He was high-shouldered and bony dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth buttoned up to the throat and had a long, lank, skeleton hand.” Some Dickens scholars apparently think that Heep was based on Hans Christian Andersen, in which case, mega burn-unless Andersen was into heavy metal.Ĭathy Ames is cold as ice-a sociopath who had to learn as a child how to mimic feelings to get by-but soon also learns how easy it is to manipulate, destroy lives, and murder people to amuse herself. When we first meet him, he is described as a “cadaverous” man, “who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went to sleep. Uriah Heep, David Copperfield, Charles Dickensįew villains are quite so aggressively ugly as Uriah Heep (even the name! Dickens did not go in much for subtlety). Sometimes I like to think about what this novel would be like if someone wrote it today, with Dorian as a social media star. You could argue that it’s Harry who corrupts Dorian, and James who stalks and tries to murder him, but the real source of all this young hedonist’s problems is his own self-obsession. Vanity, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde The housekeeper so devoted to her dead ex-mistress that she’s determined to keep her memory alive-by goading her boss’s new wife to jump out of the window to her death. Moriarty has become bigger than Moriarty. Though after countless adaptations, we now think of Moriarty as Holmes’s main enemy, Doyle really only invented him as a means to kill his hero, and he isn’t otherwise prominent in the series. Professor Moriarty, “The Final Problem,” Sir Arthur Conan DoyleĪ criminal mastermind- “the Napoleon of Crime,” as Holmes puts it-and the only person to ever give the good consulting detective any real trouble (other than himself). The kid, The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein
In fact, Benchley, who also wrote the screenplay for the film, was so horrified at the cultural response to his work that he became a shark conservationist later in life. After all, the most villainous often take quite a few pages to fully reveal themselves.Ī villain so villainous that (with the help of Steven Spielberg) it spawned a wave of shark paranoia among beach-goers. By the way, for those of you who think that great books can be spoiled-some of them might be below. This is not an exhaustive list, of course, and you are more than invited to nominate your own favorite evildoers in the comments section. Think of these as noteworthy villains, if it clarifies things. But what exactly does “best” mean when it comes to bad guys (and gals)? Well, it might mean any number of things here: most actually terrifying, or most compelling, or most well-written, or most secretly beloved by readers who know they are supposed to be rooting for the white hats but just can’t help it. To that end, below are a few of my favorites from the wide world of literary villainy. After all, if everyone was always nice and good and honest all the time, literature probably wouldn’t even exist. We may not love them in our lives, but they’re often the best part of our literature-on account of their clear power, their refusal of social norms, and most importantly, their ability to make stories happen.