The Pickwick Papers · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.
Skim names here — open a free preview to see character cards and Character Web beside the page as you read.
Samuel Pickwick
major
Also known as Mr. Pickwick, Pickwick, the immortal Pickwick, the eloquent Pickwick, the perplexed Mr. Pickwick
Pickwick presides over the club he founded, flanked by three loyal Pickwickians, and proposes to widen his field of observation by travelling the country and reporting back. His defining tension is between the dignity of his learned reputation and the indignities his innocence keeps inviting — he is credulous where he should be wary, generous where others are scheming. His earnestness sets the novel's comic engine running: every misadventure tests, and ultimately deepens, his philanthropy.
Sam Weller
major
Also known as Mr. Samuel Weller, Sam, Mr. Weller, Sam Weller, Weller, Sammy, Samivel, Veller, Samivel Veller
Sam enters the story as a boot-black at the White Hart and is hired on the spot when Pickwick needs a servant, negotiating wages, clothes, and duties with cheerful impudence. Where Pickwick is credulous, Sam is canny; his cockney aphorisms and readiness for a scrape repeatedly rescue his master from schemers and scandals. His growing devotion gives the picaresque its emotional spine, converting a series of travels into a partnership.
Nathaniel Winkle
supporting
Also known as Mr. Winkle, Winkle, Mr. Nathaniel Winkle
Winkle is one of the four founding Pickwickians, presented in the club's proceedings as the member whose ruling passion is fame in field, air, and water. His flaw is a vanity that outruns his ability: he claims sporting prowess he cannot deliver, and his romantic entanglements land him in scrapes as often as his misfired guns. His repeated exposure keeps the early travelogue buoyant and gives the group a running joke about pretension versus performance.
Tracy Tupman
supporting
Also known as Tupman, Mr. Tupman, Mr. Tracy Tupman, old Tupman
Tupman sits at Pickwick's right hand, described as adding the enthusiasm of a boy to the wisdom of maturer years in the most pardonable of human weaknesses — love. Time and feeding have rounded his form and buried his watch-chain, but his soul remains unchanged, and admiration of the fair sex is still its ruling passion. His susceptibility repeatedly steers the travellers into awkward romantic predicaments, making him the group's tenderest and most reliably embarrassed heart.
Augustus Snodgrass
supporting
Also known as Snodgrass, Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Augustus Snodgrass, Augustus
Snodgrass sits to Pickwick's left, poetically enveloped in a blue cloak with a canine-skin collar, and is named in the club's founding resolutions as one of the four Corresponding Society members. Pickwick's oration singles him out as the friend for whom poetic fame is dearest, marking him as the group's aspirant bard. His verse-making sensibility and eventual romantic attachment give the travels a thread of sentiment beneath the farce.
Alfred Jingle
supporting
Also known as Mr. Jingle, Jingle, Mr. Alfred Jingle, Alfred Jingle
Jingle bursts into the Pickwickians' world as a dashing stranger whose clipped, telegraphic speech and easy confidence win instant trust. He is a con man by instinct, cadging dinners, engineering elopements, and vanishing before consequences land, and his schemes repeatedly humiliate the credulous Pickwick. As the recurring agent of chaos in the early and middle chapters, he turns the club's earnest investigations into lessons in worldly deception.
Job Trotter
supporting
Also known as Job, Trotter, Mr. Trotter, Mr. Job Trotter, Job Trotter
Job Trotter moves through the novel as the quiet shadow to Alfred Jingle's loud, staccato schemer, forever weeping, bowing, and slipping free of blame. His genius is for performance: he can weep on cue, feign loyalty, and turn a servant's humility into a weapon, which makes him indispensable to Jingle and dangerous to the Pickwickians. His double act with his master gives the early misadventures at Rochester and Bury St. Edmunds their comic menace.
Mr. Wardle
supporting
Also known as Wardle, Old Mr. Wardle, old Wardle
Mr. Wardle is the novel's warm center of gravity away from London: a bluff, generous farmer who welcomes Pickwick's club to his Kentish estate and treats their investigations as an excuse for feasting and games. His fierce protectiveness of his daughters, especially when the smooth-talking Jingle circles them, turns hospitality into a running test of honor. Through him the picaresque wanderings acquire a home, a hearth, and stakes that feel genuinely personal.
