Whose the most horrible character in any book you've read?

[FreddoBaggyMac]

I've just finished 'The Help' and am very sad about it too [sniff] I miss Aibileen... Anyway I feel the need to make my hatred of Miss Hilly public. I don't think I've ever detested anyone in a book quite so much...

I thought I would create a tribute thread in her honour, listing the most repugnant characters in fictional history. Please help by adding entries to the list!
I nominate MISS HILLY from The Help as the number one entry.

Can't rememberhis name, but Laila's husband from 1ooo Splendid Suns

Kevin himself Janitor?

or any of the Clockwork Orange boys for that matter

Quint - Turn of the screw.

I thought Fuschia from Gormengast was a bit Victorian Asylum mental.

Keith Talent from Martin Amis's London Fields. He's got some pretty stiff competition from most of Amis's characters though.

I really don't like Angel Clare from Tess of The D'urbervilles.

Oh and Harold Skimpole from Bleak House is vile. He makes my skin crawl.

Just to lower the brow, the Robin in the Chalet School deserved a very big slap.

another vote for Angel Clare. It's the self-righteousness that makes him so vile. Poor Tess.

Can I nominate Martin Amis?

I just don't believe that he's making up all those characters from pure invention.

Mrs Hilly from The Help - she made me itch and left a rather unpleasent taste

Ms Trunchbull - rather frightened me as a child

Kevin from We need to talk about Kevin
The slapped kid in The Slap (plus his mother)
Horrid one in Dead Babies - Keith?

Angel Clare gets another nomination here. Much worse than Alec D'Urberville.

Everard Wemyss, in Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim.

Toe-curlingly horrible. And poor Lucy has no idea...

Nicholas Van Tassel, Anita Shreve's All He Ever Wanted, is also rather despicable

I was going to nominate Keith Talent, too, but I see Snorbs has beaten me to it.

London Fieilds has an interesting subplot/theme about parenting, btw, but I know Martin Amis is a dirty word on Mumsnet. Two dirty words .

Oh instantly thought of the mother - Eva? - in 'We need to talk about Kevin'. She is worse than her mass-murdering son!

Love the part where he tells her all the thins she does that are intellectually snobbish. (am reading the next Lionel Shriver one at the mo, btw - v good!)

Angel from Tess as well - dick.

Not very literary but didn't like Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones, either...

@ jeee you're right

agree w/ Angel from Tess

Mr Collins from pride and prejudice eeeew

Most boring character ever -Stevens from The Remains of the Day

And Pete Postlethwaite's tv version of Hakeswell from Sharp is the stuff of nightmares

Oh I don't mind Angel Clare, and Patrick Bateman is ridiculously funny he's so horrible - it is satirical and possibly all invented in the end.

Harold Skimpole possibly
Abbot Enomoto in the latest David Mitchell book

Having just read it I've decided I don't like either of the lead characters in the Time Travellers Wife.

Also Mr Dombey (Dombey and son) and Mrs Norris (Mansfield Park).

The psycho husband, Norman, in Stephen King's 'Rose Madder'. He is a complete bastard.

Oh Patrick Bateman is one of my fav characters!!!

Mr Tulkinghorn in Bleak House

Any male character in a Brett Easton Ellis book

Narrator in My Cousin Rachel

Sir Percival Glyde

I'd second Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice. he is awful!

I used to hate Heathcliffe until I read Jasper Fforde, and now I can only think of him masquerading as a porn star called Buck Stallion

Mrs Norris in Mansfield Park. Another one who, like Lydia Bennett, never quite got what she deserved.

In my humblest opinion, Heathcliff's awfulness fades beside that of his ghastly offspring....Linton Heathcliff.
Self centred, self absorbed, narcissistic little git.

chickens i was gonna say that great book though

Henry Bowers in It by Stephen King aswell

George Harvey in The Lovely Bones by Alice Seibold.

Eddies dad in 5 people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom.

there are loads

NorthernLurker - Henry and Clare? Why????