might have been once worn by some stout farmer, but were now too patched and tattered for a beggar. Heaven knows how long he had been there, but he still wore the same linen which he had first taken down; for, round his neck, was a tattered child's frill, only half concealed by a coarse, man's neckerchief. He was lame... (top)
Smith Family ( Sketches by Boz: Mrs Joseph Porter ) Audience member at the Gattleton's private theatrical. (top)
Smith, Mr ( Sketches by Boz: A Parliamentary Sketch ) New member of Parliament. (top)
Smith, Mr ( Sketches by Boz: Thoughts About People ) Clerk in the City and lives in Islington. He was a tall, thin, []pale person, in a black coat, scanty gray trousers, little pinched-up gaiters, and brown beaver gloves. He had an umbrella in his hand - not for use, for the day was fine - but, evidently, because he always carried one to the office in the morning. (top)
Smithers, Emily ( Sketches by Boz: Sentiment ) Student at Minerva House, run by the Crumpton sisters. The belle of the house. (top)
Smithers, Miss ( Pickwick Papers ) Inquisitive boarder at Westgate House in Bury St Edmunds. (top)
Smithers, Robert ( Sketches by Boz: Making a Night of it ) City clerk who, along with his friend, Thomas Potter, decides to take their paycheck and spend it by going out on the town...with unsatisfactory results. Their incomes were limited, but their friendship was unbounded. They lived in the same street, walked into town every morning at the same hour, dined at the same slap-bang every day, and revelled in each other's company every night. They were knit together by the closest ties of intimacy and friendship, or, as Mr Thomas Potter touchingly observed they were ‘thick-and-thin pals, and nothing but it.’ (top)
Smithie, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Official at the Chatham dockyard who attends the charity ball at the Bull Inn in Rochester with his wife and daughters. (top)
Smivey, chicken ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Name given to young Martin Chuzzlewit by Montague Tigg to preserve his anonymity at the pawn shop. (top)
Smorltork, Count ( Pickwick Papers ) Guest at Mrs Leo Hunter's soiree who is gathering information for his "great work on England." A well-whiskered individual in a foreign uniform. (top)
Smouch, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Assistant to Deputy Sheriff Namby. A shabby-looking man in a brown greatcoat shorn of divers buttons. (top)
Smuggins, Mr ( Sketches by Boz: The Streets – Night ) Popular singer at the local music house. sings a comic song, with a fal-de-ral – tol-de-rol chorus at the end of every verse, much longer than the verse itself. (top)
Snagsby, Mr ( Bleak House ) Law stationer near Chancery Lane who hires Nemo (Capt Hawdon) to do some copy work. Former partner of Peffer, deceased. "Not to put too fine a point upon it," a favourite apology for plain speaking with Mr Snagsby. Snagsby's office is in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street...He is a mild, bald, timid man with a shining head and a scrubby clump of black hair sticking out at the back. He tends to meekness and obesity.
Geolinks: Chancery Lane (top)
Snagsby, Mrs ( Bleak House ) Mr Snagsby's jealous and inquisitive wife. She is the niece of Snagsby's deceased partner, Peffer. She is a zealous supporter of Rev Chadband. She manages the money, reproaches the tax-gatherers, appoints the times and places of devotion on Sundays, licenses Mr Snagsby's entertainments, and acknowledges no responsibility as to what she thinks fit to provide for dinner.