Emily Wardle
supporting
Also known as Emily, Miss Wardle, Miss Emily Wardle, Emily Wardle
Emily Wardle belongs to the bright, bustling world of Dingley Dell, where she and her sister Isabella are the emotional prizes around whom the men orbit. Her mildness contrasts with her father's bluster and with the scheming of suitors like Jingle, who sees her as a fortune to be abducted rather than a person to be loved. Her presence gives the Pickwickians' country episodes their tenderness and stakes, and quietly sets Snodgrass's sentimental heart in motion.
Isabella Wardle
minor
Also known as Isabella, Isabella Wardle, Bella, Miss Isabella Wardle
Mr. Wardle's eldest daughter, who marries Mr. Trundle.
Rachael Wardle
minor
Also known as Miss Rachael Wardle, Rachael, Miss Rachael, the passionate Wardle
Mr. Wardle's spinster sister, who is briefly infatuated with Jingle.
Bob Sawyer
supporting
Also known as Mr. Bob Sawyer, Bob Sawyer, Bob, Sawyer, Mr. Sawyer
Bob Sawyer is the novel's great engine of impropriety: a swaggering, impecunious surgeon-in-training who treats life as an ongoing joke at propriety's expense. His friendship with Ben Allen, his hopeless pursuit of Arabella, and his willingness to drink, howl, and wave a red flag from a chaise make him a comic foil to Pickwick's earnest dignity. He brings the medical-student underworld of London and Bristol into the book, and his schemes keep the middle chapters fizzing.
Benjamin Allen
supporting
Also known as Mr. Benjamin Allen, Ben, Mr. Allen, Allen, Benjamin, Benjamin Allen
Ben Allen is a coarse, stout young man with spectacles, a white neckerchief, and a taste for brandy and Cubas, whose friendship with Bob Sawyer is sealed by shared meals and shared mischief. His self-appointed authority over Arabella's love life, and his readiness to threaten any rival with a bullet, make him both a comic bully and a genuine obstacle to her happiness. His blundering interventions keep the romantic subplot churning through the novel's middle stretch.
Arabella Allen
supporting
Also known as Arabella Allen, Arabella, Miss Allen, the charming Arabella, Miss Arabella Allen, Bella
Arabella Allen is the romantic prize her brother Ben and Bob Sawyer conspire to secure, but she has a mind and a taste of her own, and she does not like Bob. Her independence, and the secret attachment it enables, turns the medical students' bluster into a genuine contest of wills. She matters because her choices quietly redirect the plot's romantic current and expose how little the men around her have bothered to ask what she wants.
Mr. Perker
supporting
Also known as Perker, little Mr. Perker, Little Mr. Perker
Perker manages the Blue party's campaign with such tactics as locking voters in coach-houses and distributing forty-five green parasols to secure wives and brothers. He becomes Mr. Pickwick's trusted legal advisor, steering the innocent philosopher through courts and crises with worldly patience. His pragmatic, faintly cynical competence sets the tone for the novel's satire of elections, law, and gentlemanly naivety.
Mrs. Bardell
supporting
Also known as Mrs. Bardell, Bardell, Mrs. Martha Bardell
Surrounded by gossiping friends like Mrs. Cluppins and Mrs. Sanders, Mrs. Bardell presides over her lodging-house with a mix of maternal fuss and romantic hope. When Pickwick's innocent words about a servant are misconstrued, she becomes the plaintiff in a breach-of-promise suit that transforms her from landlady into adversary. Her wounded dignity and the eager counsel of her companions drive one of the book's central comic engines.
Dodson and Fogg
supporting
Also known as Messrs. Dodson, Fogg, Dodson, Messrs. Dodson & Fogg, Dodson & Fogg, Mr. Dodson, Mr. Fogg
Dodson and Fogg operate from a dim office where clients are commodities and truth is a negotiable inconvenience. They take up Mrs. Bardell's cause not from conviction but from the certainty of costs, and their relentless legal machinery threatens to ruin Pickwick. As the embodiment of the profession's predatory side, they give the novel's middle chapters their sharpest edge of anxiety beneath the comedy.
