More than any other author, I recognize people drawn from Charles Dickens’s villains and heroes in real life. For example, my father was like Harold Skimpole from Bleak House. Skimpole was deceptively charming at first glance, but upon further acquaintance was really an insidiously selfish person who did anything to keep himself well fed, housed and with spending money. His real talent was in getting people to give him money and take care of him but often to the detriment of others, especially his family.

Or take Miss Havisham from Great Expectations. I have come across a few women who resembled her although they may not have been her age. The narcissistic woman who attracts men but can never keep them because she finds a fatal flaw in each one after the initial attraction passes.

I know of no writer who had better names for his characters either. The villains always have sinister sounding names. While the heroes and heroines have names that sound like good people, for instance, Ester Summerson or David Copperfield. I have found people in my life who could come from a Dickensian novel–Betsie Blodgett and Martha Merritt, to name two.