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This 1818 novel is set in a former abbey whose owner, Christopher Glowry, is host to visitors who enjoy his hospitality and engage in endless debate. Among these guests are figures recognizable to Peacock's contemporaries, including characters based on Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Mr. Glowry's son Scythrop (also modeled on a famous Romantic, Peacock's friend Percy Bysshe Shelley) locks himself up in a tower where he reads German tragedies and transcendental philosophy and develops a "passion for reforming the world." Disappointed in love, a sorrowful Scythrop decides the only thing to do is to commit suicide, but circumstances persuade him to instead follow his father in a love of misanthropy and Madeira. In addition to satire and comic romance, Nightmare Abbey presents a biting critique of the texts we view as central to British romanticism.
128 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1818
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About the author
Thomas Love Peacock
304 books60 followersThomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) was an English novelist and poet. For most of his life, Peacock worked for the East India Co. He was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley, who greatly inspired his writing. His best verse is interspersed in his novels, which are dominated by the conversations of their characters and satirize the intellectual currents of the day. His best-known work, Nightmare Abbey (1818), satirizes romantic melancholy and includes characters based on Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Lord Byron.
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December 5, 2024
Nightmare Abbey was written in 1818 by Thomas Love Peacock. It is a gothic satire, which delights in parodying the current fashions of the time, such as the Romantic Movement in Literature and Transcendental Philosophy. Although the modern reader can enjoy these witty descriptions even today, it is debatable whether all the allusions can be appreciated without an indepth study of the work, as Peacock referred to many friends of the family and historical characters.
The emphasis is on morbid themes, a gloomy environment, misanthropy and macabre doings. These are easily recognisable as common Romantic themes. The Philosophical sections are most entertaining, being written in such a heavy-handed fashion. They are declaimed by one of the most risible characters, Mr. Flosky, who views himself as a Transcendentalist, much given to musings about Analytical versus Synthetical Reasoning, and who has named his son "Emmanuel Kant Flosky".
In case the reader is in any doubt as to whether to take Flosky's outpourings seriously, Peacock helpfully pokes fun at him amongst all his philosophical peregrinations. For instance, there is a part where Flosky finds himself saying,
"I pity the man who can see the connection of his own ideas."
And I personally laughed out loud at the point when,
"Mr. Flosky suddenly stopped: he found himself unintentionally trespassing within the limits of common sense."
The character of Mr. Flosky is apparently based on the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
In fact all the characters are mouthpieces for Peacock's wit and satire. The main one, Scythrop, is based on Peacock's friend, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and is more a case of Peacock humorously poking fun than a bitter parody. The character talks a great deal (but to no real effect) about social regeneration, is prone to moods and fancies, and very taken with the gothic and the mysterious.
As such, the plot is a minor consideration; a mere device to hold Peacock's sketches. And even within the confines of this structure it is very loose. The first quarter is a clear narrative, but then it is set out intermittently as a play. When a character is about to make a statement, their name is set as a title, with their speech following. After a few pages of this, the narrative then resumes.
The "action" takes place in a semi-dilapidated family mansion, Nightmare Abbey, which is owned by Mr. Glowry, Scythrop's father. It is situated on a strip of dry land between the sea and the fens in Lincolnshire, or as Peacock nicely describes the county,
"a fine monotony of fens and windmills."
On being introduced to Mr. Glowry as an "atrabilarious" character, we have the feel of the novella established right from the start. The author has a penchant for unusual words of this sort; words not in common usage and some, indeed, so obscure that the reader may suspect Peacock of having gleefully conflated one or two nouns or adjectives to invent his own delicious new description.
The word "atrabilarious" however, tells us that this tale and its players will be characterised by melancholy or gloom. Its secondary meaning, of someone likely to become ill, describes Mr. Glowry perfectly. We are told that he cannot stand to see any other people cheerful. The only visitors he accepts to the mansion are friends who share the same melancholy. There is an amusing account right at the beginning where it is shown that Mr. Glowry only employs servants who have a long face or a dismal name, such as Raven or Graves. He inadvertently employs a man called Deathshead, but,
"was horrified to discover that he had a round ruddy face, a pair of laughing eyes and was always smiling."
His son Scythrop, literally "of sad or gloomy countenance", is named after a maternal ancestor who had hanged himself. The two of them, Scythrop and Mr. Glowry, use his skull as a punchbowl. And there you have an additional feature, the love of the macabre.
As the action proceeds we are introduced to yet more characters, Mr. Listless and Mr. Toobad, whose names speak for themselves, and Mr. Cypress, a misanthropic poet who is based on Lord Byron. There is the Rev. Larynx and an icthyologist called Mr. Asterias. Also there is a rare character "of a happy disposition", Mr. Hilary, and his very correct wife. They have a daughter, their perfectly named Marionetta - a wooden puppet by both name and character. She,
"knew that her inheritance was passive obedience."
Scythrop decides at various times to be in love with Marionetta, although Mr. Toobad's daughter Celinda is also in the mix.
The character Mr. Listless perfectly embodies the affected misanthropy, ennui and world-weariness of contemporary writers, philosophers and intellectuals. He is also meant to represent the "reading public", which in itself is a term thought to have been invented by Coleridge (although this character is thought to have been based on a friend of Shelley's.) Here is one of his bon mots,
"I hope you do not suspect me of being studious. I have finished my education. But there are some fashionable books that one must read."
Altogether it is an entertaining light - though occasionally very wordy - dalliance for the modern reader. Here is an example of a passage on metaphysical subtleties as voiced by Flosky, which needs careful attention,
"the vulgar error of the reading public, to whom an unusual collocation of words, involving a juxtaposition of antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of hyperoxysophistical paradoxology."
But once the meaning has been teased out it may be thought amusing.
I was surprised to discover that it was Peacock's third novel, and written when he was 33, as it has very much the flavour of undergraduate humour. It feels like a piece written by a young university student for the entertainment of his friends. All the in-jokes, the portraits of friends both dear and not so dear, the "showing-off" aspect of recently learned intellectual theories, the poking-fun at what has gone before and the daring pushing of boundaries, seem classic fare for a quick-witted, lively young mind.
The other enjoyable factor for me was in seeing the roots of more modern genres - and even tracing the ancestry of particular ideas and styles. Another reader will no doubt have different examples of writers influenced by this work popping into their mind. But for me, Scythrop sulking in his tower was heavily reminiscent of Mervyn Peake's Steerpike in Gormenghast castle. Of course this is the "wrong way round". But perhaps Peake's far more modern (1940's and 50's) gothic trilogy owes its initial conception to Nightmare Abbey.
For me, the style kept recalling Oscar Wilde's acerbic wit, such as,
"It is fashion to be unhappy. To have a reason for being so would be exceedingly commonplace: to be so without any is the province of genius."
