Charles Dickens' Characters A-B
A - B
Aaron, Mr ( Our Mutual Friend ) Name given to Riah by Eugene Wrayburn. (top)
Adams ( David Copperfield ) Top student when David Copperfield attends Dr. Strong's school in Canterbury. One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very affable and good-humoured; and he showed me my place, and presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put me at my ease, if anything could. (top)
Adams, Captain ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Second for Lord Frederick Verisopht in the duel with Sir Mulberry Hawk. Described, along with Westwood, second for Sir Mulberry Hawk, as Both utterly heartless, both men upon town, both thoroughly initiated in its worst vices, both deeply in debt, both fallen from some higher estate, both addicted to every depravity for which society can find some genteel name and plead its most depraving conventionalities as an excuse, they were naturally gentlemen of most unblemished honour themselves, and of great nicety concerning the honour of other people. (top)
Adams, Jack ( Dombey and Son ) Subject of a story by Cousin Feenix. I dare say my friend Dombey;' for the general attention was concentrated on Cousin Feenix; 'may remember Jack Adams, Jack Adams, not Joe; that was his brother. Jack - little Jack - man with a cast in his eye, and slight impediment in his speech - man who sat for somebody's borough. We used to call him in my parliamentary time W. P. Adams, in consequence of his being Warming Pan for a young fellow who was in his minority. Perhaps my friend Dombey may have known the man?' Mr Dombey, who was as likely to have known Guy Fawkes, replied in the negative. (top)
African Swallower ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Sword swallower with Crummles' acting troupe. Looked and spoke remarkably like an Irishman. (top)
Agnes ( Sketches by Boz: The Boarding House ) Maid to Mrs Bloss. (top)
Akerman, Mr ( Barnaby Rudge ) Historical figure. Head jailer at Newgate Prison during the Gordon Riots. (top)
Akershem, Horatio ( Our Mutual Friend ) Deceased father of Sophronia Lammle. (top)
Allen, Arabella ( Pickwick Papers ) Black-eyed beauty, sister of Benjamin Allen. Marries Nathaniel Winkle.
Geolinks: George and Vulture (top)
Allen, Benjamin ( Pickwick Papers ) Medical student, brother of Arabella, and drinking buddy of Bob Sawyer. Mr. Benjamin Allen was a coarse, stout, thick-set young man, with black hair cut rather short, and a white face cut rather long. He was embellished with spectacles, and wore a white neckerchief. Below his single-breasted black surtout, which was buttoned up to his chin, appeared the usual number of pepper-and-salt coloured legs, terminating in a pair of imperfectly polished boots. Although his coat was short in the sleeves, it disclosed no vestige of a linen wristband; and although there was quite enough of his face to admit of the encroachment of a shirt collar, it was not graced by the smallest approach to that appendage. He presented altogether rather a mildewy appearance, and emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured Cubas. (top)
Alphonse ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Page boy for the Wititterlys. (top)
Amelia ( Sketches by Boz: The Tuggs's at Ramsgate ) With her sister, Jane, a couple of marriageable daughters...gaming and promenading, and turning over music, and flirting at the Ramsgate library. (top)
Analytical Chemist, The ( Our Mutual Friend ) Butler to Hamilton Veneering. (top)
Anderson, John and Mrs ( The Uncommercial Traveller - Tramps ) Pair of spotlessly clean and respectable tramps that the Uncommercial Traveller finds upon the road. A most exemplary couple whose only improvidence appears to have been, that they spent the last of their little All on soap. (top)
Angelica ( The Uncommercial Traveller - City of London Churches ) Former lover of the Uncommercial Traveller. When I, turned of eighteen, went with my Angelica to a City church on account of a shower (by this special coincidence that it was in Huggin-lane), and when I said to my Angelica, 'Let the blessed event, Angelica, occur at no altar but this!' and when my Angelica consented that it should occur at no other - which it certainly never did, for it never occurred anywhere. And O, Angelica, what has become of you, this present Sunday morning when I can't attend to the sermon; and, more difficult question than that, what has become of Me as I was when I sat by your side! (top)
Anny ( Oliver Twist ) Old pauper women who calls Mrs Corney to the deathbed of Old Sally. withered old female pauper, hideously ugly. (top)
Antonio ( The Uncommercial Traveller - Poor Mercantile Jack ) Spanish guitar-playing sailor whom the Uncommercial Traveler finds in Meggisson's boarding house. The cracked guitar raises the feeblest ghost of a tune, and three of the women keep time to it with their heads, and the fourth with the child. If Antonio has brought any money in with him, I am afraid he will never take it out, and it even strikes me that his jacket and guitar may be in a bad way. But, the look of the young man and the tinkling of the instrument so change the place in a moment to a leaf out of Don Quixote, that I wonder where his mule is stabled, until he leaves off. (top)
Artful Dodger ( Oliver Twist ) PIX Alias of Jack Dawkins, he is the most successful and interesting of Fagin's thieves. He shows Oliver the ropes of the pickpocket game and is later captured and sentenced to transportation. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, commonfaced boy enough; and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. He was short for his age; with rather bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top of his head so lightly, that it threatened to fall off every moment and would have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of every now and then, giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it back to its old place again. He wore a man's coat, which reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back, half-way up his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves, apparently with the ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers; for there he kept them. He was, altogether, as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in his bluchers. (top)
Ayresleigh, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Prisoner for debt that Samuel Pickwick meets at Namby's. A middle aged man in a very old suit of black, who looked pale and haggard, and paced up and down the room incessantiy: stopping now and then to look with great anxiety out of the window as if he expected somebody, and then resuming his walk. (top)
B
Bachelor, The ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) Friend to the parson in the village church where Nell and her grandfather end their journey. He turns out to be the brother of Mr Garland and is instrumental in helping the Single Gentleman find his brother, Nell's grandfather. (top)
Badger, Bayham ( Bleak House ) Doctor, cousin of Kenge, to whom Richard Carstone is apprenticed. A pink, fresh-faced, crisp-looking gentleman with a weak voice, white teeth, light hair, and surprised eyes, some years younger, I should say, than Mrs Bayham Badger.
Badger, Mrs ( Bleak House ) Wife of Bayham Badger. She makes much of her two previous husbands: Professor Dingo and Captain Swosser. She was surrounded in the drawing-room by various objects, indicative of her painting a little, playing the piano a little, playing the guitar a little, playing the harp a little, singing a little, working a little, reading a little, writing poetry a little, and botanizing a little. She was a lady of about fifty, I should think, youthfully dressed, and of a very fine complexion.