Geolinks: Chancery Lane (top)
Snawley ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Father who puts his two step-sons in Squeers' school, Dotheboys Hall. Snawley later poses as Smike's father in Ralph Nickleby's scheme to get the runaway boy back. Mrs Snawley later forces him to expose Ralph's plan. A sleek, flat-nosed man, clad in sombre garments, and long black gaiters, and bearing in his countenance an expression of much mortification and sanctity; so, his smiling without any obvious reason was the more remarkable. (top)
Snawley, Mrs ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Wife of Mr Snawley. She defies Ralph Nickleby and proves the undoing of his, and her husband's, schemes. (top)
Snevellicci, Miss ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Actress in Crummles' acting troupe. She makes a play for Nicholas Nickleby without success and was later happily married to an affluent young wax-chandler who had supplied the theatre with candles. Could do anything, from a medley dance to Lady Macbeth, and also always played some part in blue silk knee-smalls at her benefit. (top)
Snevellicci, Mr ( Nicholas Nickleby ) An actor and Miss Snevellicci's papa. An uncommonly fine man ... with a hook nose, and a white forehead, and curly black hair, and high cheek bones, and altogether quite a handsome face, only a little pimply as though with drinking. He had a very broad chest had Miss Snevellicci's papa, and he wore a threadbare blue dress-coat buttoned with gilt buttons tight across it...[He] had been in the profession ever since he had first played the ten-year-old imps in the Christmas pantomimes; who could sing a little, dance a little, fence a little, act a little, and do everything a little, but not much; who had been sometimes in the ballet, and sometimes in the chorus, at every theatre in London; who was always selected in virtue of his figure to play the military visitors and the speechless noblemen; who always wore a smart dress, and came on arm-in-arm with a smart lady in short petticoats,--and always did it too with such an air that people in the pit had been several times known to cry out 'Bravo!' under the impression that he was somebody. (top)
Snevellicci, Mrs ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Miss Snevellicci's mama. Was still a dancer, with a neat little figure and some remains of good looks. (top)
Snewkes, Mr ( Nicholas Nickleby ) A friend of the Kenwigs. (top)
Snicks, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Life Office Secretary, a guest at Mr Perker's dinner party. (top)
Snigsworth, Lord ( Our Mutual Friend ) Second cousin and benefactor of Melvin Twemlow. Also a distant relation of Fascination Fledgeby. Lives at Snigsworthy Park. (top)
Snipes, Wilmott ( Pickwick Papers ) Ensign in the 97th Regiment at Rochester. Attends the charity ball at the Bull Inn in Rochester. "Who's that little boy with the light hair and pink eyes, in a fancy dress?" inquired Mr. Tupman. "Hush, pray–pink eyes–fancy dress–little boy–nonsense–Ensign 97th.–Honourable Wilmot Snipe–great family–Snipes–very." (top)
Snitchey and Craggs ( The Battle of Life ) Country lawyers who handle the legal affairs of Dr. Jeddler and Michael Warden. (top)
Snobb, Mr ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Honourable business associate of Ralph Nickleby. A gentleman with the neck of a stork and the legs of no animal in particular. (top)
Snobee, Mr ( Sketches by Boz: The Parlour Orator ) Candidate for Parliament recommended by Mr Wilson. Opposed by Mr Rogers. "Mr Snobee," said Mr Wilson, "is a fit and proper person to represent the borough in Parliament." "Prove it," says I. "He is a friend to Reform," says Mr Wilson. "Prove it," says I. "The abolitionist of the national debt, the unflinching opponent of pensions, the uncompromising advocate of the negro, the reducer of sinecures and the duration of Parliaments; the extender of nothing but the suffrages of the people," says Mr Wilson. "Prove it," says I. "His acts prove it," says he. "Prove THEM," says I." (top)
Snodgrass, Augustus ( Pickwick Papers ) PIX A member of the Pickwick club and party to the adventures of Samuel Pickwick's travels. Snodgrass fancies himself a poet, but has written no poetry. He falls in love with Emily Wardle and marries her at the end of the story. The poetic Snodgrass, poetically enveloped in a mysterious blue cloak with a canine-skin collar. (top)
