The Top 10 Dickens characters

10: Sam Weller

Sam Weller deserves a place on this list if only because he's the character who first made Dickens a star. It might even be argued that the writer owed his career to Weller.

He's not quite so well-known today (perhaps because of his bland, un-Dickensian name?), but Sam Weller was introduced by Dickens in first novel, Pickwick Papers.

Like most of his works, it was published in magazine
instalments, but was pretty much ignored by the reading public until Weller turned up in Chapter 10. A witty, swaggering Cockney, he rejuvenated the story, made Pickwick Papers a sudden hit, and established Dickens as a celebrity before he was 25. Nice work, Charles.

9: Little Nell

She broke thousands of hearts the world over, reduced politicians to tears, and has been argued over by critics and readers ever since. She is Little Nell, the heroine of The Old Curiosity Shop.

A beautiful, angelic girl, Little Nell goes on the run with her grandfather after he falls into severe debt. Each instalment of the novel was ravenously consumed by readers in Britain and America, but it was with her death that she became immortal. Dickens was flooded with letters from distraught readers (including MPs who confessed to having been crushed by her death).

For some, the Little Nell death scene is the most powerful example of Victorian realism. For others, it's the worst kind of sentimental mush. As Oscar Wilde famously said: "One would have to have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing." Either way, she's certainly a powerful creation.

8: Oliver Twist

"Please sir, I want some more." It's possibly the most famous line Dickens ever wrote, and the story of Oliver Twist – the orphan who becomes an undertaker's assistant before falling in with a gang of pickpockets – has been adapted endless times (from a silent film in 1909 to the 60s musical to a version set among rentboys in modern-day Canada).

Dickens used Oliver's story to call attention to the horrors of workhouses and to register his disgust with certain slums in London (some of which were cleaned up thanks to the novel's success). However, Oliver himself is only at number eight on our list because the novel features some even more memorable characters – as we'll see later on...

7: Miss Havisham

A cruel ice queen forever clad in her dusty wedding dress, Miss Havisham is one of the most fascinating figures in literature. She haunts the pages of Great Expectations, living in a decrepit mansion and plotting the downfall of others.

The reason why she's so miffed? She was jilted on her wedding day by her con-artist fiancée – which would certainly get anyone down, except that Havisham never, ever gets over it, and indeed trains a girl, Estella, to be a ruthless man-eater and take revenge on the opposite sex. (As Havisham charmingly puts it, "I stole her heart away and put ice in its place.")

Yet, while she sounds a bit OTT, Miss Havisham was actually inspired by the acquaintance of James Payn, another writer who told Dickens about her. Payn later said Dickens' take on the woman was "not one whit exaggerated".

6: Fagin

When Dickens was a boy and toiling away in a factory, one of his only real friends there was a lad named Bob Fagin, who protected him from bullies. Yet, for unknown reasons, Dickens chose to name one of the villains from Oliver Twist after him. We bet Bob was chuffed!

That said, Fagin is a truly brilliant creation – a cunning old fox lurking in the shadows of London as he sends his army of young ruffians out onto the streets to "pick a pocket or two" (as the musical famously put it). In fact, there really were criminals of this type in those days, and were dubbed "kidsmen" by the press.

Yet Fagin's Jewishness has also been controversial. Jewish readers at the time were angered, calling Fagin a cruel stereotype. Like Shakespeare's Shylock – another complex Jewish character – Fagin continues to be argued over by critics and readers to this day.

5: Daniel Quilp

Dickens gave us quite a few horrible baddies, but none are quite so memorably grotesque as Daniel Quilp. Don't be fooled by his almost comical name, because this character from The Old Curiosity Shop is the nearest thing to a literal monster in all of Dickens.

A hunched, hook-nosed dwarf, Quilp has a "ghastly smile which, appearing to be the mere result of habit and to have no connection with any mirthful or complacent feeling… gave him the aspect of a panting dog."

Wielding a club, terrorising his family and – scariest of all – eating eggs whole with the shells on, Quilp is like some fairy tale creature, reminiscent of Rumplestiltskin, who has somehow invaded the gritty realism of Dickens' world. Bill Sikes looks namby pamby by comparison.

4: Mr Micawber

It's no accident that David Jason once played Mr Micawber on the small screen, as this roly poly character from David Copperfield is the original Del Boy.

A good-hearted family man, Wilkins Micawber is always ducking, diving and waiting for "something to turn up" – despite the fact that he's constantly in debt and in danger of being arrested lack of repayments. His appeal is down to his inability to accept defeat, and the way he merrily embraces hardship ("Welcome poverty! Welcome misery, hunger, tempest and beggary!").

Based on Dickens' own financially-challenged father, the colourful character is so popular that he's even leant his name to a basic economic concept – the Micawber Principle. Which basically states that if one's expenditure exceeds one's income, the net result is misery. A sensible warning, all too easily forgotten in the presence of a credit card!

3: Pip

Elements of Dickens' own life were used in most of his novels, but the two most directly autobiographical characters are probably David Copperfield and Phillip Pirrip – otherwise known as Pip.

So why does Pip, 'pip' David Copperfield to the post for inclusion in our top 10? He's simply a more fully-realised character. David Copperfield may grow up in his novel, but he doesn't really develop in the same way that Pip does in Great Expectations.

In the latter novel, we follow Pip through all the perils of growing up. We see a humble boy who becomes, with money, a society snob. We then see him mature further, understand his own flaws, cope with the hazards of love, and gradually find his place in the world. Some say Dickens favoured caricatures too much, but Pip is a living, breathing creation of brilliant complexity.

2: The Artful Dodger

You've got to hand it to the Dodger. In a novel full of grand characters – from Fagin to Bill Sikes to Nancy to Oliver Twist himself – he manages to steal his scenes as expertly as he lifts posh handkerchiefs from the pockets of gentlemen.

A swaggering scoundrel, he's like a grubby, amoral variation of Peter Pan, "as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see" but with "all the airs and manners of a man." Dashing about with his too-big top hat forever toppling in front of his eyes, he's the finest urchin in literature – and certainly more fun to be around than the actual hero of the novel. Let's just hope he doesn't grow up to be like that nasty Bill Sikes...

1: Ebenezer Scrooge

It's a funny thing, really. While Dickens toiled long and hard on grand, complex novels like Bleak House, his most famous character – the one who stands in the company of other eternals like Hamlet and Don Quixote – turns up in a small Christmas story he quickly rattled off in a matter of weeks.

Yes, the number one spot has to go to Ebenezer Scrooge – the old misery-guts who becomes a good man after being visited by a number of ghosts on Christmas Eve. It's one of the great stories of all time (as the literally countless TV, film and theatre adaptations prove), and "Scrooge" has itself become a by-word for a greedy, miserly person.

Dickens came up with the name after seeing a grave marker for a man named Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie, which described him as a "meal man". That is, a corn merchant. Dickens misread it as "mean man", but ironically the real Scroggie was by all accounts a generous, fun-loving chap known for his wild parties!