Bagnet, Matthew ( Bleak House ) PIX Matthew is head of a musical, military family and is an old army friend of George Rouncewell. Matthew is guarantor to George's loan from Smallweed, when Smallweed calls in the debt George is forced to deliver a document Smallweed needs to help lawyer Tulkinghorn learn Lady Dedlock's secret. An ex-artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers like the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid complexion. (top)
Bagnet, Mrs ( Bleak House ) PIX Matthew Bagnet's wife, whom he refers to as 'the old girl', she knows Matthew so well that he always calls upon her to supply his opinion. Not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large-boned, a little coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and wind which have tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy, wholesome, and bright-eyed. A strong, busy, active, honest-faced woman of from forty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so economically dressed (though substantially) that the only article of ornament of which she stands possessed appear's to be her wedding-ring, around which her finger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will never come off again until it shall mingle with Mrs Bagnet's dust. (top)
Bagnet, Malta ( Bleak House ) Daughter of Matthew Bagnet. Born in Malta and, like the other Bagnet children, nicknamed for the place where the Bagnets were stationed at her birth. (top)
Bagnet, Quebec ( Bleak House ) Daughter of Matthew Bagnet. Born in Quebec and, like the other Bagnet children, nicknamed for the place where the Bagnets were stationed at her birth. (top)
Bagnet, Woolwich ( Bleak House ) Only son and eldest child of Matthew Bagnet and Godson of George Rouncewell. Born in Woolwich and, like the other Bagnet children, nicknamed for the place where the Bagnets were stationed at his birth. Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father, to play the fife in a military piece. (top)
Bagstock, Major Joseph ( Dombey and Son ) PIX Neighbor of Miss Tox and friend of Paul Dombey who introduces Paul to Edith Granger and Mrs Skewton. The Major describes himself as tough, Sir, tough, and de-vilish sly! (top)
Bailey, (Benjamin) ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) PIX Street-wise servant boy at Todgers's Boarding House. Later goes to work for Tigg Montague and is nearly killed in a coach accident. A small boy with a large red head and no nose to speak of...'He's the most dreadful child,' said Mrs Todgers, setting down the dish, 'I ever had to deal with. The gentlemen spoil him to that extent, and teach him such things, that I’m afraid nothing but hanging will ever do him any good.' (top)
Bailey, Captain ( David Copperfield ) Suitor of the eldest Miss Larkins and therefore a rival of David Copperfield. (top)
Balderstone, Thomas ( Sketches by Boz: Mrs Joseph Porter ) Mrs Gattleton's brother, known in the family as Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom was very rich, and exceedingly fond of his nephews and nieces: as a matter of course, therefore, he was an object of great importance in his own family. He was one of the best hearted men in existence; always in a good temper, and always talking. (top)
Baldwin, Robert ( Our Mutual Friend ) Principal in a disputed will case that Noddy Boffin has Silas Wegg read to him. (top)
Bamber, Jack ( Pickwick Papers ) Law clerk who tells the Tale About the Queer Client to Samuel Pickwick and the other law clerks gathered at the Magpie and Stump. The individual to whom Lowten alluded, was a little yellow high-shouldered man, whose countenance, from his habit of stooping forward when silent, Mr. Pickwick had not observed before. He wondered though, when the old man raised his shrivelled face, and bent his bright grey eye upon him, with a keen inquiring look, that such remarkable features could have escaped his attention for a moment. There was a fixed grim smile perpetually on his countenance; he leant his chin on a long skinny hand, with nails of extraordinary length; and as he inclined his head to one side, and looked keenly out from beneath his ragged grey eyebrows, there was a strange, wild slyness in his leer, quite repulsive to behold. (top)
Bangham, Mrs ( Little Dorrit ) Woman who assists Dr Haggage at Amy Dorrit's birth. Charwoman and messenger, who was not a prisoner (though she had been once), but was the popular medium of communication with the outer world, had volunteered her services as fly-catcher and general attendant. (top)
Bantam, Cyrus Angelo ( Pickwick Papers ) Grand Master of the Great Pump Room in Bath. A charming young man of not much more than fifty, dressed in a very bright blue coat with resplendent buttons, black trousers, and the thinnest possible pair of highly-polished boots. A gold eye-glass was suspended from his neck by a short, broad, black ribbon; a gold snuff-box was lightly clasped in his left hand; gold rings innumerable glittered on his fingers; and a large diamond pin set in gold glistened in his shirt frill. He had a gold watch, and a gold curb chain with large gold seals; and he carried a pliant ebony cane with a gold top. His linen was of the very whitest, finest, and stiffest; his wig of the glossiest, blackest, and curliest. His snuff was princes’ mixture; his scent bouquet du rot. His features were contracted into a perpetual smile; and his teeth were in such perfect order that it was difficult at a small distance to tell the real ones from the false. (top)
Baps, Mr ( Dombey and Son ) The dancing-master at the Blimber school. Mr Baps was a very grave gentleman, with a slow and measured manner of speaking. Mrs Baps, his wife. (top)
Barbara ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) Modest and pretty servant of the Garlands. She befriends Kit when he is also employed by the Garlands. Barbara later marries Kit. (top)
Miss Barbary ( Bleak House ) 'Godmother' who raises Esther Summerson. Later found to be Esther's aunt, the sister of Lady Dedlock. She was once engaged to Lawrence Boythorn. She was a good, good woman! She went to church three times every Sunday, and to morning prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to lectures whenever there were lectures; and never missed. She was handsome; and if she had ever smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel--but she never smiled. She was always grave and strict. She was so very good herself, I thought, that the badness of other people made her frown all her life. (top)
Barbary, Captain ( Little Dorrit ) Husband of Mrs Barbary and private friend of Captain Maroon. (top)
Barbary, Mrs Captain ( Little Dorrit ) Owner of a horse she wishes to sell through Captain Maroon because it ran away with her. (top)
Bardell, Martha ( Pickwick Papers ) Landlady of Samuel Pickwick in Goswell Street. Mrs Bardell is duped by unscrupulous lawyers, Dodson and Fogg, into bringing a breach of promise to marry suit against Pickwick. When Pickwick refuses to pay damages and is consigned to the Fleet Prison, Dodson and Fogg sue Mrs Bardell for costs and have her consigned to the Fleet. Pickwick pays the penitent Bardell's costs to get her released. A comely woman of bustling manners and agreeable appearance, with a natural genius for cooking, improved by study and long practice into an exquisite talent. (top)
Bardell, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Deceased husband of Martha Bardell. A former custom house officer who was killed when he was knocked on the head with a quart-pot in a public-house cellar. (top)
