Nightmare Abbey/Crotchet Castle

By Thomas Love Peacock and intro by J. B. Priestley Thomas Love Peacock

Book Overview

Thomas Love Peacock is literature's perfect individualist. He has points in common with Aristophanes, Plato, Rabelais, Voltaire, and even Aldous Huxley, but resembles none of them; we can talk of the satirical novel of ideas, but his satire is too cheery and good-natured, his novel too rambling, and his ideas too jovially destructive for the label to stick. A romantic in his youth and a friend of Shelley, he happily made hay of the romantic movement in Nightmare Abbey , clamping Coleridge, Byron, and Shelley himself in a kind of painless pillory. And in Crotchet Castle he did no less for the political economists, pitting his gifts of exaggeration and ridicule against scientific progress and March of Mind. Yet the romantic in him never died- the long, witty, and indecisive talk of his characters is set in wild, natural scenery which Peacock describes with true feeling.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0027FPH5Y
• ISBN13: 9780140430455
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: Penguin Adult Hc/Tr
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Really humourous book

Nightmare Abbey is absolutely wonderful for the most part. Love Peacock has a very witty and slightly subversive take on the concept of Romanticism. His attacks on the melancholy aspects of the period are especially amusing, the owner of Nightmare Abbey who only employs servants with depressing looks, and even more depressing names is brilliantly written. The only downside to the novel is the dialogue which I found quite difficult in comparison to the main narrative, but it was definately worth the effort.

One of the most humorous books ever

This is easily one of the funniest books I have ever read. Two separate novels from one of the premier wits and classical scholars of the last century, both dealing with contemporary figures, mildly disguised, and contemporary issues. If you find Gothic novels far too over the top, or delight in parody of the likes of Byron, Coleridge, and Shelley, you'll love this book, which includes touching descriptions of British landscape along with its heavy dose of good-natured mockery. The introduction and footnotes are gems as well. If only the complete run of Peacock novels were in print in this fashion.A must for anyone interested in Romanticism, British history, and good fun!