# Martin Chuzzlewit — Character guide

> Key figures in Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens.

- [Tom Pinch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/tom_pinch.md): 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 
- [Seth Pecksniff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/seth_pecksniff.md): 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 a
- [Martin Chuzzlewit](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/martin_chuzzlewit.md): 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, collid
- [Jonas Chuzzlewit](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/jonas_chuzzlewit.md): 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 s
- [Mark Tapley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/mark_tapley.md): 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 cheer
- [John Westlock](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/john_westlock.md): 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
- [Charity Pecksniff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/charity_pecksniff.md): 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 sist
- [Sarah Gamp](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/sarah_gamp.md): 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 a
- [Ruth Pinch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/ruth_pinch.md): 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, sh
- [Old Martin Chuzzlewit](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/old_martin_chuzzlewit.md): 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 pre
- [Tigg Montague](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/tigg_montague.md): 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 pla
- [Bailey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/bailey.md): 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 
- [Betsey Prig](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/betsey_prig.md): 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 
- [Mercy Pecksniff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/mercy_pecksniff.md): 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 courtsh
- [Mrs. Todgers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/mrs_todgers.md): 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 an
- [Nadgett](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/nadgett.md): 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 hi
- [Chuffey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/chuffey.md): 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 t
- [Mary Graham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/mary_graham.md): 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 he
- [Mrs. Lupin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/mrs_lupin.md): 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 
- [Chevy Slyme](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/chevy_slyme.md): A lazy, disreputable relative of the Chuzzlewits.
- [Mr. Mould](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/mould.md): An undertaker who profits from death and has a large family.
- [Anthony Chuzzlewit](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/anthony_chuzzlewit.md): 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 inherit
- [Augustus Moddle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/moddle.md): A lovesick, melancholy young man lodging at Todgers'.
- [Mr. Fips](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/fips.md): A mysterious lawyer who hires Tom Pinch for a secret employer.
- [Hannibal Chollop](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/hannibal_chollop.md): A rough, violent American frontiersman who befriends Martin in America.
- [Poll Sweedlepipe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/poll_sweedlepipe.md): A barber and bird-fancier who is a friend of Mrs. Gamp.
- [Mrs. Hominy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/mrs_hominy.md): A pretentious American writer and lecturer who hosts Martin.
- [David Crimple](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/david_crimple.md): A secretary and accomplice to Tigg Montague.
- [Mr. Bevan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/bevan.md): A kind American gentleman who helps Martin during his travels.
- [John Jobling](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/john_jobling.md): A doctor who attends to the Chuzzlewit family.
- [Captain Kedgick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/captain_kedgick.md): An American hotel keeper who hosts Martin.
- [La Fayette Kettle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/la_fayette_kettle.md): An American journalist who interviews Martin.
- [Mrs. Pawkins](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/mrs_pawkins.md): An American boarding house keeper.
- [Diggory Chuzzlewit](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters/diggory_chuzzlewit.md): An ancestor of the Chuzzlewit family mentioned in the narrative.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/martin_chuzzlewit_se/characters