Bardell, Tommy ( Pickwick Papers ) Son of Martha Bardell. Clad in a tight suit of corduroy, spangled with brass buttons of a very considerable size. (top)
Barker, Phil ( Oliver Twist ) Drunk at the Three Cripples whom Fagin has plans to use for some undisclosed purpose. (top)
Barker, William (aka Bill Boorker, Aggerawatin Bill) ( Sketches by Boz: The Last Cab-driver, and the First Omnibus Cad ) Former omnibus driver of some renown, transported for his love of other people’s property. (top)
Barkis ( David Copperfield ) A carrier between Blunderstone and Yarmouth. He marries Clara Peggotty. The carrier had a way of keeping his head down, like his horse, and of drooping sleepily forward as he drove, with one of his arms on each of his knees. I say 'drove', but it struck me that the cart would have gone to Yarmouth quite as well without him, for the horse did all that; and as to conversation, he had no idea of it but whistling. Quote: Barkis is willin'. (top)
Barney ( Oliver Twist ) Jewish waiter at the Three Cripples who talks through his nose. He aids Fagin in planning the robbery of the Maylie house. Younger than Fagin, but nearly as vile. (top)
Barley, Old Bill ( Great Expectations ) Clara Barley's bedridden father, a retired ship's purser, who suffers with gout which he treats with an abundance of rum and pepper. (top)
Barley, Clara ( Great Expectations ) Herbert Pocket's fiancee, she cares for her invalid father, Old Bill Barley, in a waterside house at Mill Pond Bank where Magwitch is hidden. After her father's death she marries Herbert. A very pretty slight dark-eyed girl of twenty or so. (top)
Barnacle, Clarence (Junior) ( Little Dorrit ) Son of Tite Barnacle. Had a youthful aspect, and the fluffiest little whisker, perhaps, that ever was seen. Such a downy tip was on his callow chin, that he seemed half fledged like a young bird. (top)
Barnacle, Lord Decimus ( Little Dorrit ) Head of the Barnacle family that controls the Circumlocution Office, where everything goes round in circles, and nothing ever gets done. Lord Decimus is the uncle of Tite Barnacle. His Lordship married, in seventeen ninety-seven, Lady Jemima Bilberry, who was the second daughter by the third marriage – no! There I am wrong! That was Lady Seraphina – Lady Jemima was the first daughter by the second marriage of the fifteenth Earl of Stiltstalking with The Honorable Clementina Toozellem. Very well. Now this young fellow’s father married a Stiltstalking and his father married his cousin who was a Barnacle. The father of that father who married a Barnacle, married a Joddleby. (top)
Barnacle, Ferdinand ( Little Dorrit ) Sprightly young Barnacle, private secretary to Lord Decimus Barnacle. (top)
Barnacle, John ( Little Dorrit ) Member of the Barnacle family that controls the Circumlocution Office. (top)
Barnacle, Lady Jemima ( Little Dorrit ) Wife of Lord Decimus Barnacle. Formerly Lady Jemima Bilberry. (top)
Barnacle, Mrs (nee Stiltstalking) ( Little Dorrit ) Wife of Tite Barnacle and mother of three expensive Miss Tite Barnacles, double-loaded with accomplishments and ready to go off, and yet not going off with the sharpness of flash and bang that might have been expected, but rather hanging fire. (top)
Barnacle, Tite ( Little Dorrit ) Senior official in the Circumlocution Office, nephew of Lord Decimus Barnacle and father of Clarence Barnacle. The Barnacles were a very high family, and a very large family. They were dispersed all over the public offices, and held all sorts of public places. Either the nation was under a load of obligation to the Barnacles, or the Barnacles were under a load of obligation to the nation. It was not quite unanimously settled which; the Barnacles having their opinion, the nation theirs.
Geolinks: Grosvenor Square (top)
Barnacle, William ( Little Dorrit ) Member of the Barnacle family that controls the Circumlocution Office. (top)
Barronneau, Monsieur Henri ( Little Dorrit ) Innkeeper at the Cross of Gold Inn where Rigaud stayed in Marseilles. Husband of Madame Barronneau. (top)
Barronneau, Madame ( Little Dorrit ) Wife of Henri, Innkeeper at the Cross of Gold Inn where Rigaud stayed in Marseilles. (top)
Barsad, John/Solomon Pross ( A Tale of Two Cities ) Barsad testifies against Charles Darnay at the treason trial at the Old Bailey. Later Barsad turns up as a spy in Paris and is found to be the brother of Miss Pross. Threatened with exposure, Barsad helps Sydney Carton exchange places with Charles Darnay in prison. Age, about forty years; height, about five feet nine; black hair; complexion dark; generally, rather handsome visage; eyes dark, face thin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, but not straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the left cheek; expression, therefore, sinister. (top)
Bates, Charles ( Oliver Twist ) Member of Fagin's band of thieves whom Dickens often refers to by the curious appellation of Master Bates. He mends his ways after Fagin is captured. (top)
Battens, Mr ( The Uncommercial Traveller - Titbull's Alms-Houses ) Oldest gentleman pensioner in the Titbull's Almshouse in east London. This old man wore a long coat, such as we see Hogarth's Chairmen represented with, and it was of that peculiar green-pea hue without the green, which seems to come of poverty. It had also that peculiar smell of cupboard which seems to come of poverty. (top)
Bawkins ( Little Dorrit ) Middle aged baker against whom Anastatia Rugg filed a breach of promise of marriage suit. (top)
Bayton, Mrs ( Oliver Twist ) Pauper woman on 'outdoor relief' (pauper who doesn't reside in the workhouse) who starves and is buried by the parish. Mr Sowerberry arranges the poor funeral with Oliver in attendance. (top)
Bazzard ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood ) Clerk to Hiram Grewgious who writes an unproduced tragedy, The Thorn of Anxiety. Grewgious admits that Bazzard has a strange power over him. A pale, puffy-faced, dark-haired person of thirty, with big dark eyes that wholly wanted lustre, and a dissatisfied doughy complexion, that seemed to ask to be sent to the baker’s, this attendant was a mysterious being, possessed of some strange power over Mr. Grewgious. As though he had been called into existence, like a fabulous Familiar, by a magic spell which had failed when required to dismiss him, he stuck tight to Mr. Grewgious’s stool, although Mr. Grewgious’s comfort and convenience would manifestly have been advanced by dispossessing him. A gloomy person with tangled locks, and a general air of having been reared under the shadow of that baleful tree of Java which has given shelter to more lies than the whole botanical kingdom, Mr. Grewgious, nevertheless, treated him with unaccountable consideration. (top)
Beadwood, Ned ( David Copperfield ) Character in a story told by Miss Mowcher. It won't do to be like long Ned Beadwood, when they took him to church "to marry him to somebody", as he says, and left the bride behind. Ha! ha! ha! A wicked rascal, Ned, but droll! (top)
Becky ( Oliver Twist ) Barmaid at the public house where Bill Sikes and Oliver stop to beg a ride on their way to Chertsey to rob the Maylie house. (top)
Bedwin, Mrs ( Oliver Twist ) Mr Brownlow's housekeeper. A motherly old lady, very neatly and precisely dressed. (top)
