Character guide

Tom Pinch

major

Also known as Mr. Pinch, Pinch, Poor Pinch, poor Mr. Pinch, Master Pinch, Thomas Pinch, dear Mr. Pinch

Tom Pinch lives to serve Pecksniff, scraping bread, cutting sugar, and swallowing insults as if gratitude demanded it, until even his patient wonder starts to curdle. His tenderness toward his little sister Ruth and his friendship with the banished John Westlock reveal a man whose humility is real but whose eyes are slowly opening. He matters because the novel's moral center rests on whether goodness this unguarded can survive being used.

Seth Pecksniff

major

Also known as Mr. Pecksniff, Pecksniff, the Pecksniff, scoundrel Pecksniff, upright Pecksniff, old Pecksniff, The great Mr. Pecksniff

Pecksniff presides over a household of daughters, pupils, and dependents, all arranged to flatter his reputation for benevolence while he quietly calculates what each is worth. His genius is for moral language deployed as camouflage: he sacrifices his children's happiness to his own and calls it self-denial. He anchors the novel's satire, since every plot against old Chuzzlewit's fortune passes through his oily hands.

Martin Chuzzlewit

major

Also known as Martin, Mr. Chuzzlewit, young Martin, old Martin Chuzzlewit, Chuzzlewit, Mr. Martin Chuzzlewit

Young Martin arrives at Pecksniff's door as a pupil, already convinced of his own superiority and already entangled in his grandfather's watchful displeasure. His courtship of Mary Graham, the old man's companion, collides with the family's schemes for the Chuzzlewit inheritance. His early arrogance is the flaw the whole book exists to grind down, and his grandfather's feigned sleep behind the Blue Dragon door keeps the stakes personal.

Jonas Chuzzlewit

major

Also known as Mr. Jonas, the amiable Jonas, good Mr. Jonas, the departed Mr. Chuzzlewit

Jonas moves through London's flashy circles—Tigg Montague's dinners, Wolf's theatrical gossip, Pip's oaths—with a miser's eye fixed on the silver and a sneer for everything else. He has already humiliated one Pecksniff sister by transferring his suit to the other, and his contempt for his own father is barely concealed. He matters because his greed is the novel's darkest engine, the place where avarice stops being comic and starts being dangerous.

Mark Tapley

major

Also known as Mark

Mark Tapley attaches himself to young Martin with the theory that a man deserves credit for being jolly when circumstances make jollity hard, and the worse things get, the more determinedly he beams. He speaks in a cheerful idiom of love, honour, and obedience, punctual to the stroke of the clock, and reads other people's characters more shrewdly than his manner suggests. He matters because his loyalty gives Martin a companion in adversity and the reader a comic counterweight to Pecksniff's false virtue.

John Westlock

supporting

Also known as Mr. Westlock, Westlock, John, young Westlock, Mr. John Westlock, dear John

Westlock left Pecksniff's establishment with his eyes open and his contempt intact, and he returns as the friend Tom Pinch never had the nerve to seek. Shrewd, warm, and unimpressed by cant, he becomes the practical ally Tom leans on when the household finally cracks. He matters because his clear-sighted friendship offers Tom a way out of Pecksniff's orbit and gives the novel one honest man who was never fooled.

Charity Pecksniff

supporting

Also known as Miss Pecksniff, the youngest Miss Pecksniff, Miss Charity, Cherry, Miss Charity Pecksniff, Miss Cherry, Charity Pecksniff, the fair Miss Pecksniff, The gentle Cherry

Charity Pecksniff presides over her father's hypocritical household with a spinster's brittle dignity, forever sharpening her tongue on her prettier sister Mercy. When Jonas Chuzzlewit repudiates her for the younger sister, her wounded vanity curdles into open war, and she demands to be placed at Mrs. Todgers's on an independent footing. Her grim negotiations with her father expose how much of the family's piety is performance, and her jealousy becomes one of the household's most reliable engines of trouble.

