Ten Dickensian eponyms?
Dickens festival, Rochester. Fagin hanging with Miss Havisham & the gang I am well aware that I am the ‘umblest person going,” said Uriah Heep, modestly . Charles Dickens, David Copperfield No novelist has been more inventive in using character names to express character traits. Ernest L. Abel identifies seventeen examples that have entered general English. These ten are perhaps the best known: Scrooge - miserliness, anti-Christmas, bah humbug etc Mr Micawber - spendthrift, ludicrously optimistic ‘something will turn up’ Fagin - charming, ruthless, leader of a gang of child thieves. Miss Havisham - embittered reclusive spinster Uriah Heep - obsequious, toadying, false humility. More recently humble brag Podsnap - complacent jingoist who “stood very high in his own opinion” Pecksniff - hypocritical Pickwick - amiable bon viveur, 'Pickwick paunch' Gradgrind - hard, ruthless businessman who reduces everything to mon...