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.
Mrs. Bagnet
Matthew's sensible, wholesome, good-natured wife.
Malta, Quebec, and Woolwich Bagnet.
The Bagnets' happy children.
Miss Barbary
Lady Dedlock's sister who raised Esther Summerson for a time and who was once Boythorn's beloved.
Lawrence Boythorn
The passionate, boisterous, but good-hearted friend of Mr. Jarndyce modeled on the poet Walter Savage Landor, a friend of Dickens).
Inspector Bucket
A shrewd, relentless, but amiable and thoughtful detective.
Mrs. Bucket
The detective's keen-witted and helpful wife.
William Buffy, M.P.
A political friend of Sir Leicester Dedlock.
Richard Carstone
A cousin of Ada Clare; a restless, indecisive ward of Mr. Jarndyce.
The Reverend Mr. Chadband
A pompous, insincere preacher, the incarnation of religiosity.
Mrs. Chadband
Formerly Mrs. Rachael, who knew Esther Summerson as a child.
The Lord High Chancellor
The presiding official of the Chancery Court.
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.
William Guppy
A law clerk who twice proposes to Esther Summerson.
Guster
A maidservant of the Snagsbys, she often has "fits."
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.
Mademoiselle Hortense
A hot-tempered and vengeful French maid dismissed by Lady Dedlock; eventually she murders Tulkinghorn.
John Jarndyce
The benevolent owner of Bleak House and legal guardian of Esther Summerson, Richard Carstone, and Ada Clare.
Tom Jarndyce
John Jarndyce's cousin, made suicidal by the frustrations of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce suit.
