Charles Dickens' Best Characters

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Cross-linked list of over 1500 Charles Dickens characters

See Charles Dickens' characters sorted by the novel in which they appear

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Charles Dickens' characters are some of the most memorable in fiction. Often these characters were based on people that he knew: Wilkins Micawber (Pugh, 1912, p. 182) and William Dorrit (Pugh, 1912, p. 339) (his father), Mrs Nickleby (Pugh, 1912, p. 186) (his mother).

There were a few instances where Dickens based the character too closely on the original and got into trouble, as in the case of Harold Skimpole in Bleak House, based on Leigh Hunt (Ackroyd, 1990, p. 651), and Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield, based on his wife's dwarf chiropodist (Johnson, 1952, p. 674-675).

Characters such as Scrooge (miserly) and Pecksniff (hypocritically affecting benevolence) became defining terms in everyday vernacular.

Charles Dickens' friend and biographer, John Forster, said that Dickens made "characters real existences, not by describing them but by letting them describe themselves" (Forster, 1899, v. 2, p. 343).

Names of Dickens' characters are some of the most unique in fiction. Characters such as Sweedlepipe, Honeythunder, Bumble, Pumblechook, and M'Choakumchild are recognizable as Dickensian even by those unfamiliar with the stories.

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