Or this wonderfully bitter observation,
“When Scythrop grew up, he was sent, as usual, to a public school, where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him; and he was sent home like a well-threshed ear of corn, with nothing in his head.”
For these and many other witty observations alone it is worth a read, and it has an assured place in Classic Literature. If you love late 18th and early 19th Century English Classics you will probably enjoy this. It must have been an outstanding work of its time. But does it deserve a place in the "Top 100 Novels" as recently suggested by a major newspaper? Personally I am not so sure.
The emphasis is on morbid themes, a gloomy environment, misanthropy and macabre doings. These are easily recognisable as common Romantic themes. The Philosophical sections are most entertaining, being written in such a heavy-handed fashion. They are declaimed by one of the most risible characters, Mr. Flosky, who views himself as a Transcendentalist, much given to musings about Analytical versus Synthetical Reasoning, and who has named his son "Emmanuel Kant Flosky".
In case the reader is in any doubt as to whether to take Flosky's outpourings seriously, Peacock helpfully pokes fun at him amongst all his philosophical peregrinations. For instance, there is a part where Flosky finds himself saying,
"I pity the man who can see the connection of his own ideas."
And I personally laughed out loud at the point when,
"Mr. Flosky suddenly stopped: he found himself unintentionally trespassing within the limits of common sense."
The character of Mr. Flosky is apparently based on the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
In fact all the characters are mouthpieces for Peacock's wit and satire. The main one, Scythrop, is based on Peacock's friend, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and is more a case of Peacock humorously poking fun than a bitter parody. The character talks a great deal (but to no real effect) about social regeneration, is prone to moods and fancies, and very taken with the gothic and the mysterious.
As such, the plot is a minor consideration; a mere device to hold Peacock's sketches. And even within the confines of this structure it is very loose. The first quarter is a clear narrative, but then it is set out intermittently as a play. When a character is about to make a statement, their name is set as a title, with their speech following. After a few pages of this, the narrative then resumes.
The "action" takes place in a semi-dilapidated family mansion, Nightmare Abbey, which is owned by Mr. Glowry, Scythrop's father. It is situated on a strip of dry land between the sea and the fens in Lincolnshire, or as Peacock nicely describes the county,
"a fine monotony of fens and windmills."
On being introduced to Mr. Glowry as an "atrabilarious" character, we have the feel of the novella established right from the start. The author has a penchant for unusual words of this sort; words not in common usage and some, indeed, so obscure that the reader may suspect Peacock of having gleefully conflated one or two nouns or adjectives to invent his own delicious new description.
The word "atrabilarious" however, tells us that this tale and its players will be characterised by melancholy or gloom. Its secondary meaning, of someone likely to become ill, describes Mr. Glowry perfectly. We are told that he cannot stand to see any other people cheerful. The only visitors he accepts to the mansion are friends who share the same melancholy. There is an amusing account right at the beginning where it is shown that Mr. Glowry only employs servants who have a long face or a dismal name, such as Raven or Graves. He inadvertently employs a man called Deathshead, but,
"was horrified to discover that he had a round ruddy face, a pair of laughing eyes and was always smiling."
His son Scythrop, literally "of sad or gloomy countenance", is named after a maternal ancestor who had hanged himself. The two of them, Scythrop and Mr. Glowry, use his skull as a punchbowl. And there you have an additional feature, the love of the macabre.
As the action proceeds we are introduced to yet more characters, Mr. Listless and Mr. Toobad, whose names speak for themselves, and Mr. Cypress, a misanthropic poet who is based on Lord Byron. There is the Rev. Larynx and an icthyologist called Mr. Asterias. Also there is a rare character "of a happy disposition", Mr. Hilary, and his very correct wife. They have a daughter, their perfectly named Marionetta - a wooden puppet by both name and character. She,
"knew that her inheritance was passive obedience."
Scythrop decides at various times to be in love with Marionetta, although Mr. Toobad's daughter Celinda is also in the mix.
The character Mr. Listless perfectly embodies the affected misanthropy, ennui and world-weariness of contemporary writers, philosophers and intellectuals. He is also meant to represent the "reading public", which in itself is a term thought to have been invented by Coleridge (although this character is thought to have been based on a friend of Shelley's.) Here is one of his bon mots,
"I hope you do not suspect me of being studious. I have finished my education. But there are some fashionable books that one must read."
Altogether it is an entertaining light - though occasionally very wordy - dalliance for the modern reader. Here is an example of a passage on metaphysical subtleties as voiced by Flosky, which needs careful attention,
"the vulgar error of the reading public, to whom an unusual collocation of words, involving a juxtaposition of antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of hyperoxysophistical paradoxology."
But once the meaning has been teased out it may be thought amusing.
I was surprised to discover that it was Peacock's third novel, and written when he was 33, as it has very much the flavour of undergraduate humour. It feels like a piece written by a young university student for the entertainment of his friends. All the in-jokes, the portraits of friends both dear and not so dear, the "showing-off" aspect of recently learned intellectual theories, the poking-fun at what has gone before and the daring pushing of boundaries, seem classic fare for a quick-witted, lively young mind.
The other enjoyable factor for me was in seeing the roots of more modern genres - and even tracing the ancestry of particular ideas and styles. Another reader will no doubt have different examples of writers influenced by this work popping into their mind. But for me, Scythrop sulking in his tower was heavily reminiscent of Mervyn Peake's Steerpike in Gormenghast castle. Of course this is the "wrong way round". But perhaps Peake's far more modern (1940's and 50's) gothic trilogy owes its initial conception to Nightmare Abbey.
For me, the style kept recalling Oscar Wilde's acerbic wit, such as,
"It is fashion to be unhappy. To have a reason for being so would be exceedingly commonplace: to be so without any is the province of genius."
Or this wonderfully bitter observation,
“When Scythrop grew up, he was sent, as usual, to a public school, where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him; and he was sent home like a well-threshed ear of corn, with nothing in his head.”
For these and many other witty observations alone it is worth a read, and it has an assured place in Classic Literature. If you love late 18th and early 19th Century English Classics you will probably enjoy this. It must have been an outstanding work of its time. But does it deserve a place in the "Top 100 Novels" as recently suggested by a major newspaper? Personally I am not so sure.