Bella ( Sketches by Boz: The Prisoners' Van ) With her elder sister Emily, prostitutes being taken away in the prison van. Bella, being less experienced in the lifestyle, is weeping and ashamed. They were a couple of girls, of whom the elder - could not be more than sixteen, and the younger of whom had certainly not attained her fourteenth year. That they were sisters, was evident, from the resemblance which still subsisted between them, though two additional years of depravity had fixed their brand upon the elder girl's features, as legibly as if a red-hot iron had seared them. They were both gaudily dressed, the younger one especially; and, although there was a strong similarity between them in both respects, which was rendered the more obvious by their being handcuffed together, it is impossible to conceive a greater contrast than the demeanour of the two presented. The younger girl was weeping bitterly - not for display, or in the hope of producing effect, but for very shame: her face was buried in her handkerchief: and her whole manner was but too expressive of bitter and unavailing sorrow. (top)
Belle ( A Christmas Carol ) Scrooge's former fiancee whom he had forgotten until reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. A fair young girl in a mourning-dress.And later A comely matron. (top)
Beller, Henry ( Pickwick Papers ) Reformed drinker and new member introduced to the flock at the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association. Was for many years toast-master at various corporation dinners, during which time he drank a great deal of foreign wine; may sometimes have carried a bottle or two home with him; is not quite certain of that, but is sure if he did, that he drank the contents. Feels very low and melancholy, is very feverish, and has a constant thirst upon him; thinks it must be the wine he used to drink (cheers). Is out of employ now; and never touches a drop of foreign wine by any chance (tremendous plaudits). (top)
Belling ( Nicholas Nickleby ) New pupil at Dotheboys Hall. A diminutive boy. (top)
Bellows, Brother ( Little Dorrit ) Society magnate. Guest at Mr Merdle's dinner party (top)
Belvawney, Miss ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Member of Crummles' acting troupe. Seldom aspired to speaking parts, and usually went on as a page in white silk hose, to stand with one leg bent, and contemplate the audience. (top)
Benjamin ( Barnaby Rudge ) Member of the 'Prentice Knights with Simon Tappertit. (top)
Benjamin, Thomas ( David Copperfield ) Plaintiff in a divorce proceeding heard by Francis Spenlow and David Copperfield who applied for his marriage license under false pretenses enabling him to wriggle out the marriage. ...Under an ingenious little statute (repealed now, I believe, but in virtue of which I have seen several marriages annulled), of which the merits were these. The husband, whose name was Thomas Benjamin, had taken out his marriage licence as Thomas only; suppressing the Benjamin, in case he should not find himself as comfortable as he expected. NOT finding himself as comfortable as he expected, or being a little fatigued with his wife, poor fellow, he now came forward, by a friend, after being married a year or two, and declared that his name was Thomas Benjamin, and therefore he was not married at all. Which the Court confirmed, to his great satisfaction. (top)
Berinthia (Berry) ( Dombey and Son ) Mrs Pipchin's middle-aged niece who performs menial tasks in her establishment. (top)
Betley, Mr ( Mrs Lirriper's Lodging ) Lodger at Emma Lirriper's boarding house who loved his joke. (top)
Betsy (Bet) ( Oliver Twist ) Prostitute and friend of Nancy. Goes mad after identifying Nancy's body. Nancy and Betsy wore a good deal of hair, not very neatly turned up behind, and were rather untidy about the shoes and stockings. They were not exactly pretty, perhaps; but they had a great deal of colour in their faces, and looked quite stout and hearty. (top)
Betsy ( Pickwick Papers ) Servant girl at Mary Ann Raddle's boarding house. A dirty, slipshod girl in black cotton stockings, who might have passed for the neglected daughter of a superannuated dustman in very reduced circumstances. (top)
Betsey Jane ( Dombey and Son ) Mrs Wickam's cousin. When Betsey Jane took a liking to someone they died. Mrs Wickham uses the cautionary story of Betsey Jane to warn Berenthia not to get too close to Paul Dombey. (top)
Bevan, Mr ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Boston doctor whom Martin and Mark meet at Pawkins' Boarding House in New York and one of the few positive characters they meet in the America. Bevan later loans them money to return to England. His profession, which was physic, though he seldom or never practised. (top)
Bevan, Mrs ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Woman with whom Mrs Nickleby dined 'in that broad street round the corner by the coachmaker's, where the tipsy man fell through the cellar-flap of an empty house nearly a week before the quarter-day, and wasn't found till the new tenant went in.' (top)
Beverly, Mr ( Sketches by Boz: Private Theatres ) Amateur actor who takes the part of Macbeth. (top)
Bib, Julius Washington Merryweather ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Boarder at the National Hotel in America and member of the deputation awaiting the arrival of the Honorable Elijah Pogram. A gentleman in the lumber line...and much esteemed. (top)
Biddy ( Great Expectations ) Mr Wopsle's great aunt's granddaughter. She loves Pip but he ignores her as his fortunes improve. When Pip realizes that he loves her too she has married Joe Gargery. She was an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been brought up by hand. She was most noticeable, I thought, in respect of her extremities; for, her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up at heel. This description must be received with a week-day limitation. On Sundays, she went to church elaborated. (top)
Biffin, Miss ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Subject of one of Mrs Nickleby's rambling remembrances. Sarah Biffin (1784-1850) was a woman born without arms or legs but developed artistic skill using her mouth. (top)
Bill ( Oliver Twist ) Gravedigger at the funeral of Mrs Bayton. (top)
Bill ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Guard on the coach that Tom Pinch takes to London. (top)
Bill, Uncle ( Sketches by Boz: London Recreations ) Wit of the party that includes his niece, Sally, at a rural tea-garden. (top)
Billickin, Mrs ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood ) London landlady of Rosa Bud and her chaperone, Miss Twinkleton. She insists on using the title 'Billickin' in business matters fearing being taken advantage of because she is a woman. Mrs Billickin and Miss Twinkleton take a comical dislike for each other. "Personal faintness, and an overpowering personal candour, were the distinguishing features of Mrs. Billickin’s organisation.
Geolinks: Bond Street, Bloomsbury (top)
Billsmethi, Signor ( Sketches by Boz: The Dancing Academy ) Proprietor of a dancing studio 'in the populous and improving neighborhood of Gray's-inn-lane.' and father to Miss and Master Billsmethi. Lee Jackson, in his book Palaces of Pleasure, reports that Billsmethi is probably faux-Italian for Bill Smith. An Englishman! Such a nice man - and so polite! (top)
Bilson and Slum ( Pickwick Papers ) Commercial house, Cateaton Street, London where Tom Smart is employed. (top)
Bitherstone, Bill ( Dombey and Son ) Father of Master Bitherstone and friend of Major Bagstock (top)
Bitherstone, Master ( Dombey and Son ) Paul Dombey's fellow pupil at the Blimber school and boarder at Mrs Pipchin's establishment. (top)