Snubbin, Serjeant ( Pickwick Papers ) Lead councel for Samuel Pickwick in the breach of promise trial against Martha Bardell. A lantern-faced sallow-complexioned man, of about five-and-forty, or–as the novels say–he might be fifty. He had that dull-looking boiled eye which is so often to be seen in the heads of people who have applied themselves during many years to a weary and laborious course of study; and which would have been sufficient, without the additional eye-glass which dangled from a broad black riband round his neck, to warn a stranger that he was very near-sighted. His hair was thin and weak, which was partly attributable to his having never devoted much time to its arrangement, and partly to his having worn for five-and-twenty years the forensic wig which hung on a block beside him. The marks of hair-powder on his coat-collar, and the ill-washed and worse tied white neckerchief round his throat, showed that he had not found leisure since he left the court to make any alteration in his dress; while the slovenly style of the remainder of his costume warranted the inference that his personal appearance would not have been very much improved if he had. (top)
Snuffim, Sir Tumley ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Julia Wititterly's doctor. (top)
Snuphanuph, Dowager Lady ( Pickwick Papers ) Member of Bath society whom Samuel Pickwick plays whist with at the Bath ball. Fat old lady. (top)
Sophia ( Great Expectations ) Housemaid to the Pockets. (top)
Sophia ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Spoiled daughter of the brass and copper founder for whom Ruth Pinch works as governess. (top)
Sophy (Willing Sophy) ( Mrs Lirriper's Lodging ) Maid at Mrs Lirriper's boarding house. The willingest girl that ever came into a house half-starved poor thing, a girl so willing that I called her Willing Sophy down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful but always smiling with a black face. (top)
Sophy ( Doctor Marigold ) Mistreated deaf-and-dumb daughter of Mim, the owner of a travelling circus. Doctor Marigold bargains for and adopts the girl and names her Sophy after his deceased daughter. He later has the girl educated and builds a library of books for her to read, including one that he writes himself called Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions. Sophy falls in love with a deaf-and-dumb young man whom she marries and the couple move to China where the man works as a clerk in a merchant house. After five years they return and Doctor Marigold meets his granddaughter. (top)
Sowerberry, Mr ( Oliver Twist ) Undertaker to whom Oliver is apprenticed. Oliver is mistreated and runs away to London. A tall, gaunt, large-jointed man, attired in a suit of threadbare black, with darned cotton stockings of the same colour, and shoes to answer (top)
Sowerberry, Mrs ( Oliver Twist ) Wife of Mr Sowerberry. A short, thin, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance (top)
Sownds, Mr ( Dombey and Son ) Beadle at the church where Mr Dombey marries Edith Granger and later where Walter Gay marries Florence Dombey. (top)
Sparkins, Horatio ( Sketches by Boz: Horatio Sparkins ) Young man who presents himself as upper crust, taking in the Maldertons, when in reality he is Mr Samuel Smith, the assistant at a ‘cheap shop;’ the junior partner in a slippery firm of some three weeks' existence (a dirty-looking ticketed linen-draper's shop: Messrs Jones, Spruggins, and Smith's, of Tottenham-court-road). (top)
Sparkler, Edmund ( Little Dorrit ) Son of Mrs Merdle by a former marriage. A man of limited talents, he offers marriage to 'all manner of undesirable young ladies' finally marries Fanny Dorrit. Edmund and Fanny lose all in the Merdle banking scam. He was of a chuckle-headed high-shouldered make, with a general appearance of being, not so much a young man as a swelled boy. (top)
Sparsit, Mrs ( Hard Times ) Housekeeper of Bounderby with aristocratic connections by way of her great aunt Lady Scadgers. She is a busybody, causing dissension between Bounderby and his wife Louisa Gradgrind. In her elderly days, with the Coriolanian style of nose and the dense black eyebrows. (top)
Specks, Joe ( The Uncommercial Traveller - Dullborough Town ) Childhood friend of the Uncommercial Traveller whom he meets upon his return to his home town. Joe has become a repected physician and had married another old schoolmate, Lucy Green. Specks, however, illuminated Dullborough with the rays of interest that I wanted and should otherwise have missed in it, and linked its present to its past, with a highly agreeable chain. (top)
Spenlow, Clarissa ( David Copperfield ) PIX Elder of Dora's spinster aunts with whom she goes to live after her father dies. Clarissa and Lavinia (the younger sister) were estranged from Francis, their brother, because of a slight they received at the hands of his deceased wife. Mr Spenlow had evidently been the youngest of the family; that there was a disparity of six or eight years between the two sisters...They were dressed alike, but this sister wore her dress with a more youthful air than the other; and perhaps had a trifle more frill, or tucker, or brooch, or bracelet, or some little thing of that kind, which made her look more lively. They were both upright in their carriage, formal, precise, composed, and quiet. (top)