March 3, 2021
رواية نُشرت عام 1818 للأديب الانجليزي توماس لف بيكوك
بيكوك من كُتاب الأدب الساخر في القرن التاسع عشر
رواية ساخرة ومرحة تنقد الاتجاهات والأفكار السائدة في ذلك الوقت
الحركة الرومانسية في الأدب والفكر وما يصاحبها من قلق وتعاسة وكآبة
الكاتب اختار اسم كل شخصية تعبر عن أفكارها ونظرتها للحياة
والحوار مميز ما بين الحوارات الفلسفية والعبثية
بيكوك من كُتاب الأدب الساخر في القرن التاسع عشر
رواية ساخرة ومرحة تنقد الاتجاهات والأفكار السائدة في ذلك الوقت
الحركة الرومانسية في الأدب والفكر وما يصاحبها من قلق وتعاسة وكآبة
الكاتب اختار اسم كل شخصية تعبر عن أفكارها ونظرتها للحياة
والحوار مميز ما بين الحوارات الفلسفية والعبثية
September 29, 2017
Nightmare Abbey is a work by a lesser writer surrounded by excellent peers. He lacked the personal brilliance and powerful originality to create his own masterpiece; thus, he satirised those that were better than him. He teased them, mocked them and attacked their idiosyncrasies here.
We have a caricature of Shelley and a twisted version of Byron. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is also attacked and ridiculed. Peacock provides a sharp critique on some of the texts and ideas that formed the backbone of Romanticism. Its clever writing, and at moments it is actually quite funny, but it annoys me that he actually wrote this. Could he not have come up with something new, something more individual that sticking a bunch of poets in a suffocating gothic atmosphere to ridicule the literary trends of his age?
If such ideas came from someone who created their own powerful ideas, I don’t think it would be quite as bad. It is easy to mock the norm, but when you don’t propose an alternative such a thing is bland and weak. Look at Woolf. When she attacked the Victorians she certainly had her own ideas about where literature should go. The same is true for Oscar Wilde. When such greats provide critiques it is a fair divulgence of opinion. When Peacock does it, it’s just a little annoying. Not to mention parts of the work are purposely nonsensical.
This isn’t something I’d recommend reading. Students of the Romantic era may find something of worth here, though I didn’t. I’m always a little touchy when someone mocks the habits of my favourite writers, arguably the strange habits that helped make them great.
We have a caricature of Shelley and a twisted version of Byron. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is also attacked and ridiculed. Peacock provides a sharp critique on some of the texts and ideas that formed the backbone of Romanticism. Its clever writing, and at moments it is actually quite funny, but it annoys me that he actually wrote this. Could he not have come up with something new, something more individual that sticking a bunch of poets in a suffocating gothic atmosphere to ridicule the literary trends of his age?
If such ideas came from someone who created their own powerful ideas, I don’t think it would be quite as bad. It is easy to mock the norm, but when you don’t propose an alternative such a thing is bland and weak. Look at Woolf. When she attacked the Victorians she certainly had her own ideas about where literature should go. The same is true for Oscar Wilde. When such greats provide critiques it is a fair divulgence of opinion. When Peacock does it, it’s just a little annoying. Not to mention parts of the work are purposely nonsensical.
This isn’t something I’d recommend reading. Students of the Romantic era may find something of worth here, though I didn’t. I’m always a little touchy when someone mocks the habits of my favourite writers, arguably the strange habits that helped make them great.
October 17, 2017
You are leaving England, Mr Cypress. There is a delightful melancholy in saying farewell to an old acquaintance, when the chances are twenty to one against ever meeting again. A smiling bumper to a sad parting, and let us all be unhappy together.
Oh, I loved this book. This is exactly what I was hoping Austen's Northanger Abbey would be. It's a consistently funny send up of just about every gothic trope and figure at the time (some of these characters are clearly stand ins for Byron and Shelly). This is a book where its characters delight in being miserable, overly melodramatic and find mysteries where perhaps there are none. The parody of the gothic tropes play off so well, for example a character hires people based on their names, because he wants only the gloomiest. Thus a butler named Raven and a steward named Crow (and he once hired a footman named Deathshead, but the man was too cheerful and had to go).
The humor is genuinely funny with several lines that not only brought a smile to my face, but genuinely had me laughing. One of the characters, Mr. Flosky, brought about a grin just about any time he had dialogue. He's a transcendental metaphysician, who seems to have a thesaurus in his head judging by his vocabulary. He talks a great deal, without actually saying very much; for in his own words "if any person living could make report of having obtained any information on any subject from Ferdinando Flosky, my transcendental reputation would be ruined for ever." That sums him up perfectly, and it is comedy gold. Much of the humor is modern enough in style that it could have been written by Terry Pratchett, rather than a book published in 1818.
Perhaps, I should note, that the book is not for everyone. Peacock makes a lot of references to then current trends and authors, which unless one has read quite a few gothics or are at least very familiar with the central figures of the movement, will probably go over the readers head. He makes no apologies for this and seem to delight in the mockery of some of the figures. That said, if you know Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, then this is a book for you.
A rare 5 out of 5 stars.
Oh, I loved this book. This is exactly what I was hoping Austen's Northanger Abbey would be. It's a consistently funny send up of just about every gothic trope and figure at the time (some of these characters are clearly stand ins for Byron and Shelly). This is a book where its characters delight in being miserable, overly melodramatic and find mysteries where perhaps there are none. The parody of the gothic tropes play off so well, for example a character hires people based on their names, because he wants only the gloomiest. Thus a butler named Raven and a steward named Crow (and he once hired a footman named Deathshead, but the man was too cheerful and had to go).
The humor is genuinely funny with several lines that not only brought a smile to my face, but genuinely had me laughing. One of the characters, Mr. Flosky, brought about a grin just about any time he had dialogue. He's a transcendental metaphysician, who seems to have a thesaurus in his head judging by his vocabulary. He talks a great deal, without actually saying very much; for in his own words "if any person living could make report of having obtained any information on any subject from Ferdinando Flosky, my transcendental reputation would be ruined for ever." That sums him up perfectly, and it is comedy gold. Much of the humor is modern enough in style that it could have been written by Terry Pratchett, rather than a book published in 1818.
Perhaps, I should note, that the book is not for everyone. Peacock makes a lot of references to then current trends and authors, which unless one has read quite a few gothics or are at least very familiar with the central figures of the movement, will probably go over the readers head. He makes no apologies for this and seem to delight in the mockery of some of the figures. That said, if you know Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, then this is a book for you.
A rare 5 out of 5 stars.
October 6, 2016
Nightmare Abbey is a minor classic of gothic comedy, in the vein of Northanger Abbey. Thomas Peacock hung out with the Shelleys and their crew; his protagonist here, Scythorp Glowry, is based on Percy Bysshe.