Bitzer ( Hard Times ) A student in Gradgrind's school of hard facts. Later a light porter in Bounderby's bank and spy for Mrs Sparsit. The boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that the self-same rays appeared to draw out of him what little colour he ever possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes which, by bringing them into immediate contrast with something paler than themselves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair might have been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white. (top)
Black Bill ( Great Expectations ) Prisoner in Newgate Prison who is visited by Wemmick and Pip. (top)
Blackboy, Mr ( David Copperfield ) Name inscribed on Mr Barkis's box to disguise the fact that it indeed belonged to Mr Barkis. For years and years, Mr Barkis had carried this box, on all his journeys, every day. That it might the better escape notice, he had invented a fiction that it belonged to 'Mr Blackboy', and was 'to be left with Barkis till called for'; a fable he had elaborately written on the lid, in characters now scarcely legible. (top)
Blackpool, Stephen ( Hard Times ) A worker in Bounderby's mill. His wife is a drunk and he befriends Rachael. He falls out with his employer and leaves to look for work elsewhere. Bounderby's bank is robbed and Blackpool is suspected. On his way back to Coketown to clear his name he falls down a well, is rescued too late, and dies of his injuries. His name is later cleared with the discovery that the robbery was committed by young Tom Gradgrind. Forty years of age. Stephen looked older, but he had had a hard life. It is said that every life has its roses and thorns; there seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mistake in Stephen's case, whereby somebody else had become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of the same somebody else's thorns in addition to his own. He had known, to use his words, a peck of trouble. He was usually called Old Stephen, in a kind of rough homage to the fact. A rather stooping man, with a knitted brow, a pondering expression of face, and a hard-looking head sufficiently capacious, on which his iron-grey hair lay long and thin, Old Stephen might have passed for a particularly intelligent man in his condition. Yet he was not. (top)
Bladud, Prince ( Pickwick Papers ) Legendary founder of Bath in the tale Samuel Pickwick reads in his rented room in that city. (top)
Blathers ( Oliver Twist ) Bow Street Runner (London Policemen) who, along with Duff, investigates the attempted robbery of the Maylie home. A stout personage of middle height, aged about fifty: with shiny black hair, cropped pretty close; half-whiskers, a round face, and sharp eyes. (top)
Blazo, Sir Thomas ( Pickwick Papers ) Alfred Jingle's opponent in a cricket match in the West Indies. (top)
Blight ( Our Mutual Friend ) Clerk of all work to Mortimer Lightwood. the managing clerk, junior clerk, common-law clerk, conveyancing clerk, chancery clerk, every refinement and department of clerk... (top)
Blimber, Cornelia ( Dombey and Son ) Daughter of Dr Blimber and a teacher at the school. A slim and graceful maid, did no soft violence to the gravity of the house. There was no light nonsense about Miss Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp, and wore spectacles. She was dry and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages. None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead - stone dead - and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoul. (top)
Blimber, Dr ( Dombey and Son ) Headmaster of the school in Brighton where Paul Dombey Jr attends. Blimber is assisted at the school by his wife and daughter Cornelia. Dickens describes Blimber as a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings at the knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head, highly polished; a deep voice; and a chin so very double, that it was a wonder how he ever managed to shave into the creases. (top)
Blimber, Mrs ( Dombey and Son ) Wife of Dr Blimber. She was not learned herself, but she pretended to be, and that did quite as well. She said at evening parties, that if she could have known Cicero, she thought she could have died contented. (top)
Blinder, Mrs ( Bleak House ) Proprietor of a chandler's shop and Neckett's landlady in Bell Yard. She looks after the widower Neckett's children. A good-natured-looking old woman with a dropsy, or an asthma, or perhaps both. (top)
Blockson, Mrs ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Mortimer Knag's charwoman. (top)
Blogg, Mr ( Our Mutual Friend ) Beadle instumental in uniting Sloppy with Betty Higden. (top)
Bloss, Mr and Mrs ( Sketches by Boz: The Boarding House ) Wealthy widow (very fat and red-faced) who boards at Mrs Tibbs' boarding house. A hypochondriac, she marries a fellow boarder, Mr Gobler, with the same malady. ‘I shall be a good deal of trouble to you,’ said Mrs Bloss; ‘but for that trouble I am willing to pay. I am going through a course of treatment which renders attention necessary. I have one mutton chop in bed at half-past eight, and another at ten, every morning.’ (top)
Blotton, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Member of the Pickwick Club who calls Samuel Pickwick a humbug, causing a row amongst the club. He later admits he only meant it in the "Pickwickian sense." He is later expelled from the society for doubting the legitimacy of the ancient stone Pickwick finds in Cobham. (top)
Bob ( Little Dorrit ) Old turnkey at the Marshalsea and godfather to Amy Dorrit. (top)
Bob ( Sketches by Boz: Early Coaches ) Waiter at the Golden Cross Hotel. (top)
Bobbo ( Mrs Lirriper's Lodging ) Friend of the protagonist of Jemmy Lirriper's story. the cleverest and bravest and best-looking and most generous of all the friends that ever were. (top)
Bobby ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) Quarrels with the Marquis of Mizzler over a bottle of champaigne in a story Mr Chuckster relates to Mr and Mrs Garland. (top)
Bodgers, Mr and Mrs ( David Copperfield ) Name on a tablet that David Copperfield ponders over at the church in Blunderstone. (top)
Bobster, Cecilia ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Girl whom Newman Noggs mistakes for Madeline Bray and takes Nicholas Nickleby to see. (top)
Bobster, Old ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Father of Celelia Bobster. A ferocious Turk. He frequently boxes his daughter's ears. (top)
Bocker, Tom ( Our Mutual Friend ) A candidate for adoption by the Boffins put forth by Rev Frank Milvey and rejected by Mrs Milvey because he is nineteen and drives a cart and waters the roads. (top)
Boffer ( Pickwick Papers ) Expelled stockbroker and associate of Wilkins Flasher and Frank Simmery who wager on the odds of Boffer committing suicide. (top)
Boffin, Henerietty (likely a corruption of Henrietta) ( Our Mutual Friend ) PIX Wife of Noddy Boffin. a smiling creature, broad of figure and simple of nature.
Geolinks: Cavendish Square (top)
Boffin, Nicodemus (Noddy) ( Our Mutual Friend ) PIX Old John Harmon's servant. When John's son is supposed drowned, Boffin and his wife inherit the Harmon fortune, for a time. a broad, round-shouldered, one-sided old fellow in mourning, coming comically ambling towards the corner, dressed in a pea over-coat, and carrying a large stick. He wore thick shoes, and thick leather gaiters, and thick gloves like a hedger’s. Both as to his dress and to himself, he was of an overlapping rhinoceros build, with folds in his cheeks, and his forehead, and his eyelids, and his lips, and his ears; but with bright, eager, childishly-inquiring, grey eyes, under his ragged eyebrows, and broad-brimmed hat. A very odd-looking old fellow altogether.