Mr. Pott
minor
Also known as Mr. Pott, Pott, the great Pott, the mighty Pott
Editor of the Eatanswill Gazette, a pompous and quarrelsome newspaperman.
Mrs. Pott
minor
Also known as Mrs. Pott, the agreeable Mrs. Pott, the imperious Mrs. Pott
Mr. Pott's domineering wife, who flirts with Mr. Winkle.
Mr. Stiggins
supporting
Also known as Mr. Stiggins, the reverend Mr. Stiggins, Stiggins, the Reverend Mr. Stiggins
Stiggins attaches himself to Mrs. Weller as her spiritual adviser, trading sanctimonious sermons for frequent access to her kitchen and cellar. His hypocrisy—praying loudly while drinking steadily—makes him a target of Tony Weller's blunt contempt and Sam's dry mockery. He represents the novel's satire of religious cant, and his presence in the Weller family circle complicates the elder coachman's domestic life.
Tony Weller
supporting
Also known as the elder Mr. Weller, Mr. Weller, Mr. Veller, Tony Veller, Mr. Tony Veller
Tony Weller drives his coach between London and the provinces, dispensing hard-earned maxims about marriage, money, and the treachery of attorneys. His second marriage to a pious widow brings him into conflict with Stiggins and domestic discomfort, which he bears with rueful humor. He is devoted to Sam and becomes a loyal ally to Pickwick, his robust common sense offering a counterweight to the club's genteel follies.
Mrs. Weller
minor
Also known as Mrs. Weller, the late Mrs. Weller
Tony Weller's second wife, a devout follower of Mr. Stiggins.
Mary
supporting
Also known as Mary, Mary Ann
Mary works in the household of the pompous magistrate Mr. Nupkins, where she encounters Sam Weller during the Pickwickians' misadventures in Ipswich. Her good looks and lively manner prompt Sam's gallant attentions, and their courtship threads quietly through later episodes. She represents the domestic happiness awaiting Sam beyond his life as Pickwick's servant, and her eventual marriage to him closes a warm subplot.
Peter Magnus
minor
Also known as Magnus, Mr. Magnus, Mr. Peter Magnus
A nervous and comical gentleman who proposes to Miss Witherfield.
Dowler
minor
Also known as Dowler, Mr. Dowler, the valorous Dowler
A blustering and cowardly military man who travels with the Pickwickians.
Angelo Cyrus Bantam
minor
Also known as Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Bantam, Angelo Bantam, Mr. Bantam
The Master of the Ceremonies at the Bath assembly rooms.
Dowager Lady Snuphanuph
minor
Also known as Dowager Lady Snuphanuph, Lady Snuphanuph
A haughty aristocratic lady at Bath.
Solomon Pell
minor
Also known as Mr. Solomon Pell, Mr. Pell, Pell, Solomon Pell
A seedy lawyer who handles legal matters for the Wellers.
Serjeant Buzfuz
minor
Also known as Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, Serjeant Buzfuz
The bombastic barrister who prosecutes Mrs. Bardell's case against Pickwick.
Justice Stareleigh
minor
Also known as Mr. Justice Stareleigh
The irritable and deaf judge presiding over the Bardell vs. Pickwick trial.
Mrs. Cluppins
minor
Also known as Mrs. Cluppins, little Mrs. Cluppins
A witness for Mrs. Bardell, who testifies at the trial.
Tom Roker
minor
Also known as Mr. Tom Roker, Mr. Roker, Roker, Thomas
The turnkey at the Fleet Prison, who oversees Mr. Pickwick's incarceration.
Smangle
minor
Also known as Smangle, Mr. Smangle, the dashing Mr. Smangle
A flashy and unscrupulous debtor in the Fleet Prison.
Mivins
minor
Also known as Mivins, Mr. Mivins
A friendly and eccentric fellow prisoner in the Fleet.
Jack Bamber
minor
Also known as Jack Bamber, old Jack Bamber
An old debtor in the Fleet who tells ghostly stories.
Mr. Lowten
minor
Also known as Mr. Lowten, Lowten
Mr. Perker's clerk, who assists with legal matters.
