Character guide

Christopher Nubbles

major

Also known as Kit, Poor Kit, Christopher, Christian

Kit Nubbles is the shabby, softhearted servant who loves Nell and her grandfather without ever expecting anything back, and whose plain decency stands out sharply against the schemers around him. His great flaw is simply that he is too trusting and too poor to defend himself when powerful men decide to use him. His loyalty and his vulnerability together make him the moral center of the early and middle chapters.

Richard Swiveller

major

Also known as Mr. Swiveller, Dick Swiveller, Swiveller, Dick

Dick Swiveller is a genial loafer who owes rent, cadges drinks, and does just enough clerk's work at Bevis Marks to keep a roof over his head. He is lazy and self-indulgent, yet his curiosity about the small servant locked in the basement hints at a conscience he has not quite smothered. His comic drift through the Brass household puts him in the exact place where the novel's cruelty and its kindness intersect.

Nell Trent

major

Also known as Nelly, Little Nell, Little Nelly, Miss Nell

Nell Trent is the child at the center of the old curiosity shop, loved by Kit, doted on by her grandfather, and stalked by Quilp. Her defining tension is that she must be the adult — protecting the old man's pride and health while carrying a fear she cannot name aloud. Her quiet endurance gives the novel its emotional gravity and sets the wandering journey in motion.

Sampson Brass

supporting

Also known as Mr. Sampson Brass, Mr. Brass, Sampson, Sammy, Brass

Sampson Brass is a self-styled gentleman of the legal profession, forever bowing, sighing, and invoking his twelve-pound certificate while angling for the main chance. His comic obsequiousness hides a willingness to manufacture evidence and ruin an innocent boy if the fee is right. He is the instrument through which Quilp's malice becomes legal machinery, and his office is the stage for the novel's sharpest satire of respectability.

Sally Brass

supporting

Also known as Miss Sally Brass, Miss Brass, Sally, Sarah

Sally Brass runs her brother's office with a pen, a tin of snuff, and a total absence of tenderness, treating the hidden servant girl as something less than human. She is sharp, stingy, and utterly without sentiment, yet she takes Dick's coarse flattery in perfect good humor. Her casual cruelty to the Marchioness is one of the novel's quietest horrors, and it is through her basement that Dick stumbles toward the story's hidden victim.

Daniel Quilp

major

Also known as Quilp, Mr. Quilp, Daniel

Daniel Quilp is the grotesque little moneylender who haunts the old curiosity shop, watching Nell from an archway across the street and tormenting everyone within reach for the pleasure of it. His defining quality is not greed but delight — he savors fear, drinks it down, and treats cruelty as a kind of sport. As the novel's presiding menace, he turns Nell's ordinary childhood into a flight, and gives the story its most unsettling and unforgettable presence.

Mrs. Quilp

supporting

Also known as Betsy Quilp, sweet Mrs. Quilp

Married to the dwarf Quilp, she occupies a household ruled by mockery and menace, where her only defense is meekness. Her fear is not passive but watchful: she reads his moods, absorbs his jokes, and survives by shrinking. She matters because her quiet suffering exposes the domestic tyranny at the story's dark center, and because her terror of Quilp mirrors Nell's own haunting dread of him.

The Schoolmaster

supporting

Also known as schoolmaster, Mr. Marton

He runs a small school in a quiet village, having lost the one young friend he had attached to himself, and now teaches children who forget him as they grow. His kindness to Nell and her grandfather is offered without calculation, and his loneliness gives the farewell a quiet ache. He matters because he is the first proof that the road holds goodness as well as danger, and his blessing follows them long after the village is out of sight.

Mr. Chuckster

minor

Also known as Chuckster

A pompous clerk at Sampson Brass's office, often mocking Kit.

Tommy Codlin

minor

Also known as Codlin, Tom Codlin, Mr. Codlin, Thomas Codlin

A grumpy showman who travels with Short and the Punch and Judy show.

Abel Garland

supporting

Also known as Mr. Garland, Abel, old Mr. Garland

He lives at Abel Cottage with his son and a pony that will be driven by no one but Kit, and his household becomes a small island of decency in a story full of schemers. His white hair and trusting face make him, as Brass slyly notes, a man liable to be imposed upon, yet his goodness is not weakness. He matters because his steady patronage of Kit and his willingness to help the Trents give the early-middle arc its moral counterweight to Quilp and the Brasses.

Barbara

minor

Also known as Poor Barbara, Little Barbara

The Garlands' maidservant who becomes Kit's sweetheart.

Mrs. Jarley

minor

Also known as Jarley

Proprietor of a traveling waxworks exhibition who employs Nell.