Geolinks: Cavendish Square, Clifford's Inn (top)
Bogles, Mrs ( The Uncommercial Traveller - Refreshments for Travellers ) Former landlady of the Uncommercial Traveller who was arrested for debt. (top)
Bogsby, Mr James George ( Bleak House ) "Highly respectable" landlord of the Sol's Arms tavern. (top)
Boiler, Rev Boanerges ( The Uncommercial Traveller - City of London Churches ) Preacher whose admonishment the Uncommercial Traveller was compelled to endure in his youth. Time was, when I was dragged by the hair of my head, as one may say, to hear too many. On summer evenings, when every flower, and tree, and bird, might have better addressed my soft young heart, I have in my day been caught in the palm of a female hand by the crown, have been violently scrubbed from the neck to the roots of the hair as a purification for the Temple, and have then been carried off highly charged with saponaceous electricity, to be steamed like a potato in the unventilated breath of the powerful Boanerges Boiler and his congregation, until what small mind I had, was quite steamed out of me. (top)
Bolder ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Pupil at Dotheboys Hall. An unhealthy looking boy, with warts all over his hands. (top)
Boldwig, Captain ( Pickwick Papers ) Landowner who has the drunken Samuel Pickwick wheeled to the pound. A little fierce man in a stiff black neckerchief and blue surtout, who, when he did condescend to walk about his property, did it in company with a thick rattan stick with a brass ferrule, and a gardener and sub-gardener with meek faces, to whom (the gardeners, not the stick) Captain Boldwig gave his orders with all due grandeur and ferocity: for Captain Boldwig's wife's sister had married a Marquis, and the Captain's house was a villa, and his land "grounds," and it was all very high, and mighty, and great. (top)
Bolo, Miss ( Pickwick Papers ) Samuel Pickwick's whist partner at the Bath ball. (top)
Bones, Banjo and Mrs ( The Uncommercial Traveller - Poor Mercantile Jack ) Celebrated comic entertainers at a pub for sailors. The celebrated comic favourite Mr. Banjo Bones, looking very hideous with his blackened face and limp sugar-loaf hat; beside him, sipping rum-and-water, Mrs. Banjo Bones, in her natural colours - a little heightened. (top)
Bonney, Mr ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Representative for the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company. a pale gentleman in a violent hurry, who, with his hair standing up in great disorder all over his head, and a very narrow white cravat tied loosely round his throat, looked as if he had been knocked up in the night and had not dressed himself since. (top)
Boots ( Our Mutual Friend ) Friend of the Veneerings and ever-present guest at their dinner parties, always mentioned in association with Brewer. (top)
Borum, Mr and Mrs ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Patrons of Miss Snevellici's bespeak performance. Parents of the misbehaving Augustus, Charlotte, and Emma. (top)
Bounderby, Josiah ( Hard Times ) Coketown Banker, mill owner, and "self-made man" proud that he raised himself in the streets after being abandoned as a child. His story is exposed as a sham when Mrs Pegler, his loving mother whom he has discarded, is found. Bounderby marries his friend Gradgrind's daughter, Louisa, and later discards her. He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of a coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him. A man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such a strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of being inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility. (top)
Bowley, Sir Joseph ( The Chimes ) Member of Parliament who condescendingly calls himself "the poor man's friend and father" and exhorts Trotty to Live hard and temperately, be respectful, exercise your self-denial, bring up your family on next to nothing, pay your rent as regularly as the clock strikes, be punctual in your dealings. His wife is Lady Bowley. (top)
Boythorn, Lawrence ( Bleak House ) Neighbor of Sir Leicester Dedlock, with whom he is feuding. Also a friend of John Jarndyce. Once engaged to Miss Barbary. "I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn," said Mr Jarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, "more than five and forty years ago. He was then the most impetuous boy in the world, and he is now the most impetuous man. He was then the loudest boy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. He was then the heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now the heartiest and sturdiest man. He is a tremendous fellow." (top)
Brandley, Mrs ( Great Expectations ) Widowed society woman and old friend of Miss Havisham with whom Estella is "placed" in Richmond to be sponsored in London society. She has a daughter several years older than Estella. (top)
Brass, Sally ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) PIX Sister and "clerk, assistant, housekeeper, secretary, confidential plotter, adviser, intriguer, and bill of cost increaser" of Quilp's unscrupulous attorney, Sampson Brass. She is also the mother of the Marchioness, the below-stairs maid. A lady of thirty-five or thereabouts, of a gaunt and bony figure, and a resolute bearing, which if it repressed the softer emotions of love, and kept admirers at a distance, certainly inspired a feeling akin to awe in the breasts of those male strangers who had the happiness to approach her. In face she bore a striking resemblance to her brother, Sampson – so exact, indeed, was the likeness between them, that had it consorted with Miss Brass’s maiden modesty and gentle womanhood to have assumed her brother’s clothes in a frolic and sat down beside him, it would have been difficult for the oldest friend of the family to determine which was Sampson and which Sally, especially as the lady carried upon her upper lip certain reddish demonstrations, which, if the imagination had been assisted by her attire, might have been mistaken for a beard.
Geolinks: Bevis Marks (top)
Brass, Sampson ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) PIX "An attorney of no good repute" and "One of the greatest scoundrels unhung". Brass served as Daniel Quilp's lawyer. He helps Quilp get the Curiosity Shop from Nell's grandfather and when he tries to help Quilp frame Kit Nubbles he is undone with the help of his clerk Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness, his below-stairs maid. He was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen, a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep red. He wore a long black surtout2 reaching nearly to his ankles, short black trousers, high shoes, and cotton stockings of a blueish grey. He had a cringing manner but a very harsh voice, and his blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding, that to have had his company under the least repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper that he might only scowl.
Geolinks: Bevis Marks (top)
Bravassa, Miss ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Attractive member of the Crummles' acting troupe. Once had her likeness taken 'in character' by an engraver's apprentice, whereof impressions were hung up for sale in the pastry-cook's window, and the greengrocer's, and at the circulating library, and the box-office, whenever the announce bills came out for her annual night. (top)
Bray, Madeline ( Nicholas Nickleby ) PIX Young woman with whom Nicholas falls in love when he first sees her at an employment office. She cares for her selfish, invalid father who tries to sell her in marriage to Arthur Gride, assisted by Ralph Nickleby. Her father dies and the scheme is exposed. She marries Nicholas at the end of the story. This was a young lady who could be scarcely eighteen, of very slight and delicate figure, but exquisitely shaped...a countenance of most uncommon beauty, though shaded by a cloud of sadness, which, in one so young, was doubly remarkable.
Geolinks: Kings Bench Prison (top)
Bray, Walter ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Tyrannical father of Madeline. Heavily in debt, and living in the Rules of the King's Bench debtor's prison, he promises his daughter's hand in marriage to Arthur Gride in return for the forgiveness of his debt to Gride and Ralph Nickleby. He dies on the morning of the wedding thus saving Madeline from the unwanted marriage. He was scarce fifty, perhaps, but so emaciated as to appear much older. His features presented the remains of a handsome countenance, but one in which the embers of strong and impetuous passions were easier to be traced than any expression which would have rendered a far plainer face much more prepossessing. His looks were very haggard, and his limbs and body literally worn to the bone, but there was something of the old fire in the large sunken eye notwithstanding.
Geolinks: Kings Bench Prison (top)
Brewer ( Our Mutual Friend ) Friend of the Veneerings and ever-present guest at their dinner parties, always mentioned in association with Boots. (top)
Brick, Jefferson ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) PIX War correspondent for the New York Rowdy Journal, edited by Colonel Diver. A small young gentleman of very juvenile appearance and unwholesomely pale in the face; partly, perhaps, from intense thought, but partly, there is no doubt, from the excessive use of tobacco, which he was at that moment chewing vigorously. He wore his shirt-collar turned down over a black ribbon, and his lank hair – a fragile crop – was not only smoothed and parted back from his brow, that none of the Poetry of his aspect might be lost, but had here and there been grubbed up by the roots; which accounted for his loftiest developments being somewhat pimply. He had that order of nose on which the envy of mankind has bestowed the appellation ‘snub’, and it was very much turned up at the end, as with a lofty scorn. Upon the upper lip of this young gentleman, were tokens of a sandy down – so very, very smooth and scant, that though encouraged to the utmost, it looked more like a recent trace of gingerbread, than the fair promise of a moustache; and this conjecture, his apparently tender age went far to strengthen. (top)
Brick, Mrs Jefferson ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Wife of Jefferson Brick. Sickly little girl...with the tight round eyes. (top)
Briggs ( Dombey and Son ) Along with Tozer, a roommate of Paul Dombey at Dr Blimber's school. Described as "not naturally clever". (top)
Briggs Family ( Sketches by Boz: The Steam Excursion ) Fellow travelers on the steam excursion with their sworn enemies, the Tauntons. Between the Briggses and the Tauntons there existed a degree of implacable hatred, quite unprecedented. The animosity between the Montagues and Capulets, was nothing to that which prevailed between these two illustrious houses. Mrs Briggs was a widow, with three daughters and two sons; Mr Samuel, the eldest, was an attorney, and Mr Alexander, the youngest, was under articles to his brother. They resided in Portland-street, Oxford-street, and moved in the same orbit as the Tauntons - hence their mutual dislike. If the Miss Briggses appeared in smart bonnets, the Miss Tauntons eclipsed them with smarter. If Mrs Taunton appeared in a cap of all the hues of the rainbow, Mrs Briggs forthwith mounted a toque, with all the patterns of the kaleidoscope. If Miss Sophia Taunton learnt a new song, two of the Miss Briggses came out with a new duet. The Tauntons had once gained a temporary triumph with the assistance of a harp, but the Briggses brought three guitars into the field, and effectually routed the enemy. There was no end to the rivalry between them. (top)
Britain, Benjamin ( The Battle of Life ) Manservant of Dr. Jeddler. He later marries Clemency Newcome and together they run the comfortable Nutmeg-Grater and Thimble Inn. (top)
Brittles ( Oliver Twist ) Lad of all work, although he was something past thirty, at the Maylie home. He, with Mr Giles and a traveling tinker, gives a half-hearted chase after Bill Sikes, Toby Crackit, and Oliver after the attempted burglary of the Maylie home. (top)
Brogley, Mr ( Dombey and Son ) Second Hand furniture broker with a shop in Bishopsgate Street. Brogley takes possession of the Wooden Midshipman when Sol Gills cannot pay his debts. Sol is loaned money from Paul Dombey to pay the debt. Walter Gay stays with Brogley when he returns from being shipwrecked.
