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Everybody has a villain from a book they can’t forget about even when they’re older. For some it’s the more typical, such as Sauron from Lord of the Rings, and for some it’s entirely obscure.
                                
Book villains are perhaps the scariest of villains, because with television, comic book and movie villains you can put a face on the horror that is the “bad guy” (as most of us call them when we’re young). With book villains, all of that terrifying horribleness is entirely in our own heads. We each take the thing that is scariest to us and apply it to this character. Sort of like a Bogart, from Harry Potter. It knows exactly what to look like to scare each and any individual person. Speaking of Harry Potter, that seems like a good place to kick off our Top 5 Book Villains list, beginning with, of course:
 
Voldemort (Harry Potter):
 
 
In the series, Voldemort is the archenemy of Harry Potter, who according to a prophecy has “the power to vanquish the Dark Lord”. Voldemort’s obsession with blood purity signifies his aim to rid the Wizarding world of Muggle (non-magical) heritage and to conquer both worlds, Muggle and Wizarding, to achieve pure-blood dominance. Almost no witch or wizard dares to speak his name, instead referring to him as “You-Know-Who”, “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” or “the Dark Lord”. He was born Tom Marvolo Riddle, the last descendant of wizard Salazar Slytherin,[2] one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
 (via wikipedia) 
 
Professor Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes):
  
 
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and the archenemy of the detective Sherlock Holmes in the fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Moriarty is a criminal mastermind, described by Holmes as the “Napoleon of Crime”. Doyle lifted the phrase from a real Scotland Yardinspector who was referring to Adam Worth, one of the real life models for Moriarty. The character of Moriarty as Holmes’ greatest enemy was introduced primarily as a narrative device to enable Conan Doyle to kill off Sherlock Holmes, and only featured directly in two of the Sherlock Holmes stories. However in more recent derivative work he is often given a greater prominence and treated as Holmes’ primary antagonist.
 (via wikipedia) 

Bill Sikes (Oliver Twist):


William “Bill” Sikes is a fictional character in the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. He is one of Dickens’s most vicious characters and a very strong force in the novel when it comes to having control over somebody or harming others. He is portrayed as a rough and barbaric man. He is a career criminal associated with Fagin, and an eventual murderer. He is very violent and aggressive, prone to sudden bursts of extreme behaviour. He owns a bull terrier named Bull’s Eye, whom he beats until the dog needs stitches.
(via wikipedia)

Patrick Bateman (American Psycho):


When he is first introduced in Ellis’ novel, young investment banker Patrick Bateman’s “mask of sanity” is about to slip, according to his own admission. Bateman works as a specialist in mergers and acquisitions at the fictional Wall Street investment firm of Pierce & Pierce (also Sherman McCoy’s firm in The Bonfire of the Vanities) and lives at 55 West 81st Street, Upper West Side in the American Gardens Building (where he is a neighbor of actor Tom Cruise). In his “secret life”, however, Bateman is a serial killer who murders a variety of people, from colleagues, to the homeless, to prostitutes. His crimes, including rape, torture, murder, necrophilia and cannibalism, are described in graphic detail in the novel.
(via wikipedia)

Hannibal Lecter (Red Dragon):


Hannibal Lecter is introduced in the 1981 novel Red Dragon as a brilliant psychiatrist who is incarcerated after having been revealed to be a cannibalistic serial killer. In the backstory, FBI special agent Will Graham, who investigated Lecter’s murders but was unaware of his involvement, initially consulted Lecter about the case before realizing he was the culprit; Lecter nearly killed Graham when he was captured. The plot finds Graham consulting Lecter in order to catch another serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde, known by the nickname “The Tooth Fairy”. Through the classifieds of a tabloid, The National Tattler, Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham’s home address, enabling him to disfigure Graham and attempt to kill his family.
(via wikipedia)