The Small Servant

supporting

Also known as small servant

She works below stairs for Sampson and Sally Brass, so neglected that she does not know her own age and has tasted beer only once. When Dick Swiveller discovers her, he feeds her, teaches her cards, and christens her the Marchioness, and her shrewdness begins to turn. She matters because she is the story's most abject figure and its most surprising witness, and because her loyalty to Dick will prove more useful than anyone in Bevis Marks suspects.

Short

minor

Also known as Mr. Short, Even Short

A cheerful showman who operates the Punch and Judy show with Codlin.

The Marchioness

supporting

Also known as Marchioness

Christened the Marchioness over a game of cards and a tankard of purl, she becomes Dick Swiveller's confidante in the Brasses' kitchen and his source of gossip about Miss Sally and Mr. Quilp. Her tongue loosens with the drink, and her sharp eyes miss nothing, though she has never seen a play or heard one spoken of except through chinks of doors. She matters because she turns the household's most invisible member into its most dangerous witness, and because her devotion to Dick gives the novel one of its few unforced tendernesses.

Jacob

minor

Also known as little Jacob

Kit's younger brother, a playful child living with their mother.

Miss Monflathers

minor

A stern, snobbish headmistress of a boarding school who scolds Nell.

Frederick Trent

supporting

Also known as Fred, Trent, young Trent

Fred Trent moves through the story as a young man of debts, charm, and no scruples, willing to use his sister's fortune and his acquaintance with Dick Swiveller to serve his own ends. He is not a grand villain but a plausible one, the kind of feckless relation who turns family affection into a transaction. He matters because his scheming shadows Nell's wanderings from the start, and because his presence makes the grandfather's obsession with money feel less like folly than like a trap already closing.

Sophy Wackles

minor

Also known as Miss Sophy Wackles, Sophia Wackles, Miss Wackles

A young woman courted by Swiveller before his involvement with the Marchioness.

Mrs. Jiniwin

minor

Mrs. Quilp's mother, who dislikes her son-in-law and lives with them.

Isaac List

minor

Also known as old Isaac, Mr. List, Mr. Isaac List

A seedy moneylender and associate of Quilp.

Tom Scott

minor

Also known as Tom

Quilp's deformed, mute servant who assists his master's schemes.

Mrs. Nubbles

minor

Kit's widowed mother, a poor but loving parent.

Miss Edwards

minor

A pupil at Miss Monflathers' school who shows kindness to Nell.

Jerry

minor

A showman who exhibits a performing dog and travels with Codlin and Short.

Mrs. George

minor

Also known as George

A landlady who provides lodging to Nell and her grandfather.

Vuffin

minor

Also known as Mr. Vuffin

A showman who exhibits a giant and a dwarf at a fair.

Mr. Trent

major

Also known as Trent

Mr. Trent keeps the Old Curiosity Shop and keeps Nell, his granddaughter, in a childhood of chores and quiet worry, his love for her tangled hopelessly with his compulsion to play. Dickens gives him the feverish nights and borrowed coins of a man who cannot stop, so that Nell's tenderness toward him reads as both duty and grief. His losses set the pair adrift, making his weakness the engine that pushes the novel's wandering middle.

Jem Groves

minor

Also known as James Groves, Mr. Groves, Mr. James Groves

A publican and associate of Quilp's circle.

The Notary

minor

A legal professional who assists the Garlands.

Mr. Slum

minor

Also known as Slum

A poet who writes advertising verses for Mrs. Jarley's waxworks.

Jowl

minor

Also known as Mr. Jowl, Joe Jowl

A disreputable gambler and companion of Frederick Trent.

Mrs. Garland

minor

Abel Garland's wife, a kind and motherly figure.

David

minor

Also known as Davy, old David

An elderly servant at the Garlands' home.

Cheggs

minor

Also known as Miss Cheggs, Poison Cheggs

A rival of Swiveller for Sophy Wackles' affections.

Becky Morgan

minor

Also known as Becky

Mrs. Quilp's servant, who gossips with her mistress.

Punch

minor

Also known as Mr. Punch

The puppet character in Codlin and Short's show.

Grinder

minor

Also known as Mr. Grinder

A showman who exhibits a performing dog.

Miss Jane Wackles

minor

One of Sophy Wackles' sisters.

Whisker

minor

A showman who exhibits a performing pony.

Old Luke Withers

minor

A former acquaintance of the schoolmaster, mentioned in passing.

Snobby

minor

Also known as young Snobby

A boy who works for the Garlands.

Sophronia Sphynx

minor

Also known as Sophronia

A friend of Sally Brass mentioned in the narrative.

Alick

minor

A servant at the Garlands' house.

Little Bethel

minor

A religious meeting place attended by Mrs. Nubbles.

Young Snob

minor

A boy who works for the Garlands.

Old Maunders

minor

Also known as Maunders

An old man who keeps a curiosity shop.

The Marquis of Mizzler

minor

Also known as Mizzler

A fictional nobleman referenced by Swiveller.