Geolinks: Bishopsgate (top)
Brogson ( Sketches by Boz: Mr Minns and His Cousin ) Guest at Octavius Budden's dinner party. An elderly gentleman in a black coat, drab knee-breeches, and long gaiters. (top)
Brook Dingwall, Cornelius ( Sketches by Boz: Sentiment ) Member of Parliament who places his daughter, Lavinia, at the Minerva House finishing school run by the Crumpton sisters. (top)
Brook Dingwall, Frederick ( Sketches by Boz: Sentiment ) Infant son of Cornelius. (top)
Brook Dingwall, Lavinia ( Sketches by Boz: Sentiment ) Daughter of Cornelius. Her father sends her to the Minerva House finishing school run by the Crumpton sisters to get her away from Edward M'Neville Walter which turns out to be a pseudonym for Theodosius Butler whom she meets at the school and elopes with. A spoiled child. (top)
Brook Dingwall, Mrs ( Sketches by Boz: Sentiment ) Wife of Cornelius and mother to Lavinia and Frederick. (top)
Brooker, Mr ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Ralph Nickleby's former clerk turned criminal. He knows the secret of Smike's birth and tries to profit by it. Later he shares the story with Newman Noggs. A spare, dark, withered man...with a stooping body, and a very sinister face rendered more ill-favoured by hollow and hungry cheeks, deeply sunburnt, and thick black eyebrows, blacker in contrast with the perfect whiteness of his hair; roughly clothed in shabby garments, of a strange and uncouth make; and having about him an indefinable manner of depression and degradation. (top)
Brooks ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Pupil at Dotheboys Hall. His bed is full of other boys. (top)
Brooks, Mr ( Pickwick Papers ) Pieman who once lodged with Sam Weller and baked cats into pies. (top)
Browdie, John ( Nicholas Nickleby ) PIX Son of a small corn-factor. He gives money to Nicholas Nickleby on his escape from Dotheboys Hall. John marries Matilda Price. Later assists in Smike's escape from Squeers in London. Honest blockhead...was something over six feet high, with a face and body rather above the due proportion than below it. Dickens captures his Yorkshire accent perfectly 'does he ca' this a pie—three yoong pigeons and a troifling matther o' steak, and a crust so loight that you doant know when it's in your mooth and when it's gane? I wonder hoo many pies goes to a breakfast!' (top)
Brown, Alice (alias Marwood) ( Dombey and Son ) Daughter of Good Mrs Brown and cousin of Edith Granger. (top)
Brown, Emily ( Sketches by Boz: The Great Winglebury Duel ) Lady over whom a duel is proposed between Alexander Trott and Horace Hunter. Hunter ends up marrying Brown after Trott elopes with Julia Manners. (top)
Brown, Henry ( Sketches by Boz: The Ladies' Societies ) Author of a speech given by the eldest boy at the grand public examination of the pupils. (top)
Brown, Good Mrs ( Dombey and Son ) An ugly old rag and bone vendor and mother of Alice Marwood (Brown). She kidnaps Florence Dombey and steals her clothes. Later she helps Dombey find Carker and Edith after their elopement. Very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a mouth that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking.
Brown ( Sketches by Boz: The River ) Passenger on the Gravesend steamer who has an eye for the young ladies. (top)
Brown, Mr ( Sketches by Boz: Mrs Joseph Porter ) Violoncello player in the Gattleton's private theatrical. (top)
Brown, Mr ( The Old Curiosity Shop ) "A corporal in the East Indies...who could of course be found with very little trouble." He is identified by Mrs Nubbles as a willing witness to Kit's character. (top)
Brown, Mrs ( Sketches by Boz: The Beadle - The Parish Engine - The Schoolmaster ) Landlady of a two-pair back at Number 3, Little King William's-alley. (top)
Brown, Three Miss ( Sketches by Boz: The Beadle - The Parish Engine - The Schoolmaster and The Ladies' Societies ) Admirers of the new young curate, they take an interest in the charity children of the parish. (top)
Browndock, Miss ( Nicholas Nickleby ) Subject of one of Mrs Nickleby's rambling remembrances. Why, your poor dear papa's cousin's sister-in-law—a Miss Browndock—was taken into partnership by a lady that kept a school at Hammersmith, and made her fortune in no time at all. (top)
Brownlow, Mr ( Oliver Twist ) PIX Befriends Oliver after he is charged with pickpocketing. He later establishes Oliver's true identity and adopts him. a very respectable-looking personage, with a powdered head and gold spectacles. He was dressed in a bottle-green coat with a black velvet collar; wore white trousers; and carried a smart bamboo cane under his arm.
Geolinks: London Bridge, Pentonville (top)
Bucket, Mr ( Bleak House ) PIX Detective in charge of finding Tulkinghorn's murderer. After Lady Dedlock's disappearance Sir Leicester hires Bucket to find her. He later uncovers the will that is instrumental in clearing up the Jarndyce and Jarndyce chancery case. Mr Bucket notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great mourning ring on his little finger or the brooch, composed of not much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt...A stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of about the middle-age. (top)
Bucket, Mrs ( Bleak House ) Wife of Mr Bucket the detective who is frequenty without her husband's company due to his profession. A lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been improved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but which has paused at the level of a clever amateur...Mrs Bucket is dependent on their lodger (fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for companionship and conversation. (top)
Bud, Rosa ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood ) PIX Betrothed to Edwin Drood in childhood, they later agree that they cannot marry. Edwin disappears and John Jasper declares his love for Rosa. In terror she flees to London to her guardian, Grewgious. The pet pupil of the Nuns' House is Miss Rosa Bud, of course called Rosebud; wonderfully pretty, wonderfully childish, wonderfully whimsical. An awkward interest (awkward because romantic) attaches to Miss Bud in the minds of the young ladies, on account of its being known to them that a husband has been chosen for her by will and bequest, and that her guardian is bound down to bestow her on that husband when he comes of age.