It's slight and short and fun. Peacock is one of those authors who takes pleasure in making sentences and cares less for where they end up. His prose is ornate and sometimes requires reading twice, but it's a short book so it's no big deal. His vocabulary is obscure and sometimes invented; my favorite new word is "antithalian," meaning "opposed to fun or festivity," and which this book isn't. He deploys spectacular images, describing (for example) a novel as "A mass of vice, under a thin and unnatural covering of virtue, like a spider wrapt in a bit of gold leaf, and administered like a wholesome pill." His bouillabaisse includes flavors of Shakespeare, Rabelais, Pilgrim's Progress, Voltaire, and of course Gothic tropes. His characters are memorable caricatures. Mr. Toobad constantly intones, "The devil is come among you, having great wrath." Mr. Flosky is a nihilist, gleefully predicting impending entropy. Everyone frequently speaks in play-style dialogue.
The plot is nearly irrelevant. Glowry is in love with two women. He keeps one of them locked in a secret compartment, because why not. Mostly everyone sits around chatting; Gore Vidal calls it a "symposium novel." "We are most of us like Don Quixote," Peacock says, "to whom a windmill was a giant, and Dulcinea a magnificent princess: all more or less the dupes of our own imagination." Peacock has decided not to fight it.
It's slight and short and fun. Peacock is one of those authors who takes pleasure in making sentences and cares less for where they end up. His prose is ornate and sometimes requires reading twice, but it's a short book so it's no big deal. His vocabulary is obscure and sometimes invented; my favorite new word is "antithalian," meaning "opposed to fun or festivity," and which this book isn't. He deploys spectacular images, describing (for example) a novel as "A mass of vice, under a thin and unnatural covering of virtue, like a spider wrapt in a bit of gold leaf, and administered like a wholesome pill." His bouillabaisse includes flavors of Shakespeare, Rabelais, Pilgrim's Progress, Voltaire, and of course Gothic tropes. His characters are memorable caricatures. Mr. Toobad constantly intones, "The devil is come among you, having great wrath." Mr. Flosky is a nihilist, gleefully predicting impending entropy. Everyone frequently speaks in play-style dialogue.
The plot is nearly irrelevant. Glowry is in love with two women. He keeps one of them locked in a secret compartment, because why not. Mostly everyone sits around chatting; Gore Vidal calls it a "symposium novel." "We are most of us like Don Quixote," Peacock says, "to whom a windmill was a giant, and Dulcinea a magnificent princess: all more or less the dupes of our own imagination." Peacock has decided not to fight it.
February 16, 2019
This is a delicious, novella-length sliver of a book: a madder, badder, zanier cousin to Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Both were published in 1818, although Peacock’s, his first novel, was newly composed, while Austen’s, published posthumously, had been completed at least fifteen years earlier, at the beginning of her career.
Peacock’s satirical quarry, like Austen’s, is the taste for the Gothic that swept Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. His setting is a country house in the Lincolnshire fens, with a full complement of moats and echoing halls and ruined, owl-haunted towers. Here abides the melancholic Christopher Glowry, with his still more melancholic son Scythorp, whose complicated love life is the driver for whatever in the novel might optimistically be termed a plot.
Who needs a plot, though, when you have a house party of eccentric Gothic gloomsters competing for who can be most transcendentally despondent (transcendentally in more than a causal sense, in that at least two are disciples of Kant)? What’s more, there’s an à clef element, though I wasn’t aware of that when I was reading it. The borderline-incomprehensible idealist philosopher and composer of “dismal ballads,” Ferdinando Flosky (“Mr Flosky suddenly stopped: he found himself unintentionally trespassing within the limits of common sense”), is apparently based on Coleridge, while the revolutionary and would-be bigamist Scythorp Glowry is based on Shelley, who was a close friend of Peacock’s.
In terms of tone and mood, more than Northanger Abbey, Nightmare Abbey reminded me of Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow, with which it shares its country-house setting, its wordy, novel-of-ideas texture, and its appealing caustic wit (though Peacock is funnier and more absurdist than Huxley—almost Pythonesque at points). Like Huxley’s novel, it captures a particular historical moment very evocatively, but it doesn’t feel dated, precisely because it turns such an amused eye on the foibles of the age.
Peacock’s satirical quarry, like Austen’s, is the taste for the Gothic that swept Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. His setting is a country house in the Lincolnshire fens, with a full complement of moats and echoing halls and ruined, owl-haunted towers. Here abides the melancholic Christopher Glowry, with his still more melancholic son Scythorp, whose complicated love life is the driver for whatever in the novel might optimistically be termed a plot.
Who needs a plot, though, when you have a house party of eccentric Gothic gloomsters competing for who can be most transcendentally despondent (transcendentally in more than a causal sense, in that at least two are disciples of Kant)? What’s more, there’s an à clef element, though I wasn’t aware of that when I was reading it. The borderline-incomprehensible idealist philosopher and composer of “dismal ballads,” Ferdinando Flosky (“Mr Flosky suddenly stopped: he found himself unintentionally trespassing within the limits of common sense”), is apparently based on Coleridge, while the revolutionary and would-be bigamist Scythorp Glowry is based on Shelley, who was a close friend of Peacock’s.
In terms of tone and mood, more than Northanger Abbey, Nightmare Abbey reminded me of Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow, with which it shares its country-house setting, its wordy, novel-of-ideas texture, and its appealing caustic wit (though Peacock is funnier and more absurdist than Huxley—almost Pythonesque at points). Like Huxley’s novel, it captures a particular historical moment very evocatively, but it doesn’t feel dated, precisely because it turns such an amused eye on the foibles of the age.
August 21, 2023
This is another book I learned of through its MASTERPLOTS summary. It's interestingly written and I'm glad I read it.
March 28, 2015
So I was trolling around on Gutenberg yesterday in the horror section (I gotta love me some gothic horror) and thought this such a remarkable name. And so I picked it up and it was absolutely perfectly quaint (old fashioned language and witty repartee cracks me up). Unfortunately, though, this was not horror. It was funny (and the sarcasm is fabulous), and it is short and compelling but other than a manservant who sleep walks and is mistaken for a ghost, there is no real horror. I was all atwitter in the beginning with the construction of secret rooms and passages, but alas they were only used to hide a fair maiden from her father (and she never even spooked anyone with noises in the walls).
I think the most amazing aspect of this little gem written in early 1800s is the feminist perspective: "how is it that their minds are locked up? The fault is in their artificial education, which studiously models them into mere musical dolls, to be set out for sale in the great toy shop of society" is Scythrop's defense of womanhood and later he falls in love (truly! although the silly man cannot be swayed from Marietta's beauty) with Celinda because of her intellectual discussions: "Stella...displayed a highly cultivated and energetic mind, full of impassioned schemes of liberty, and impatience of masculine usurpation".
I thought the names perfectly aptly silly (Listless, Larynx, Toobad, etc). Overall it was a wonderful little read, my favorite quips are below:
"She discovered, when it was too late, that she had mistaken the means for the end--that riches, rightly used, are instruments of happiness, but are not in themselves happiness."
