Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mr. Bayham Badger A London physician who provides training for Richard Carstone.
Mrs. Bayham Badger His wife, who constantly talks about her three husbands.
Matthew Bagnet The owner of a music shop; a former soldier who has kept up a
friendship with George Rouncewell.
Miss Barbary Lady Dedlock's sister who raised Esther Summerson for a time and who
was once Boythorn's beloved.
Richard Carstone A cousin of Ada Clare; a restless, indecisive ward of Mr. Jarndyce.
Ada Clare A ward of Mr. Jarndyce and a close friend of Esther Summerson; like Esther,
she is an ideally virtuous young woman.
Lady Honoria Dedlock The charming, self-controlled wife of Sir Leicester and mother
of Esther Summerson; the tragic protagonist of this novel.
Sir Leicester Dedlock A proud, honorable aristocrat with an estate, Chesney Wold, in
Lincolnshire.
Volumnia Dedlock A somewhat giddy, elderly cousin of Sir Leicester and a frequent
guest at Chesney Wold.
The Misses Donny Twins who run Greenleaf, the boarding school where Esther
Summerson spends some of her early years before going to Bleak House.
Miss Flite A well-meaning, ineffectual old woman driven half mad by the Jarndyce and
Jarndyce suit.
Mr. Gridley ("the man from Shropshire") A man befriended by George Rouncewell
and eventually driven to suicide by the frustrations of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
Captain Hawdon (Nemo) A former army officer and, at the time of the story, an
impoverished law writer (copyist); he is Esther Summerson's father.
John Jarndyce The benevolent owner of Bleak House and legal guardian of Esther
Summerson, Richard Carstone, and Ada Clare.
Mrs. Jellyby A woman obsessed with social activism and neglectful of her own family
Caddy (Carolyn) Jellyby Mrs. Jellyby's eldest daughter; she becomes a close friend of
Esther and marries Prince Turveydrop.
Mr. Kenge A senior partner in the legal firm of Kenge and Carboy.
Mr. Krook A grotesque old man who owns a rag-and-bottle shop and rents a room to
Captain Hawdon.
Charley (Charlotte) Neckett Neckett's daughter who, after his death, become Esther's
maid at Bleak House
Mrs. Pardiggle A busybody social worker who rules despotically over her six sons.
Harold Skimpole A socially cheerful but irresponsible and parasitic man who is
protected but eventually repudiated by John Jarndyce.
Mr. Snagsby The rather timid owner of a store dealing in stationery supplies used in the
law.
Mrs. Snagsby A suspicious and jealous, if intelligent, woman who thinks that her
husband may be the father of Jo.
Esther Summerson A ward of Mr. Jarndyce and daughter of Lady Dedlock; she
narrates a large part of the story.
Mr. Turveydrop The founder of a dancing school, for which he takes all the credit while
his son Prince does all the work.