Sarah Gamp

supporting

Also known as Mrs. Sarah Gamp, Gamp, Mrs. Gamp, Mr. Gamp, Sarah, Sairey Gamp, Sairey, Sairah, Sairah Gamp

Mrs. Gamp moves through the novel's sickrooms and funerals as a paid witness to other people's grief, her shawl, her umbrella, and her bottle never far from hand. She invokes the conveniently absent Mrs. Harris to lend authority to every self-serving claim, and her patter is so richly self-deceiving that it becomes its own kind of comedy. Dickens uses her to expose the callous commerce that surrounds death, and her rambling monologues are among the book's most quoted passages.

Ruth Pinch

supporting

Also known as Ruth, Poor little Ruth, little Ruth, Pretty little Ruth, this fluttering little Ruth, Darling Ruth

Ruth Pinch arrives in London to keep house for her beloved brother Tom, and her small domestic world becomes a refuge from the schemes and cruelties around them. When John Westlock's affection finally declares itself, she is so overcome that she can only run into Tom's arms and sob her news before she can speak it plainly. Her happiness matters because it rewards the novel's most unambiguously good characters, and her tenderness gives Dickens a counterweight to the Pecksniffian hypocrisy he spends so many pages dissecting.

Old Martin Chuzzlewit

supporting

Also known as Martin, old Martin, Old Martin, Martin Chuzzlewit the elder

Old Martin Chuzzlewit holds the family fortune and the family's attention, withdrawing into his sickroom at the Blue Dragon while his relations circle and scheme. He speaks freely only to his young companion, and his pretended slumber whenever Mrs. Lupin enters is a small, deliberate act of surveillance. His suspicion of everyone who professes affection is the engine that drives the inheritance plot, and his eventual judgments will decide which Chuzzlewits deserve what they are angling for.

Tigg Montague

supporting

Also known as Tigg, Mr. Tigg, Montague, Mr. Montague

Tigg Montague reinvents himself from shabby adventurer into a man of the world, surrounding himself with literary and theatrical hangers-on like Wolf and Pip and plying Jonas Chuzzlewit with choice wines and gorgeous plate. His Anglo-Bengalee scheme is a masterpiece of respectable fraud, and his calculated hospitality is designed to flatter exactly the greed he intends to exploit. He matters because he gives Jonas a partner in crime and a mirror for his own rapacity, and because his enterprise shows how easily London society mistakes confidence for substance.

Bailey

supporting

Also known as Bailey junior, Mr. Bailey, Now Mr. Bailey, The unfortunate Mr. Bailey, young Bailey, Young Bailey

Bailey junior scurries through Mrs. Todgers's boarding house, delivering messages, eavesdropping on lodgers, and generally comporting himself as if the establishment existed for his amusement. His cocky familiarity with his elders and his relish for other people's business make him a running comic presence in the commercial boarding-house chapters. He matters because his cheeky observations and errands keep the Todgers's world lively and because his fortunes, comic and otherwise, thread through the London portions of the book.

Betsey Prig

supporting

Also known as Mrs. Betsey Prig, Mrs. Prig, Betsy Prig, Betsey, The worthy Mrs. Prig

Betsey Prig belongs to that grimy London sisterhood of hired nurses who drink gin, trade gossip, and divide the sick-room between them like territory. Her intimacy with Mrs. Gamp is a volatile alliance of shared bottles and mutual flattery, forever threatening to curdle into open war. Dickens uses her to expose the callous comedy of Victorian nursing-for-hire, and the quarrel that severs the pair becomes one of the novel's most savoured scenes.

Mercy Pecksniff

supporting

Also known as Miss Merry, Merry, the lively Merry, poor Merry, Poor Merry, Miss Pecksniff, Miss Mercy, Miss Mercy Pecksniff, Mercy Pecksniff, the fair Miss Mercy, Silly Merry, Cousin Mercy

Merry Pecksniff is the livelier of Pecksniff's two daughters, a girl whose teasing wit and appetite for admiration make her a favourite at Todgers's and a rival to her sour sister Charity. When Jonas Chuzzlewit's courtship shifts from elder to younger, she mistakes his crude attention for triumph and marries him in a spirit of spiteful victory. Her slow disillusionment inside that household becomes one of the novel's quiet tragedies, and her suffering measures the human cost of the Pecksniff moral education.