Gabriel Grub
minor
Also known as old Gabriel Grub, Gabriel Grub, Gabriel
A surly sexton who is reformed by a supernatural Christmas vision.
Grummer
minor
Also known as Grummer, Mr. Grummer, the portly Grummer, Daniel Grummer
A bumbling police officer who attempts to arrest Mr. Pickwick.
Mr. Trundle
minor
Also known as Mr. Trundle, Trundle, young Trundle
A young man who marries Isabella Wardle.
John Smauker
minor
Also known as John, Mr. John Smauker, John Smauker, Mr. Smauker, Smauker
A servant to a gentleman in Bath, who befriends Sam Weller.
Slurk
minor
Also known as Slurk, Mr. Slurk
Editor of the rival Eatanswill newspaper, the Gazette.
Mr. Blotton
minor
Also known as Mr. Blotton, Blotton, the presumptuous Blotton
A member of the Pickwick Club who questions Mr. Pickwick's authorship.
Mr. Winkle Sr.
minor
Also known as Mr. Winkle
Nathaniel Winkle's father, who disapproves of his son's marriage.
Samuel Slumkey
minor
Also known as The Honourable Samuel Slumkey, Sam, Mr. Slumkey, Slumkey, Honourable Mr. Samuel Slumkey
A parliamentary candidate in Eatanswill.
Mr. Nupkins
minor
Also known as Mr. Nupkins, Nupkins
A pompous and self-important magistrate in Ipswich.
Mrs. Nupkins
minor
Also known as Mrs. Nupkins
Mr. Nupkins' haughty wife.
Miss Nupkins
minor
Also known as Miss Nupkins
The Nupkins' daughter, who is courted by Jingle.
Miss Witherfield
minor
Also known as Miss Witherfield
A lady who mistakes Mr. Pickwick's intentions, causing a duel challenge.
Mrs. Dowler
minor
Also known as Mrs. Dowler
Dowler's meek wife.
Colonel Bulder
minor
Also known as Colonel Bulder, Mrs. Colonel Bulder
A military man and his wife, encountered at Bath.
Mr. Jackson
minor
Also known as Mr. Jackson, Jackson, the dexterous Mr. Jackson
A clerk from Dodson and Fogg, who serves papers on Mr. Pickwick.
Serjeant Snubbin
minor
Also known as Serjeant Snubbin, Snubbin, Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, the Serjeant
Mr. Pickwick's defense barrister at the trial.
Mrs. Sanders
minor
Also known as Mrs. Sanders
Another witness for Mrs. Bardell at the trial.
Master Bardell
minor
Also known as Master Bardell, Tommy, Tom, Bardell, Mr. Bardell, Master Thomas Bardell
Mrs. Bardell's young son, who is used as a prop in the trial.
Nathaniel Pipkin
minor
Also known as Nathaniel Pipkin, Mr. Pipkin, Mr. Nathaniel Pipkin, Nathaniel, Pipkin
A timid schoolmaster who loves Maria Lobbs.
Maria Lobbs
minor
Also known as Maria Lobbs, old Lobbs, Lobbs, Maria
The niece of Old Lobbs, who marries Nathaniel Pipkin.
Old Lobbs
minor
Also known as Old Lobbs, Mr. Lobbs
A stern old man who opposes his niece's marriage to Pipkin.
Muzzle
minor
Also known as Muzzle, The obsequious Muzzle, Mr. Muzzle, the wily Mr. Muzzle
Mr. Nupkins' obsequious and scheming butler.
Mr. Jinks
minor
Also known as Send Mr. Jinks, Mr. Jinks, The hungry-looking Jinks, Jinks
Mr. Nupkins' clerk, who is perpetually hungry and nervous.
Mrs. Raddle
minor
Also known as Mrs. Raddle, Raddle
Bob Sawyer's landlady, a fierce and demanding woman.
Mr. Raddle
minor
Also known as Mr. Raddle, the luckless Mr. Raddle
Mrs. Raddle's henpecked husband.
Ben Allen
minor
Also known as Ben Allen
Alternate name for Benjamin Allen, Arabella's brother.
Jack Hopkins
minor
Also known as Jack Hopkins, Jack, Hopkins
A medical student and friend of Bob Sawyer.