Spenlow, Dora ( David Copperfield ) PIX Daughter of David Copperfield's employer, Francis Spenlow. She and David are married and David tries to teach her to keep house, but she has no head for it. She becomes ill with an unspecified illness and dies young. She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don't know what she was - anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her. Dickens based Dora on Maria Beadnell, his first love. (top)
Spenlow, Francis ( David Copperfield ) PIX Proctor at Doctor's Commons where David Copperfield is apprenticed and father of Dora. He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned up, mighty trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of pains with his whiskers, which were accurately curled. (top)
Spenlow, Lavinia ( David Copperfield ) PIX Younger of Dora's spinster aunts with whom she goes to live after her father dies. Clarissa (the elder sister) and Lavinia were estranged from Francis, their brother, because of a slight they received at the hands of his deceased wife. I discovered afterwards that Miss Lavinia was an authority in affairs of the heart, by reason of there having anciently existed a certain Mr. Pidger, who played short whist, and was supposed to have been enamoured of her. My private opinion is, that this was entirely a gratuitous assumption, and that Pidger was altogether innocent of any such sentiments - to which he had never given any sort of expression that I could ever hear of. Both Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa had a superstition, however, that he would have declared his passion, if he had not been cut short in his youth (at about sixty) by over-drinking his constitution, and over-doing an attempt to set it right again by swilling Bath water. They had a lurking suspicion even, that he died of secret love; though I must say there was a picture of him in the house with a damask nose, which concealment did not appear to have ever preyed upon. (top)
Spiker, Mr and Mrs ( David Copperfield ) Dinner guest of the Waterbrooks. A very awful lady in a black velvet dress, and a great black velvet hat, whom I remember as looking like a near relation of Hamlet's - say his aunt. Mrs Henry Spiker was this lady's name; and her husband was there too: so cold a man, that his head, instead of being grey, seemed to be sprinkled with hoar-frost. (top)
Spiller ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Artist who painted a portrait of Seth Pecksniff. (top)
Spoker ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Artist who sculpted a bust of Seth Pecksniff and considered to be a very good likeness. (top)
Spottletoe, Mr ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Relative of old Martin Chuzzlewit by marriage, Mrs Spottletoe is old Martin's niece, with designs on inheriting his money. The Spottletoes are present at Charity Pecksniff's abortive wedding ceremony. Was so bald and had such big whiskers, that he seemed to have stopped his hair, by the sudden application of some powerful remedy, in the very act of falling off his head, and to have fastened it irrevocably on his face. (top)
Spottletoe, Mrs ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Wife of Mr Spottletoe and niece of old Martin Chuzzlewit with designs to inherit his money. Much too slim for her years, and of a poetical constitution. (top)
Sprodgkin, Sally ( Our Mutual Friend ) Troublesome member of Rev Frank Milvey’s congregation. Portentous old parishioner of the female gender, who was one of the plagues of their lives, and with whom they bore with most exemplary sweetness and good-humour, notwithstanding her having an infection of absurdity about her, that communicated itself to everything with which, and everybody with whom, she came in contact. (top)
Sprouter ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Student at Dotheboys Hall. (top)
Spruggins, Mrs ( Sketches by Boz: The Election for Beadle ) Wife of beadle candidate Thomas Spruggins who has born him ten children. (top)
Spruggins, Thomas ( Sketches by Boz: The Election for Beadle ) Candidate for beadle whose ten small children make him uniquely qualified. He gets his party's nomination but loses to Bung. A little thin man, in rusty black, with a long pale face, and a countenance expressive of care and fatigue, which might either be attributed to the extent of his family or the anxiety of his feelings. (top)
Spyers, Jem ( Oliver Twist ) Police officer who arrests Conkey Chickweed in a story told by Blathers. (top)