Mrs. Todgers

supporting

Also known as Todgers, the devoted Mrs. Todgers, the frightened Mrs. Todgers, Dear Mrs. Todgers, mother Todgers

Mrs. Todgers presides over the boarding-house where the Miss Pecksniffs lodge, an establishment whose fortunes hinge on the bottomless appetite of commercial gentlemen for gravy. She confides her early disappointments and her miniature portrait to the Pecksniff girls with touching vanity, warming herself 'in a gentlemanly manner' at her own fire. Her household is the comic stage on which the Pecksniff daughters' courtships and pretensions are played out, and her anxious hospitality gives the London chapters their greasy, affectionate texture.

Nadgett

supporting

Also known as Mr. Nadgett, wrong Mr. Nadgett

Nadgett is the unobtrusive investigator employed by Montague, a man so still and grey that people forget he is in the room while they incriminate themselves. His method is patience: he waits, listens, and records, and his ledgers of other men's sins become instruments of ruin. He matters because the plot's machinery of exposure and revenge depends on his silent bookkeeping, and his blankness makes him one of Dickens's eeriest minor figures.

Chuffey

supporting

Also known as Mr. Chuffey, poor old Chuffey, That dratted Chuffey, old Chuffey, Old Chuffey, Even poor old Chuffey, Poor Chuffey, Chuff, Mister Chuff, Mr. Chuff, Poor old Chuff

Chuffey is the doddering old clerk kept about the Chuzzlewit firm, mocked as 'dratted' and humoured like a pet, yet possessed of a memory that surfaces at strange and inconvenient moments. His loyalty to Anthony and to the Chuzzlewit name is absolute, and his grief and agitation when the family turns on itself give the novel some of its rawest feeling. He matters because his cracked recollections and stubborn affection quietly testify to the wrongs done within the house.

Mary Graham

supporting

Also known as Mary, Polly, Miss Mary, Miss Graham

Mary Graham is the poor relation taken in by old Martin as companion and nurse, the only person he will see when he shuts himself away from the world. She is watched, tested, and half-accused by a jealous old man, and her patient dignity under that scrutiny is one of the novel's moral anchors. Her attachment to young Martin gives the plot its central romantic thread, and her position between the two Chuzzlewits makes her both prize and pawn in the family's struggle over money and trust.

Mrs. Lupin

supporting

Also known as no Mrs. Lupin

Mrs. Lupin runs the Blue Dragon inn at Salisbury, where she presides over ale, gossip, and the small dramas of travelers with equal good humor. She is melted by Mark Tapley's disinterested kindness and, in time, marries him; meanwhile she alone is permitted to attend the shut-in old Martin, though he feigns sleep whenever she enters. Her bar becomes a stage for Pecksniff's eavesdropping humiliations, making her a steady, humane presence in a novel crowded with schemers.

Chevy Slyme

minor

Also known as Mr. Slyme, Slyme, Mr. Chevy Slyme, this Mr. Slyme

A lazy, disreputable relative of the Chuzzlewits.

Mr. Mould

minor

Also known as Mould, the Misses Mould, The Misses Mould

An undertaker who profits from death and has a large family.

Anthony Chuzzlewit

supporting

Also known as Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son, Son, Anthony, old Anthony, Old Anthony, Mr. Anthony Chuzzlewit, Mr. Anthony, Mr. Chuzzlewit

Anthony Chuzzlewit is the wealthy, skinflint brother of old Martin, running a counting-house with his son Jonas and treating the younger man as both servant and suspect. Their mutual distrust is the family's true inheritance: Anthony hoards, Jonas covets, and each watches the other with the wariness of rival predators. His suspicious death early in the novel detonates the plot's central question of guilt and inheritance, turning Jonas from a petty schemer into a figure of genuine menace.

Augustus Moddle

minor

Also known as Mr. Moddle, Moddle, Augustus, Mr. Augustus Moddle, The suffering Moddle, Mrs. Moddle

A lovesick, melancholy young man lodging at Todgers'.

Mr. Fips

minor

Also known as Fips

A mysterious lawyer who hires Tom Pinch for a secret employer.

Hannibal Chollop

minor

Also known as Hannibal, Mr. Chollop, Chollop, Mr. Hannibal Chollop

A rough, violent American frontiersman who befriends Martin in America.