"he was sent, as usual, to a public school, where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him; and he was sent home like a well-threshed ear of corn, with nothing in his head"
"The esse of things is percipi. They exist as they are perceived...we may very safely assert that the esse of happiness is percipi. It exists as it is perceived. It is the mind that maketh well or ill. The elements of pleasure and pain are everywhere."
"Misanthropy is sometimes the product of disappointed benevolence; but it is more frequently the offspring of overweening and mortified vanity, quarreling with the world for not being better treated than it deserves."
I think the most amazing aspect of this little gem written in early 1800s is the feminist perspective: "how is it that their minds are locked up? The fault is in their artificial education, which studiously models them into mere musical dolls, to be set out for sale in the great toy shop of society" is Scythrop's defense of womanhood and later he falls in love (truly! although the silly man cannot be swayed from Marietta's beauty) with Celinda because of her intellectual discussions: "Stella...displayed a highly cultivated and energetic mind, full of impassioned schemes of liberty, and impatience of masculine usurpation".
I thought the names perfectly aptly silly (Listless, Larynx, Toobad, etc). Overall it was a wonderful little read, my favorite quips are below:
"She discovered, when it was too late, that she had mistaken the means for the end--that riches, rightly used, are instruments of happiness, but are not in themselves happiness."
"he was sent, as usual, to a public school, where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him; and he was sent home like a well-threshed ear of corn, with nothing in his head"
"The esse of things is percipi. They exist as they are perceived...we may very safely assert that the esse of happiness is percipi. It exists as it is perceived. It is the mind that maketh well or ill. The elements of pleasure and pain are everywhere."
"Misanthropy is sometimes the product of disappointed benevolence; but it is more frequently the offspring of overweening and mortified vanity, quarreling with the world for not being better treated than it deserves."
December 23, 2020
Stylistically lovely, and full of a sophisticated wit that has dated a great deal and feels unfortunately smug at times. Worth reading for the prose though.
March 24, 2015
Although the plot of “Nightmare Abbey” is cardboard-thin, it is full of interesting characters and parodic situations. The plot is mainly used as a convenience to deliver the conversations of the residents and guests of the Nightmare Abbey, who happened to be some of the most poetic and philosophical minds in England at the time. The dialog - which widely varied from intellectual nourishing of romantic melancholy, to novelty in literature, to reason versus mysticism, to transcendentalism, to ideal beauty - attributed to each of the characters, highlights their individual foibles delightfully.
Even though it echoes the views of the early nineteenth century, this book is still funny today.
Even though it echoes the views of the early nineteenth century, this book is still funny today.
January 5, 2014
Despite its name, Nightmare Abbey isn't Gothic horror but rather a humorous spoof of the Gothic and romance tales of the late 1700s. I found myself laughing out loud at several places, although the pseudo-Transcendentalist/Kantian language was sometimes a bit heavy to wade through. Only about 100 pages long, this novella is worth exploring!
January 4, 2014
Bizarre! Where else do you come across words such as - atrabilarious, jeremitaylorically or eleutherarch?!
There were tongue twisting passages I didn't always understand, such as -
"I am sorry to find you participating in the vulgar error of the reading public, to whom an unusual collection of words, involving a juxtaposition of antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of hyperoxysophistical paradoxology"
or
"Passing and repassing several times a day from the company of the one to that of the other, he was like a shuttlecock between two battledores, changing its direction as rapidly as the oscillations of a pendulum, receiving many a hard knock on the cork of a sensitive heart, and flying from point to point on the feathers of a super-sublimated head"
but there were gems like these -
"He was sent, as usual, to a public school, where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him"
and
"Marriage if therefore, a lottery, and the less choice and selection a man bestows on his ticket the better; for, if he has incurred considerable pains and expense to obtain a lucky number, and his lucky number proves a blank, he experiences not a simple, but a complicated disappointment"
Thomas Love Peacock wrote this book as a satire of romantic novels at the time (early 1800s) and as such it is really quite funny. It's super short, under 100 pages, so is definitely worth reading for a lauded over classic. Just make sure you have a dictionary to hand.
There were tongue twisting passages I didn't always understand, such as -
"I am sorry to find you participating in the vulgar error of the reading public, to whom an unusual collection of words, involving a juxtaposition of antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of hyperoxysophistical paradoxology"
or
"Passing and repassing several times a day from the company of the one to that of the other, he was like a shuttlecock between two battledores, changing its direction as rapidly as the oscillations of a pendulum, receiving many a hard knock on the cork of a sensitive heart, and flying from point to point on the feathers of a super-sublimated head"
but there were gems like these -
"He was sent, as usual, to a public school, where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him"
and
"Marriage if therefore, a lottery, and the less choice and selection a man bestows on his ticket the better; for, if he has incurred considerable pains and expense to obtain a lucky number, and his lucky number proves a blank, he experiences not a simple, but a complicated disappointment"
Thomas Love Peacock wrote this book as a satire of romantic novels at the time (early 1800s) and as such it is really quite funny. It's super short, under 100 pages, so is definitely worth reading for a lauded over classic. Just make sure you have a dictionary to hand.
June 2, 2018
There he goes - Thomas Love Peacock swims on into literary history in the slipstream of his very much more famous contemporary friends the English Romantic poets. Nightmare Abbey’s primary interest is because it satirises, in a manner of speaking, the personalities and philosophical concerns of the Shelleys (Percy & Mary), Byron, and Coleridge (with glancing blows at Mary’s parents William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft) - written in the form of a satire, of sorts, of the Gothic Novel.
By coincidence, Nightmare Abbey was published in the same year (1818) as that more radical satire of the genre, Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, as well as the genre-busting Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
It’s not recorded if Peacock read either of those books. It’s clear at any rate from Nightmare Abbey he is no feminist.
Peacock borrows the mise-en-scène of the Gothic novel as a backdrop for his characters’ philosophical debates. A group of writers and philosophers gather at a crumbling, isolated rural mansion on the coast of Lincolnshire between the fens and the sea. Scythrop (Percy Shelley) languishes in his semi-ruined tower, torn between two loves (the real-life Harriet and Mary Shelley), reading The Sorrows of Young Werther, and making vague plans to improve the world through revolution. The tower is cloaked in ivy and inhabited by owls. The castle’s servants are all given amusingly Gothic-appropriate names (Raven; Crow, Skellet, Deathshead). A ‘ghost’ intermittently terrorises the servants and guests; two Proto-naturalists enthusiastically search for a mermaid reported in the locality.