Squeers, Fanny ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Daughter of Wackford Squeers. When Nicholas Nickleby becomes her father's assistant she falls madly in love with him, telling her friend Matilda Price that they are practically engaged. Nicholas wants nothing to do with her. Not tall like her mother, but short like her father; from the former she inherited a voice of harsh quality; from the latter a remarkable expression of the right eye, something akin to having none at all. (top)
Squeers, Wackford ( Nicholas Nickleby ) PIX Proprietor of Dotheboys Hall, he takes in boys not wanted by their families and mistreats them. Nicholas Nickleby becomes his assistant master and sees the way he treats his charges, gives him a sound thrashing, and leaves. Squeers seeks revenge and conspires with Ralph Nickleby. He is eventually undone, imprisoned, and transported. Mr Squeers's appearance was not prepossessing. He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favour of two. The eye he had, was unquestionably useful, but decidedly not ornamental: being of a greenish grey, and in shape resembling the fan-light of a street door. The blank side of his face was much wrinkled and puckered up, which gave him a very sinister appearance, especially when he smiled, at which times his expression bordered closely on the villainous. His hair was very flat and shiny, save at the ends, where it was brushed stiffly up from a low protruding forehead, which assorted well with his harsh voice and coarse manner. He was about two or three and fifty, and a trifle below the middle size; he wore a white neckerchief with long ends, and a suit of scholastic black; but his coat sleeves being a great deal too long, and his trousers a great deal too short, he appeared ill at ease in his clothes, and as if he were in a perpetual state of astonishment at finding himself so respectable.
Squeers, Wackford Jr ( Nicholas Nickleby ) PIX Son of schoolmaster Wackford Squeers. Little Wackford is kept fat as an advertisement of the supposed plenty provided at the school. He is spoiled by being given any gifts intended for pupils of the school by their families. A striking likeness of his father. (top)
Squeers, Mrs ( Nicholas Nickleby ) PIX Wife of Wackford Squeers. While Mr Squeers attempts to keep his cruelty in check, in order to keep up appearances, Mrs Squeers is openly cruel. The lady, who was of a large raw-boned figure, was about half a head taller than Mr Squeers, and was dressed in a dimity night-jacket; with her hair in papers; she had also a dirty nightcap on, relieved by a yellow cotton handkerchief which tied it under the chin. The only difference between them was, that Mrs Squeers waged war against the enemy openly and fearlessly, and that Squeers covered his rascality, even at home, with a spice of his habitual deceit; as if he really had a notion of someday or other being able to take himself in, and persuade his own mind that he was a very good fellow. (top)
Squod, Phil ( Bleak House ) PIX George Rouncewell's ugly little assistant at the shooting gallery. Formerly a traveling tinker. Reports his age as "something with an eight in it..." And ugly enough to be made a show on! Mr George reports the Phil has never hurt anybody but himself. (top)
Stables, Bob ( Bleak House ) Poor relation of Sir Leicester Dedlock who can make warm mashes with the skill of a veterinary surgeon and is a better shot than most gamekeepers. (top)
Stagg ( Barnaby Rudge ) Blind member of the 'Prentice Knights with Simon Tappertit. He joins Rudge in trying to extort money from Mary Rudge. Killed when he tries to run from officers arresting Hugh, Barnaby, and Rudge. (top)
Staple, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Member of the Dingley Dell cricket team who speaks out in praise of Mr Luffey and Mr Struggles after losing the match with the All-Muggleton team. A little man with a puffy Say-nothing-to-me,-or-I'll-contradict-you sort of countenance, who remained very quiet; occasionally looking round him when the conversation slackened, as if he contemplated putting in something very weighty: and now and then bursting into a short cough of inexpressible grandeur. (top)
Starleigh, Justice ( Pickwick Papers ) Judge in the trial of Bardell and Pickwick. A most particularly short man, and so fat, that he seemed all face and waistcoat. He rolled in, upon two little turned legs, and having bobbed gravely to the bar, who bobbed gravely to him, put his little legs underneath his table, and his little three-cornered hat upon it; and when Mr. Justice Stareleigh had done this, all you could see of him was two queer little eyes, one broad pink face, and somewhere about half of a big and very comical-looking wig. (top)
Startop ( Great Expectations ) Pip's fellow student at Matthew Pocket's. He helps Herbert rescue Pip from Orlick and helps Herbert row the boat during the attempt to get Magwitch out of the country. Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, and was...exactly like his mother.