Mrs. Trundle
minor
Also known as Mrs. Trundle
Isabella Wardle after her marriage to Mr. Trundle.
Captain Boldwig
minor
Also known as Captain Boldwig, little Captain Boldwig, the great Captain Boldwig, Boldwig
A irascible landowner who finds Mr. Pickwick asleep in a wheelbarrow.
Mr. Phunky
minor
Also known as Mr. Phunky, Phunky, the unfortunate Mr. Phunky
A junior barrister assisting Serjeant Snubbin at the trial.
Mr. Skimpin
minor
Also known as Mr. Skimpin
A junior barrister assisting Serjeant Buzfuz at the trial.
Mr. Wicks
minor
Also known as Mr. Wicks, Wicks
A clerk at Dodson and Fogg's office.
Mr. Mallard
minor
Also known as Mr. Mallard
A clerk at Serjeant Snubbin's chambers.
Mr. Whiffers
minor
Also known as Mr. Whiffers
A gentleman encountered at Bath.
Mr. Gunter
minor
Also known as Mr. Gunter
A gentleman at the Bath assembly rooms.
Mr. Crushton
minor
Also known as the Honourable Mr. Crushton, Mr. Crushton, the obsequious Mr. Crushton
A fawning gentleman at Bath.
Mr. Leo Hunter
minor
Also known as Mr. Leo Hunter, Mr. Hunter
Husband of Mrs. Leo Hunter, a host at Eatanswill.
Mrs. Leo Hunter
minor
Also known as Permit Mrs. Leo Hunter, Mrs. Leo Hunter, Mrs. Hunter, the gratified Mrs. Leo Hunter
A literary hostess in Eatanswill who writes odes.
Count Smorltork
minor
Also known as Count Smorltork, Count
A foreign count attending Mrs. Leo Hunter's party.
Joseph Smiggers
minor
Also known as Joseph Smiggers, Esq, Joe, Joseph
The secretary of the Pickwick Club.
Mr. Miller
minor
Also known as Mr. Miller, Miller, the crestfallen Miller
A member of the Pickwick Club.
Mr. Seymour
minor
Also known as Mr. Seymour
A member of the Pickwick Club.
Heyling
minor
Also known as Heyling, Mr. Heyling
A vengeful man who tells a story of his ruined life in the Fleet.
Martin
minor
Also known as Martin, Mr. Martin
A turnkey at the Fleet Prison.
Dubbley
minor
Also known as Dubbley, Mr. Dubbley
A police officer who assists Grummer.
Namby
minor
Also known as Namby, Mr. Namby
A friend of Mr. Perker's, encountered at the trial.
Mr. Price
minor
Also known as Price, Mr. Price
A fellow prisoner in the Fleet.
Mr. Simpson
minor
Also known as Simpson, Mr. Simpson
A fellow prisoner in the Fleet.
Mr. Raddle
minor
Also known as Mr. Raddle
A debtor in the Fleet Prison.
Mrs. Pell
minor
Also known as Mrs. Pell, Pell
Solomon Pell's wife.
Mrs. Winkle
minor
Also known as Mrs. Winkle, Mrs. Nathaniel Winkle
Arabella Allen after her marriage to Nathaniel Winkle.
Mr. Edward Chapman
minor
Also known as Mr. Edward Chapman
A publisher mentioned in the preface.
Horatio Fizkin
minor
Also known as Horatio Fizkin, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, Fizkin, Mr. Fizkin
The rival parliamentary candidate in Eatanswill.
Mr. Porkenham
minor
Also known as Mr. Sidney Porkenham, old Porkenham
A gentleman with marriageable daughters.
The Misses Porkenham
minor
Also known as the Misses Porkenhams, the Porkenhams
The Porkenham daughters, who are interested in Mr. Winkle.
Mr. Grunt
minor
Also known as Mr. Grunt
A guest at the Porkenhams' party.
Captain Fitz-Marshall
minor
Also known as Captain Fitz-Marshall, Fitz-Marshall, Mr. Charles Fitz-Marshall, Charles, Charley
An alias used by Alfred Jingle in Bath.
Lady Clubber
minor
Also known as Lady Clubber
Wife of Sir Thomas Clubber, a Bath socialite.