Peacock’s charming and imaginatively detailed narrative never disturbs the equanimity of his characters. They politely pursue their discussions in spite of the plot mechanics - this disconnect reminded me of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and PG Wodehouse’s novels. Peacock probably derives this technique from the method of Voltaire’s Candide and Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas - Nightmare Abbey is concerned to uphold the certainties of the 18th-century Enlightenment against the formal and emotional innovations of the Romantics. His sentences sparkle with gentle wit.
Coleridge probably gets the worst of the satire. He’s depicted as an over-educated jargon-drenched boffin unable to engage with reality. There’s an amusing conversation between his character and an uncomprehending Marionetta (Harriet, the beautiful village dunce. Mary by contrast is an intelligent virago). Shelley (Scythrop) can do no major wrong for Peacock and is satirised in an indulgent and starry-eyed way. Byron makes a guest appearance for one chapter only and speaks exclusively in lines cribbed from Childe Harold (the text Peacock objected to the most and possibly the impetus for his novel). However, the satire seems carefully defanged; Peacock avoids major offence. Shelley adored Nightmare Abbey and Byron sent Peacock a rosebud on reading it. Mary Shelley hasn’t left her responses to us, but she and Peacock mutually disliked each other.
I wish Peacock had written a journal or a memoir. Apart from his Romantic connections, he worked all his life as an important official in the East India Company, retiring just a year before the Indian Mutiny. Later in life he supported and mentored the Victorian poet and novelist George Meredith, who was a close friend and partner of Peacock’s son and married Peacock’s widowed daughter. The marriage famously was not a success and his wife’s elopement with the painter Henry Wallis and the subsequent divorce inspired novels and poems by Meredith.
The elderly Peacock was so attached to his books he refused to leave his library in a house fire. Although rescued, he never recovered and died shortly afterwards.
By coincidence, Nightmare Abbey was published in the same year (1818) as that more radical satire of the genre, Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, as well as the genre-busting Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
It’s not recorded if Peacock read either of those books. It’s clear at any rate from Nightmare Abbey he is no feminist.
Peacock borrows the mise-en-scène of the Gothic novel as a backdrop for his characters’ philosophical debates. A group of writers and philosophers gather at a crumbling, isolated rural mansion on the coast of Lincolnshire between the fens and the sea. Scythrop (Percy Shelley) languishes in his semi-ruined tower, torn between two loves (the real-life Harriet and Mary Shelley), reading The Sorrows of Young Werther, and making vague plans to improve the world through revolution. The tower is cloaked in ivy and inhabited by owls. The castle’s servants are all given amusingly Gothic-appropriate names (Raven; Crow, Skellet, Deathshead). A ‘ghost’ intermittently terrorises the servants and guests; two Proto-naturalists enthusiastically search for a mermaid reported in the locality.
Peacock’s charming and imaginatively detailed narrative never disturbs the equanimity of his characters. They politely pursue their discussions in spite of the plot mechanics - this disconnect reminded me of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and PG Wodehouse’s novels. Peacock probably derives this technique from the method of Voltaire’s Candide and Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas - Nightmare Abbey is concerned to uphold the certainties of the 18th-century Enlightenment against the formal and emotional innovations of the Romantics. His sentences sparkle with gentle wit.
Coleridge probably gets the worst of the satire. He’s depicted as an over-educated jargon-drenched boffin unable to engage with reality. There’s an amusing conversation between his character and an uncomprehending Marionetta (Harriet, the beautiful village dunce. Mary by contrast is an intelligent virago). Shelley (Scythrop) can do no major wrong for Peacock and is satirised in an indulgent and starry-eyed way. Byron makes a guest appearance for one chapter only and speaks exclusively in lines cribbed from Childe Harold (the text Peacock objected to the most and possibly the impetus for his novel). However, the satire seems carefully defanged; Peacock avoids major offence. Shelley adored Nightmare Abbey and Byron sent Peacock a rosebud on reading it. Mary Shelley hasn’t left her responses to us, but she and Peacock mutually disliked each other.
I wish Peacock had written a journal or a memoir. Apart from his Romantic connections, he worked all his life as an important official in the East India Company, retiring just a year before the Indian Mutiny. Later in life he supported and mentored the Victorian poet and novelist George Meredith, who was a close friend and partner of Peacock’s son and married Peacock’s widowed daughter. The marriage famously was not a success and his wife’s elopement with the painter Henry Wallis and the subsequent divorce inspired novels and poems by Meredith.
The elderly Peacock was so attached to his books he refused to leave his library in a house fire. Although rescued, he never recovered and died shortly afterwards.
April 3, 2010
Nightmare Abbey is the best known and surely most consistently funny of Thomas Love Peacock’s cult mock-gothic novels. He makes absolute nonsense of Romantic fiction, German philosophy and fashionable angst.
The book belongs to that category of literature that relies on the reader’s familiarity with existing popular and classical fiction. So the better you know your Shakespeare, Austen and Kant – amongst many, many others – the more grotesque Peacock’s satire. Without that knowledge, Nightmare Abbey is still very funny, but it loses its ability to mock, which is really the point of it.
The book belongs to that category of literature that relies on the reader’s familiarity with existing popular and classical fiction. So the better you know your Shakespeare, Austen and Kant – amongst many, many others – the more grotesque Peacock’s satire. Without that knowledge, Nightmare Abbey is still very funny, but it loses its ability to mock, which is really the point of it.
"Evil, and mischief, and misery, and confusion, and vanity, and vexation of spirit, and death, and disease, and assassination, and war, and poverty, and pestilence, and famine, and avarice, and selfishness, and rancour, and jealousy, and spleen, and malevolence, and the disappointments of philanthropy, and the faithlessness of friendship, and the crosses of love, — all prove the accuracy of your views, and the truth of your system; and it is not impossible that the infernal interruption of this fall down stairs may throw a colour of evil on the whole of my future existence."
"My dear boy," said Mr. Toobad, "you have a fine eye for consequences." – Nightmare Abbey, Thomas Love Peacock (1818)
August 27, 2011
Este libro es para gente que sí lee clásicos.
Está muy bueno, es muy divertido, pero debes tener leídas un puñado de novelas góticas y literatura clásica para que no te pierdas todas las referencias. Es una sátira abundante y deliciosa.
El autor hace referencias a Cervantes, Goethe, Sofocles, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge como si estos fueran gotas de agua y Peacock hubiera dejado la llave abierta. Estas son las referencias que alcancé a cachar. Otros que leyeron el libro encuentran palabras-personajes de Shakespeare y de otros escritores. Estoy inseguro si Crow u Raven son una referencia a Edgar Allan Poe o al mismo Shakespeare.
Mi momento preferido es cuando todos los personajes (cuyos nombres son acertadísimos) deciden cantar la canción del poeta y luego cambian a una canción de bar. El final, por supuesto, que se vuelve una burla a todo Werther y es genial.