Steerforth, James ( David Copperfield ) PIX Friend of David Copperfield at the Salem House school where his engaging charm makes him everyone's favorite. David later runs into him again in London and he accompanies David on a trip to Yarmouth where he charms Emily into eloping with him. They go abroad and Steerforth soon tires of Emily and deserts her. He is later drowned in a shipwreck where Ham Peggotty, from whom Steerforth stole Emily away, dies trying to save him. This boy, who was reputed to be a great scholar, and was very good-looking, and at least half-a-dozen years my senior.
Geolinks: British Museum (top)
Steerforth, Mrs ( David Copperfield ) PIX Doting mother of James Steerforth. An elderly lady, though not very far advanced in years, with a proud carriage and a handsome face (top)
Stetta, Violetta ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) Opera singer and subject of a story Mr Chuckster tells Mr and Mrs Garland in which her income, promised by the Duke of Thigsberry, is in question. (top)
Stiggins, Reverend ( Pickwick Papers ) Hypocritical Deputy Shepherd (from the Dorking branch) of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association. Exposed by Tony Weller whose wife Susan is one of Stiggins' flock. A man in thread-bare black clothes, with a back almost as long and stiff as that of the chair itself, who caught Sam's most particular and especial attention at once. He was a prim-faced, red-nosed man, with a long thin countenance and a semi-rattlesnake sort of eye—rather sharp, but decidedly bad. He wore very short trousers, and black-cotton stockings, which, like the rest of his apparel, were particularly rusty. His looks were starched, but his white neckerchief was not; and its long limp ends straggled over his closely-buttoned waistcoat in a very uncouth and unpicturesque fashion. A pair of old, worn, beaver gloves, a broad-brimmed hat, and a faded green umbrella, with plenty of whalebone sticking through the bottom, as if to counterbalance the want of a handle at the top, lay on a chair beside him; and being disposed in a very tidy and careful manner, seemed to imply that the red-nosed man, whoever he was, had no intention of going away in a hurry. (top)
Stiltstalking ( Little Dorrit ) Aristocratic family from which Mrs Tite Barnacle descends. Includes Augustus, Lord Lancaster, and Tudor. (top)
Straudenheim ( The Uncommercial Traveller - Travelling Abroad ) Shopkeeper in Strasbourg who entertains the Uncommercial Traveller as he watches from his window across the street. He wore a black velvet skull-cap, and looked usurious and rich. A large-lipped, pear-nosed old man, with white hair, and keen eyes, though near-sighted. He was writing at a desk, was Straudenheim, and ever and again left off writing, put his pen in his mouth, and went through actions with his right hand, like a man steadying piles of cash. Five-franc pieces, Straudenheim, or golden Napoleons? A jeweller, Straudenheim, a dealer in money, a diamond merchant, or what? (top)
Strong, Annie ( David Copperfield ) PIX Pretty, young (a girl of twenty) wife of Doctor Strong. Annie is suspected of having an affair with her cousin, Jack Maldon. [Doctor Strong] had not yet been married twelve months to the beautiful young lady...whom he had married for love; for she had not a sixpence, and had a world of poor relations (so our fellows said) ready to swarm the Doctor out of house and home. (top)
