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.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Martin Vanger yet (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

William Hamleigh in PoTE is really unplesasant but too one dimensional to be really nasty.

And what about Angus Farrell in Denise Mina's Garnethill trilogy...?

I can think of tonnes of irritating characters but not so many really nasty ones.

There is an awful one in Less than Zero...really disturbing nasty piece of work. Can't remember his name though.

Rachid in 1000 Splendid Suns

Angel Clare - is he winning yet?
Uriah bloody Heep

What about the horrid upper caste bastard in A Fine Balance? Can't remember his name, starts with a T. Ruins one mans life - twice, I was really hoping he would get his comeuppance eventually.

A fabulous book.

Miss Minchin in A Little Princess - soooo mean. Also in Mansfield Park the horrible relative Mrs. Norris - her spite is exquisite

Percy Wetmore in The Green Mile was an awful character but he got his comeuppance in the end!

Another vote for the revolting Heathcliff.

Maxim de Winter - eeeewwwwww horrible patronising murdering prissy misogynist git, what a waste of space. I'd rather like to lock him up with Miss Hilly actually.

Great Granny Webster from the novel of the same name - what a love to hate her joyless old bat.

Grandcourt from Daniel Deronda.

Mr (can't remember his name if it was ever revealed) Murdstone, Jane Murdstone and Uriah Heep.

Two Tad Williams characters: Pryrates from Memory, Sorrow & Thorn; The Remover of Inconvenient Obstacles from War of the Flowers. Pryrates is pure terrifying evil but RIO edges it in the revolting stakes with his belief that what he thinks are noble motives justify his actions.

And another vote for Dolores Umbridge.

Herjazz, totally agree with the Partrick Bateman one - American Psycho goes down in history as the only book I've ever thrown away after reading - gross and the memory of it makes me feel sick!

Mrs Danvers from Rebecca was horrid, but I gues it would not have been much of a story without her.

Agree about Mrs Danvers,Gilbert Osmond in Portrait of a Lady makes my skin crawl

the aunt in Jane Eyre, I second that.

Gilbert Osmond , Portrait of a Lady.

Count Dracula is pretty bad.

Count Fosco in the Woman in White is pretty nasty.

Jophrey Baratheon (cough Lannister cough) from the "A Song Of Ice And Fire" series by GRR Martin.

Humbert Humbert in Lolita

Heathcliff. There was nothing even vaguely romantic about him, cruel vile man.

Iago. A manipulative envious horrible little narcissist. He freaked me out and I absolutely recoiled from him and his cruelty, completely oblivious to the fact that my family revolves around it and with 30 years to go before I became aware of the phenomenon!!

I am not too sure why people nominate Kevin's mother? Franklin is the idiot and how sad that she loved him despite his obliviousness ('Oh, my love'. I would have been going at that stage, 'you stupid dead shit, why didn't you listen to me?'). Kevin's mother's humanity and her connection with Kevin I thought came through when he looked at her with his horror of staying with stupid Dad. He looked at her because he knew she knew him - and Dad didn't.

I cannot believe there has only been one vote (oblique, via Wide Sargasso Sea) for the vilest man in all the breadth of English literature, John Rochester. And he's supposed to be a romantic hero? Holy feck.

I suppose I will get flamed by Rochester lovers now.

Frederick Clegg in The Collector by John Fowles. He made me feel physically sick! Great book though.

Bryony in Atonement is "the most horrible character in any book you've read"?

I take it you have never read books about serial killers

Abbot Enomoto in tHe thousand Autumns of Jacob de Moet - bastard

I was gonna say patrick bateman too. That book is awesome but my brain will be scarred for life. Lol.

Frederick Clegg in John Fowles The Collector. Pure Evil in such a quiet way. I love that book.

Patrick Hockstetter in IT by Stephen King. Murderer and animal torturer/killer, the scene at the dump makes me feel ill and makes me cry every time I read it.

William and Regan Hamleigh in The Pillars of the Earth and then the other one, Ralph in the follow up Worlds Without End.

Some characters, serial killers etc, are obviously dislikable but I think sometimes it's the quiet, sneaky ones that really leave me cold.

I really liked Eva in Kevin but I hated her husband and was actually quite glad when Kevin did for him.

And I know Patrick Bateman is the obvious one of Bret Easton Ellis's characters but what about Rip (I think) from Less Than Zero? Didn't he drug an eleven year old girl and tie her to a bed for his friends to rape while he dealt drugs in the other room?

I agree with Rochester - a hideous character dressed up as a brooding romantic hero.

Mrs Coulter is a brilliantly wicked character, but so well written because of her ambiguous love for Lyra, and does she redeem herself in the end?

I like the fact that the main villain in those books is God aka The Authority.

Mr Collins and Lydia are not wicked, just funny. And Becky Sharp is a heroine in my eyes.

I have to disagree with the OP - think Hilly was the most one dimensional character in a very poor book in general. The author had a really good idea but lost it imo. Contrived crap.