Poll Sweedlepipe

minor

Also known as Sweedlepipe, Poll, poor Poll, Mr. Sweedlepipe, Paul Sweedlepipe, Paul, Mr. Sweedlepipes

A barber and bird-fancier who is a friend of Mrs. Gamp.

Mrs. Hominy

minor

Also known as Toe, Toe Mrs. Hominy, Hominy, the horrible Hominy

A pretentious American writer and lecturer who hosts Martin.

David Crimple

minor

Also known as Esquire, David, David Crimple, Esquire, Crimple

A secretary and accomplice to Tigg Montague.

Mr. Bevan

minor

Also known as Bevan

A kind American gentleman who helps Martin during his travels.

John Jobling

minor

Also known as Jobling, Mr. Jobling

A doctor who attends to the Chuzzlewit family.

Captain Kedgick

minor

Also known as Kedgick

An American hotel keeper who hosts Martin.

La Fayette Kettle

minor

Also known as Mr. La Fayette Kettle, Mr. Kettle, Kettle, La Fayette

An American journalist who interviews Martin.

Mrs. Pawkins

minor

Also known as Pawkins, Major Pawkins

An American boarding house keeper.

Diggory Chuzzlewit

minor

Also known as the Diggory Chuzzlewit, Diggory

An ancestor of the Chuzzlewit family mentioned in the narrative.

Jinkins

minor

Also known as Mr. Jinkins, Bravo Jink, Jink, old Jink, Bravo

A boarder at Todgers' who leads the other young men.

Elijah Pogram

minor

Also known as Mr. Pogram, The languid Mr. Pogram, Pogram, poor Pogram, the Honourable Elijah Pogram, The Honourable Elijah Pogram, Elijah, a Pogram

A pompous American politician and orator.

George Chuzzlewit

minor

Also known as Mr. George Chuzzlewit, Mr. Chuzzlewit, Mr. George, George, dear Mr. Chuzzlewit

A relative of the Chuzzlewits who attends the family gathering.

Mr. Pip

minor

Also known as Pip, Ask Pip

A minor character mentioned in the context of Todgers'.

Mr. Lewsome

minor

Also known as Lewsome

A debt-ridden man who provides information about Jonas Chuzzlewit.

Jefferson Brick

minor

Also known as Mr. Jefferson Brick, Mr. Brick, Brick, Jefferson

A bombastic American journalist and war correspondent.

Zephaniah Scadder

minor

Also known as Scadder, Mr. Scadder, Zephaniah Scadder

A dishonest American land agent who sells Martin worthless property.

Mr. Spottletoe

minor

Also known as Mr. Spottletoe, Spottletoe, the fiery Spottletoe, Mrs. Spottletoe

A hot-tempered relative of the Chuzzlewits.

Lummy Ned

minor

Also known as Salisbury, Ned, Lummy Ned of the Light Salisbury

A coachman known for his drinking and stories.

Tacker

minor

Also known as Mr. Tacker

An undertaker's assistant working for Mr. Mould.

Mr. Norris

minor

Also known as Mr. Norris Junior, the Misses Norris, Norris, Junior, Mrs. Norris, Mrs. Norris Senior, the Norrises

A neighbor of the Pecksniffs with marriageable daughters.

Mr. Wolf

minor

Also known as Wolf

A minor character associated with the insurance company.

General Choke

minor

Also known as General Choke

An American general and land speculator.

Colonel Diver

minor

Also known as Colonel

An American newspaper editor.

Mrs. Jefferson Brick

minor

Also known as Jefferson Brick, Mrs. Brick

The wife of the American journalist.

Mr. Gander

minor

Also known as Gander

A minor character at Todgers' boarding house.

Lord Nobley

minor

Also known as Nobley

A nobleman mentioned in passing.

Sam

minor

A servant in the Pecksniff household.

Mrs. Gill

minor

A minor character who appears briefly.

General Fladdock

minor

Also known as Fladdock

An American general traveling to England.

Uncle Ben

minor

Also known as Benjamin

A relative of the Chuzzlewits.

Peter Wilkins

minor

Also known as young Wilkins

A young man who works for Pecksniff.

Mr. Buffum

minor

An American land agent.