Strong, Doctor ( David Copperfield ) PIX Headmaster at the school David Copperfield attends in Canterbury. He is chiefly concerned with assembling his Greek dictionary. Looked almost as rusty...as the tall iron rails and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and heavy as the great stone urns that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of the red-brick wall, at regular distances all round the court, like sublimated skittles, for Time to play at. He was in his library (I mean Doctor Strong was), with his clothes not particularly well brushed, and his hair not particularly well combed; his knee-smalls unbraced; his long black gaiters unbuttoned; and his shoes yawning like two caverns on the hearth-rug. Turning upon me a lustreless eye, that reminded me of a long-forgotten blind old horse who once used to crop the grass, and tumble over the graves, in Blunderstone churchyard, he said he was glad to see me: and then he gave me his hand; which I didn’t know what to do with, as it did nothing for itself. (top)
Struggles, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Member of the Dingley Dell cricket team. (top)
Stryver ( A Tale of Two Cities ) PIX Barrister who defends Charles Darnay in his trial for treason with assistance from his friend Sydney Carton. Stryver intends to ask Lucie Manette to marry him until counseled by Jarvis Lorry. A man of little more than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing way of shouldering himself (morally and physically) into companies and conversations, that argued well for his shouldering his way up in life.
Geolinks: The Temple, Vauxhall Gardens (top)
Stubbs, Mrs ( Sketches by Boz: The Steam Excursion ) Percy Noakes' laundress. ...a dirty old woman with an inflamed countenance. (top)
Sulliwin, Sarah ( Sketches by Boz: Seven Dials ) Charwoman in Seven Dials whose husband bought a drink for another women causing a row with Mary.
Geolinks: Seven Dials (top)
Summerson, Esther ( Bleak House ) PIX Principal character in the story. She is brought up an orphan by her aunt, Miss Barbery. On her aunt's death she is adopted by John Jarndyce and becomes companions to his wards, Ada Clare and Richard Carstone. Later in the story it is revealed that Esther is the illegitimate daughter of Captain Hawdon and Lady Dedlock. John Jarndyce falls in love with her and asked her to marry him. She consents out of respect for Jarndyce but during the engagement she falls in love with Allan Woodcourt. When Jarndyce learns of her feelings for Allan he releases her from the engagement and she marries Woodcourt.
John Jarndyce:"You are clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives here, my dear," he returned playfully; "the little old woman of the child's (I don't mean Skimpole's) rhyme:
'Little old woman, and whither so high?'
'To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.'
You will sweep them so neatly out of OUR sky in the course of your housekeeping, Esther, that one of these days we shall have to abandon the growlery and nail up the door."
Esther: This was the beginning of my being called Old Woman, and Little Old Woman, and Cobweb, and Mrs Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and Dame Durden, and so many names of that sort that my own name soon became quite lost among them.