En nivel de inglés... bueno, tiene un vocabulario abundante gracias a todos los libros que está satirizando. Es indispensable tener un diccionario y uno que incluya arcaísmos. Aunque se lee en un par de horas es un libro que puede tomar meses de estudio y ofrece tanto de todas partes.
Está muy bueno, es muy divertido, pero debes tener leídas un puñado de novelas góticas y literatura clásica para que no te pierdas todas las referencias. Es una sátira abundante y deliciosa.
El autor hace referencias a Cervantes, Goethe, Sofocles, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge como si estos fueran gotas de agua y Peacock hubiera dejado la llave abierta. Estas son las referencias que alcancé a cachar. Otros que leyeron el libro encuentran palabras-personajes de Shakespeare y de otros escritores. Estoy inseguro si Crow u Raven son una referencia a Edgar Allan Poe o al mismo Shakespeare.
Mi momento preferido es cuando todos los personajes (cuyos nombres son acertadísimos) deciden cantar la canción del poeta y luego cambian a una canción de bar. El final, por supuesto, que se vuelve una burla a todo Werther y es genial.
En nivel de inglés... bueno, tiene un vocabulario abundante gracias a todos los libros que está satirizando. Es indispensable tener un diccionario y uno que incluya arcaísmos. Aunque se lee en un par de horas es un libro que puede tomar meses de estudio y ofrece tanto de todas partes.
April 7, 2017
"...the exertion is too much for me"
March 8, 2021
man i wish i were a 19th century man so that i could fully understand and enjoy how this book mocks coleridge shelley and byron
February 24, 2014
With a name like ‘Nightmare Abbey’ I expected a gruesome Gothic novel, full of bandits, locked up ladies and daring escapes. From the first, the tone was so facetious that I quickly realized that this was a contemporary parody of a Gothic novel. I was completely onboard, Gothic novels are fun and slightly ridiculous. A loving parody of the genre would be delightful.
However, the loving parody did not just apply to the Gothic genre, it also encompassed the illustrious friends of the author. The internet quickly clued me in to the fact that the characters in the novel, 'Mr. Listless, Mr. Toobad, etc' were parodies of luminaries of the time like Shelley and Coleridge. The novel quickly degenerated into “humorous” discussions of literary philosophy and inside jokes that only someone with an intimate knowledge of the 1800’s literary community could understand. Frankly, it’s terrible.
When I look at some modern works of culture, like 'Family Guy', I wonder how they will stand the test of time. Some works of art are so laden with pop-culture references that they will probably be nearly unintelligible to future generations. They will seem as dull as this novel. Granted, Peacock’s 'pop-culture' references are about literary geniuses, but it’s essentially the same thing. It’s groups of people bantering about cultural minutiae that is irrelevant to most of humanity. I’m sure it’s lots of fun for those 'in the know', but it’s pretty dull for the rest of us.
However, the loving parody did not just apply to the Gothic genre, it also encompassed the illustrious friends of the author. The internet quickly clued me in to the fact that the characters in the novel, 'Mr. Listless, Mr. Toobad, etc' were parodies of luminaries of the time like Shelley and Coleridge. The novel quickly degenerated into “humorous” discussions of literary philosophy and inside jokes that only someone with an intimate knowledge of the 1800’s literary community could understand. Frankly, it’s terrible.
When I look at some modern works of culture, like 'Family Guy', I wonder how they will stand the test of time. Some works of art are so laden with pop-culture references that they will probably be nearly unintelligible to future generations. They will seem as dull as this novel. Granted, Peacock’s 'pop-culture' references are about literary geniuses, but it’s essentially the same thing. It’s groups of people bantering about cultural minutiae that is irrelevant to most of humanity. I’m sure it’s lots of fun for those 'in the know', but it’s pretty dull for the rest of us.
May 21, 2020
Peacock is a minor novelist in terms of the C19, but readable, humorous, and a relief from C19 doom and gloom. This novel (his satire on the Romantics) is wholly justified: Peacock, though valuing the sublime and emotion, is a late Augustan - Reason and Classical learning are guiding lights. Nightmare Abbey is a prose re-working of Milton (the author's leading poetic light): L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. On one side of the novel, the melancholic Glowry's; on the other, the joyful Hilary's. Peacock's clowning is very Shakespearean, light and dark, and his novel's slapstick is almost Keaton or Chaplin. Shelley was a close friend of Peacock, but that did not mean that Peacock approved of his erotic and philosophical excesses, which are pilloried in the novel. And that is almost a metaphor for Peacock's approach to the World and the Book. Spot an intellectual fool, put them in the stocks, then pelt them with witty apples of knowledge. If only Peacock had witnessed Boris and his Cabinet!
November 11, 2015
Another great comedy and social satire. I previously read Crotchett Castle by the same author which is also really good. The characters in this arn't as various as those in Crotchett, this one is all about Goth. And i mean that in the modern sense, most of the characters really like being depressed, and you have people like Mr. Toobad and Mr. Listless.
Its very well written and has great back and forth conversations. It also didn't have as many words i had to look up as Crotchett Castle. I was so into it and it flows so nice that i nearly finished it in a single day, its good stuff.
Its very well written and has great back and forth conversations. It also didn't have as many words i had to look up as Crotchett Castle. I was so into it and it flows so nice that i nearly finished it in a single day, its good stuff.
March 6, 2014
I was put on the trail to find this book as it was mentioned in The Moving Toyshop
Superb read - thoroughly enjoyed the faux romanticism and my favorite character has to be Flatout.
Superb read - thoroughly enjoyed the faux romanticism and my favorite character has to be Flatout.
June 11, 2025
Thomas Love Peacock'un "Karabasan Manastırı" kurgusu kadar karakter oluşumu, isimleri, kara mizah içeren akışıyla zaman zaman eskinin Shakespeare zaman zaman modern Terry Pratchett çizgisinde ilerliyor sanki. Bu iki üstadın ortasındaki yıllarda yaşamış Peacock bir anlamda çağlar arasında edebi bir köprü gibi. Her ne kadar teknik açıdan eseri, yazarı önemli bulsam da bazı açılardan (kurgu, karakter gelişimi, hedeflenen amaç gibi) eksiklikler var. Naçizane fikrim. Eğer ikircikli, kara mizah, romantizme dair metinleri seviyorsanız önemli bir dönem kitabını kütüphanenize ekleyebilirsiniz.
February 8, 2024
3.7/5
This was thoroughly enjoyable. Having read so many gothic books recently for my courses, the satire of Gothic literature was refreshing. Peacock’s humor shines throughout and this stands as one of the true novel of ideas. I am interested to read more of Peacock’s work.
