They’re All Bad.
You can vote for your favorite literary villain here. I’m surprised by how many of those books and stories I know, but I haven’t decided yet. It’s a tough choice.
Though I don’t think that Captain Hook or The Grinch actually belong there. When I read Peter Pan I actually sympathized with Captain Hook a lot and saw him more like a broken man than an evil villain. And The Grinch actually came around in the end, so I wouldn’t call him a literary villain.
But then there are a lot of villains who really deserve to be on that list. So choose your favorite one. Or, if that sounds better, the villainiest villainy one. Or something like that.