Geolinks: Furnival's Inn (top)
Budden Family ( Sketches by Boz: Mr Minns and His Cousin ) Consisting of Octavius, cousin to Augustus Minns, his wife Amelia, and eight-year-old son Alexander Augustus. Mr Augustus Minns had no relations, in or near London, with the exception of his cousin Mr Octavius Budden, to whose son, whom he had never seen (for he disliked the father) he had consented to become godfather by proxy. Mr Budden having realized a moderate fortune by exercising the trade or calling of a corn-chandler, and having a great predilection for the country, had purchased a cottage in the vicinity of Stamford-hill, whither he retired with the wife of his bosom, and his only son, Master Alexander Augustus Budden. (top)
Budger, Mrs ( Pickwick Papers ) Widow who attends the charity ball at the Bull Inn in Rochester and catches the eye of both Tracy Tupman and Dr Slammer. A little old widow, whose rich dress and profusion of ornament bespoke her a most desirable addition to a limited income. (top)
Buffam, Oscar ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Boarder at the National Hotel in America and spokesman for the deputation awaiting the arrival of the Honorable Elijah Pogram. (top)
Buffle, Mr ( Mrs Lirriper's Legacy ) Tax collector at odds with Emma Lirriper and Major Jackman. Later the Buffle's house burns down and they are befriended by Mrs Lirriper and the Major. Father of Robina. Mentioning Mr. Baffle gives an instance of there being good in persons where good is not expected, for it cannot be denied that Mr. Buffle's manners when engaged in his business were not agreeable. To collect is one thing, and to look about as if suspicious of the goods being gradually removing in the dead of the night by a back door is another, over taxing you have no control but suspecting is voluntary.. (top)
Buffle, Mrs ( Mrs Lirriper's Legacy ) Wife of Buffle whom Mrs Lirriper found a little uppity. Mother of Robina. Mr. Buffle's family were not liked in this neighbourhood, for when you are a householder my dear you'll find it does not come by nature to like the Assessed, and it was considered besides that a one-horse pheayton ought not to have elevated Mrs. Buffle to that height... (top)
Buffle, Robina ( Mrs Lirriper's Legacy ) Daughter of Mr and Mrs Buffle who disapprove of Robina's attachment to Mr Buffle's articled young gentleman, George. It was whispered that Miss Buffle would go either into a consumption or a convent she being so very thin and off her appetite. (top)
Buffy, William ( Bleak House ) Member of Parliament and friend of Sir Leicester Dedlock. (top)
Bulder, Colonel ( Pickwick Papers ) Head of the garrison at Rochester who attends the charity ball at the Bull Inn with his wife and daughter. Also takes part in the grand review on the Chatham lines. Colonel Bulder, in full military uniform, on horseback, galloping first to one place and then to another, and backing his horse among the people, and prancing, and curvetting, and shouting in a most alarming manner, and making himself very hoarse in the voice, and very red in the face, without any assignable cause or reason whatever. (top)
Bullamy ( Martin Chuzzlewit ) Porter at the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company. A wonderful creature, in a vast red waistcoat and a short-tailed pepper-and-salt coat--who carried more conviction to the minds of sceptics than the whole establishment without him. No confidences existed between him and the Directorship; nobody knew where he had served last; no character or explanation had been given or required. No questions had been asked on either side. This mysterious being, relying solely on his figure, had applied for the situation, and had been instantly engaged on his own terms. They were high; but he knew, doubtless, that no man could carry such an extent of waistcoat as himself, and felt the full value of his capacity to such an institution. (top)
Bullfinch ( The Uncommercial Traveller - A Little Dinner in an Hour ) Esteemed friend of the Uncommercial Traveller who accompanies him on a business trip to Namelesston and half-heartedly recommends that they dine at the Temeraire. An excellent man of business. (top)
Bullman ( Pickwick Papers ) Defendant in the case of Bullman and Ramsey described by the clerks of Dodson and Fogg. (top)
Bulph ( Nicholas Nickleby ) The Crummles' landlord in Portsmouth. A pilot, who sported a boat-green door, with window-frames of the same colour, and had the little finger of a drowned man on his parlour mantelshelf, with other maritime and natural curiosities. He displayed also a brass knocker, a brass plate, and a brass bell-handle, all very bright and shining; and had a mast, with a vane on the top of it, in his back yard. (top)
Bumble (Oliver Twist) PIX Beadle at the workhouse where Oliver is born. He mistreats the residents in his care and becomes the symbol of Dickens' distaste for the workhouse system. Marries Mrs Corney and later is disgraced and becomes a resident in the same workhouse. A fat man, and a choleric one (top)
Bumple, Michael ( Sketches by Boz: Doctors' Commons ) Subject of a trial, accused of brawling with Thomas Sludberry. during a vestry meeting in a parish church. (top)
Bung, Mr ( Sketches by Boz: The Election for Beadle and The Broker's Man and The Ladie's Societies ) Successful candidate for beadle. Formerly a court broker. (top)
Bunkin, Mrs ( Pickwick Papers ) Neighbor of Martha Bardell alluded to during the trial of Bardell and Pickwick. (top)
Bunsby, Jack ( Dombey and Son ) PIX Seafaring friend of Captain Cuttle who is always called in times of crisis for advise. The advise given confounds everyone listening except his friend Cuttle, who values it immensely. Bunsby is later trapped into marriage by Mrs MacStinger. Bunsby's ship is the Cautious Clara. Bunsby is described by Dickens as having one stationary eye in the mahogany face, and one revolving one, on the principle of some lighthouses. (top)
Burton, Thomas ( Pickwick Papers ) Reformed drinker and new member introduced to the flock at the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association. Purveyor of cat's-meat to the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, and several members of the Common Council (the announcement of this gentleman’s name was received with breathless interest). Has a wooden leg; finds a wooden leg expensive going over the stones; used to wear second-hand wooden legs, and drink a glass of hot gin and water regularly every night—sometimes two (deep sighs). Found the second-hand wooden legs split and rot very quickly; is firmly persuaded that their constitution was undermined by the gin and water (prolonged cheering). Buys new wooden legs now, and drinks nothing but water and weak tea. The new legs last twice as long as the others used to do, and he attributes this solely to his temperate habits (triumphant cheers). (top)
Butler, Theodosius ( Sketches by Boz: Sentiment ) Author of the pamplet 'Considerations on the Policy of Removing the Duty on Bees'-wax.' under the pseudonym Edward M'Neville Walter. He gains the affection of Miss Lavinia Brook Dingwall, a union that Lavinia's father, Cornelius, is not fond of. Mr Theodosius Butler was one of those immortal geniuses who are to be met with in almost every circle. They have, usually, very deep, monotonous voices. They always persuade themselves that they are wonderful persons, and that they ought to be very miserable, though they don't precisely know why. They are very conceited, and usually possess half an idea; but, with enthusiastic young ladies, and silly young gentlemen, they are very wonderful persons. (top)
Buzfuz, Sergeant ( Pickwick Papers ) Barrister who represents Martha Bardell in her suit against Samuel Pickwick. He bullies the witnesses into giving incriminating testimony and Pickwick is falsely convicted. A fat body and a red face. (top)