Geolinks: Oxford Street, Soho Square (top)
Susan ( Oliver Twist ) Mrs Mann's maid at the baby farm where Oliver is raised to age 9. (top)
Swallow ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Owner of the coach that Mrs Squeers takes in pursuit of Smike. (top)
Sweedlepipe, Paul (Poll) ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) PIX Landlord of Sairey Gamp, barber, and bird-fancier. Poll was also a friend of young Bailey and grieves bitterly when it is thought that Bailey had been killed. He was a little elderly man, with a clammy cold right hand, from which even rabbits and birds could not remove the smell of shaving-soap. Poll had something of the bird in his nature; not of the hawk or eagle, but of the sparrow, that builds in chimney-stacks, and inclines to human company. He was not quarrelsome, though, like the sparrow; but peaceful, like the dove. In his walk he strutted; and, in this respect, he bore a faint resemblance to the pigeon, as well as in a certain prosiness of speech, which might, in its monotony, be likened to the cooing of that bird. He was very inquisitive; and when he stood at his shop-door in the evening-tide, watching the neighbours, with his head on one side, and his eye cocked knowingly, there was a dash of the raven in him...Poll Sweedlepipe’s house was one great bird's nest. Game-cocks resided in the kitchen; pheasants wasted the brightness of their golden plumage on the garret; bantams roosted in the cellar; owls had possession of the bed-room; and specimens of all the smaller fry of birds chirrupped and twittered in the shop. The staircase was sacred to rabbits. There, in hutches of all shapes and kinds, made from old packing-cases, boxes, drawers, and tea-chests, they increased in a prodigious degree, and contributed their share towards that complicated whiff which, quite impartially, and without distinction of persons, saluted every nose that was put into Sweedlepipe's easy shaving-shop. (top)
Sweeney, Mrs ( The Uncommercial Traveller - Chambers ) Laundress at Gray's Inn who obtained the position because of her late husband's long and valuable services as a ticket-porter there. (top)
Swidger, Milly ( The Haunted Man ) Wife of William and the only member of the family not touched by Redlaw's gift of forgetting past sorrows. Her inherent goodness, based on remembrance of her lost child, reverses the effects of this curse in her family, the Tetterby family, and Edmund Longford. (top)
Swidger, Philip ( The Haunted Man ) Eighty-seven year-old patriarch of the Swidger family. He loses his present happiness, based on his memories, when touched by Redlaw's gift. He is restored to happiness by Milly Swidger. (top)
Swidger, William ( The Haunted Man ) Caretaker of the university where Redlaw teaches chemistry. His family is adversely effected by Redlaw's gift of forgetting past sorrows. The adverse effects of this 'gift' are finally reversed by William's wife, Milly. (top)
Swills, Mr ( Bleak House ) Comic vocalist professionally engaged by Mr J. G. Bogsby to perform at the Sol's Arms tavern. (top)
Swiveller, Rebecca ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) Dick Swiveller's rich aunt from Cheselbourne in Dorsetshire. She dies and leaves him a reduced inheritance of one hundred and fifty pounds a year. (top)
Swiveller, Dick ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) PIX Friend of Fred Trent, Swiveller has designs to marry Fred's sister, Nell Trent, but is encouraged to wait until Nell has inherited her grandfather's money. When Nell and her grandfather leave London Swiveller is befriended by Quilp who helps him gain employment with the Brasses. While at the Brasses he meets their little half-starved servant the Marchioness. He becomes aware of the Brasses villainy and, with the Marchioness' help, exposes a plot to frame Kit Nubbles. Swiveller later inherits money from his aunt, puts the Marchioness through school, and later marries her. It was perhaps not very unreasonable to suspect from what had already passed, that Mr Swiveller was not quite recovered from the effects of the powerful sunlight to which he had made allusion; but if no such suspicion had been awakened by his speech, his wiry hair, dull eyes, and sallow face would still have been strong witnesses against him. His attire was not, as he had himself hinted, remarkable for the nicest arrangement, but was in a state of disorder which strongly induced the idea that he had gone to bed in it. It consisted of a brown body-coat with a great many brass buttons up the front and only one behind, a bright check neckerchief, a plaid waistcoat, soiled white trousers, and a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The breast of his coat was ornamented with an outside pocket from which there peeped forth the cleanest end of a very large and very ill-favoured handkerchief; his dirty wristbands were pulled on as far as possible and ostentatiously folded back over his cuffs; he displayed no gloves, and carried a yellow cane having at the top a bone hand with the semblance of a ring on its little finger and a black ball in its grasp. With all these personal advantages (to which may be added a strong savour of tobacco-smoke, and a prevailing greasiness of appearance) Mr Swiveller leant back in his chair with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and occasionally pitching his voice to the needful key, obliged the company with a few bars of an intensely dismal air, and then, in the middle of a note, relapsed into his former silence.
Geolinks: Drury Lane (top)
Swosser, Captain ( Bleak House ) Mrs Badger's first husband whom she married when she was "barely twenty." Of the Royal Navy...was a very distinguished officer indeed. (top)
