Dickens is 200 this year! But he remains unread by many.

So if you wanted to celebrate his anniversary by reading

one of his hefty tomes, which should it be? Which gives
you most Dickens for your dollar? The answer, it seems,
is Bleak House…

Child destined
for an early
Spirited grave
Devious cripple
Sadistic lawyer
Bachelor schoolmaster
‘Shabby
genteel’ philanthropist
Dickens score sponger

Wily cockney Jo
Ludicrous factotum Smallweed
Beatific spinster Tulkinghorn
Stage virgin
villain Mr
Orphan Jarndyce
Skimpole

10 Smike

Guppy
Miss
Bleak House
Law case ruins Wackford
Ada Flite The Squeers

8
everything and old
Hortense man spontaneously Mr Cheerybles
Esther combusts Mantalini
Miss
Nicholas Nickleby Uriah Mowcher
Pompous hero gives Heep
one-eyed headteacher a Creakle
Mrs damn good thrashing
Madeline Nickleby
Micawber

8
Ralph Bray
Nickleby Little
Smike Nell
Quilp
Sampson
David Copperfield Brass
Betsey

8
Uriah Heep. Wilkins
Agnes Trotwood Micawber. Betsey
Trotwood. And more...
Murdstone Paul
David Captain Dombey
Old Curiosity Shop Cuttle
Dick Decrepit gambling addict
Swiveller and angelic granddaughter Dr Blimber
Mrs
flee from evil dwarf
Jarley
Barbara Major

7
Quilp Bagstock
Little
Nell
Dombey and Son
Miss Tox Neglected daughter of
Mr

6
arrogant shipping
Florence magnate takes up with Brownlow
Carker sailors

Oliver Twist
Artful Orphan saved from life
Dodson
Dodger of crime after chance and
Mrs Fogg
Corney encounter with long-lost Mr
Rose family Pickwick
Bill Maylie
Oliver
Twist
Sikes
5
Sam
Weller Pickwick Papers
Rachael Asexual bachelor
Old

5
Wardle takes eccentric friends
on interminable road Montague Martin
Jingle
trip Tigg Johnny
Silas Wegg
Martin Chuzzlewit
Dull architect and
his best friend go on Headstone
Mrs holiday by mistake
Mary Gamp

5
Jonas

Our Mutual Friend

Gradgrind
Missing heir found

4
Lizzie dead in Thames and
Riderhood Hexam dustman gets filthy rich

Hard Times
Children’s dreams go
Mrs up in smoke in
Northern factory town
Sissy Sparsit

4
Jupe William
James Dorrit
Harthouse

Pancks Jaggers
Little Dorrit
Debtor saved from jail
Little when neurotic

4
Dorrit do-gooder falls for his
Rigaud stunted daughter

Great Expectations
Orphan helps convict
Miss and is adopted by
Havisham jilted sadist
Orlick
Pip

Disclaimer
There are many other categories we could have chosen: ‘the tart with a heart’, ‘the heartless toff’, ‘the miser’, ‘the religious hypocrite’. Likewise, we
left out the historical novels, shorts stories such as A Christmas Carol and the unfinished Edwin Drood. You might disagree with some of our choices -
Mrs Nickleby isn't a ludicrous spinster, is she? She's a widow. Well, yes, but she fulfils the role of eccentric and sexless older woman - perhaps better
than any other character in the Dickens canon. Also we’ve made no allowances for page length – perhaps Oliver Twist is a more intense Dickens
experience, with six archetypes in its 400 pages against 10 in Bleak House’s 1000. Sorry. Unlike Dickens, we ran out of space…

WRITTEN BY DR. FROST, DESIGN BY MR. KYNVIN, ILLUSTRATION BY MR. LENMAN © 2012