This was thoroughly enjoyable. Having read so many gothic books recently for my courses, the satire of Gothic literature was refreshing. Peacock’s humor shines throughout and this stands as one of the true novel of ideas. I am interested to read more of Peacock’s work.
March 30, 2023
Not exactly what I would’ve picked to celebrate the last book I need to read for my education in English literature, oh well
March 28, 2024
"Nightmare Abbey is a Gothic topical satire in which the author pokes light-hearted fun at the romantic movement in contemporary English literature, in particular its obsession with morbid subjects, misanthropy and transcendental philosophical systems. Most of the characters in the novel are based on historical figures whom Peacock wishes to pillory." Sparks Notes. I found this book pretty hilarious even though I had to look up many words and foreign phrases.
adhibiting
unconsentaneous
'cogibundity of cogitation'
antithalian perlustrate
etc.
I think that someone more familiar with the philosophies and personalities of the early 1800s would be rolling on the floor. There are many great quotes online. One of my favorites:
Mr. Flosky - "I should be sorry if you could; I pity the man who can see the connection of his own ideas. Still more do I pity him, the connection of whose ideas any other person can see. Sir, the great evil is, that there is too much common-place light in our moral and political literature; and light is a great enemy to mystery, and mystery is a great friend to enthusiasm. Now the enthusiasm for abstract truth is an exceedingly fine thing, as long as the truth, which is the object of the enthusiasm, is so completely abstract as to be altogether out of the reach of the human faculties..."
Wikipedia states the Major themes
* The predilection of contemporary poets and novelists for morbid subjects and gothic settings.
* The affected misanthropy, ennui and world-weariness of contemporary writers, philosophers and intellectuals.
* The contemporary interest in philosophical systems that are unworldly, transcendental, and abstruse.
* The conflict between art and science.
* The contrast between the Classical and the Romantic.
Find a copy online in Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9909
adhibiting
unconsentaneous
'cogibundity of cogitation'
antithalian perlustrate
etc.
I think that someone more familiar with the philosophies and personalities of the early 1800s would be rolling on the floor. There are many great quotes online. One of my favorites:
Mr. Flosky - "I should be sorry if you could; I pity the man who can see the connection of his own ideas. Still more do I pity him, the connection of whose ideas any other person can see. Sir, the great evil is, that there is too much common-place light in our moral and political literature; and light is a great enemy to mystery, and mystery is a great friend to enthusiasm. Now the enthusiasm for abstract truth is an exceedingly fine thing, as long as the truth, which is the object of the enthusiasm, is so completely abstract as to be altogether out of the reach of the human faculties..."
Wikipedia states the Major themes
* The predilection of contemporary poets and novelists for morbid subjects and gothic settings.
* The affected misanthropy, ennui and world-weariness of contemporary writers, philosophers and intellectuals.
* The contemporary interest in philosophical systems that are unworldly, transcendental, and abstruse.
* The conflict between art and science.
* The contrast between the Classical and the Romantic.
Find a copy online in Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9909
November 7, 2010
This satire was filled big words (atrabilarious, eleutherarchs, perlustrated, jeremitaylorically…) that I’ve never seen before and lots of Latin expressions. I diligently looked them up at first but due to a weak WiFi connection and lack of dictionary in the B&B that is currently home (or due to laziness!) I eventually carried on without. At times this went over my head (I think it was meant to…) but it was also wickedly funny. There is romance of sorts, with lots of ups and downs in the course of love, but I could never have predicted the outcome. Overall, I’d recommend this short book as an entertaining and amusing read.
I loved this footnote:
“Mrs; Hilary hinted to Marionetta that propriety, and delicacy, and decorum, and dignity, etc., etc., etc., (1) would require them to leave the Abbey immediately.
(1) We are not masters of the whole vocabulary. See any novel by any literary lady.
I loved this footnote:
“Mrs; Hilary hinted to Marionetta that propriety, and delicacy, and decorum, and dignity, etc., etc., etc., (1) would require them to leave the Abbey immediately.
(1) We are not masters of the whole vocabulary. See any novel by any literary lady.
December 22, 2010
There are no words laudatory enough to describe the genius of this book. It is probably the funniest novel I have ever read - I was smiling the whole way through and burst out laughing several times. Peacock masterly pokes fun at the reigning philosophies and literary movements of his time - which he himself was in the middle of. He was friends with Shelley and Byron but he had no problem mocking that kind of person in his work. This is a very unusual story in that it's not about the plot at all, it's all about the characters and they're without exception complete caricatures. He makes references to a lot of different ideas and people, so it's not always easy to read. If you know a little about early 19th century ideas though, you can understand enough to appreciate Peacock's genius.
August 18, 2015
I adore Byron and Shelley and the Romantic movement in literature and when I stumbled across this book, quite by chance as one of the only ones I hadn't heard of on a very cliché list of the best 100 books in English literature, I was eager to read it. The language is absolutely sublime and I can see where it fits into the romantic period. I enjoy satire but I felt Love Peacock wasn't very subtle and the premise for the novel is a bit too wacky. I also struggled to understand quite a lot of the book and I have a degree in English literature. Parts of it were funny and engaging but without a thorough academic analysis of the book I feel that something is missing and stopping this book from being a masterful piece of art.
March 2, 2014
A definite to-read for those interested in the Romantic movement. The edition I read had hysterical illustrations linking characters to real people of the times.
What I appreciated was that though I may have studied Romanticism in art, music & literature, I heard very little about the reception of the movement by those not connected to it. It was studied as seriously as those who were involved. Yet here is a heavily mocking satire! Guess this is a lesson that we should always be looking at history through multiple viewpoints!
What I appreciated was that though I may have studied Romanticism in art, music & literature, I heard very little about the reception of the movement by those not connected to it. It was studied as seriously as those who were involved. Yet here is a heavily mocking satire! Guess this is a lesson that we should always be looking at history through multiple viewpoints!
April 11, 2016
قصر الكوابيس
توماس لوف بيكوك ساخر من الدرجة الأولى، كتب هذه الرواية على نمط الروايات القوطية ولكن بسخرية مرعبة من الشخصيات والأفكار والأعراف، عمل لا يفوت وخاصة لمن يستمتعون بالأعمال الساخرة التي تتغلغل إلى سخف المستشري في الحياة والناس.
توماس لوف بيكوك ساخر من الدرجة الأولى، كتب هذه الرواية على نمط الروايات القوطية ولكن بسخرية مرعبة من الشخصيات والأفكار والأعراف، عمل لا يفوت وخاصة لمن يستمتعون بالأعمال الساخرة التي تتغلغل إلى سخف المستشري في الحياة والناس.
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