Preface, Nightmare Abbey, Note on the Text, Notes, Extra Material: A Brief Introduction to Thomas Love Peacock, More Information about Thomas Love Peacock
Products specifications
Author
|
Thomas Love Peacock |
Pub Date
|
28/07/2021 |
Binding
|
Paperback / softback |
Pages
|
160 |
Country
|
United Kingdom |
Dewey
|
823.7 |
GBPPrice
|
7.99 |
Availability
|
Available |
Nightmare Abbey is a novella by Thomas Love Peacock, first published in 1818, widely considered to be Peacock's most enduringly popular work. The narrative centres on Christopher Glowry, a miserly widower, his son Scythrop and a host of dismal-sounding servants in his family pile, Nightmare Abbey. Recovering from an ill-fated love affair, Scythrop dreams up various schemes to reform and regenerate the human species, but misanthropy lurks around every corner, and everything changes when a mermaid is spotted and a strange woman appears in his chamber. Although fundamentally a Gothic novel, and rich in allusion - from Pope to Dante, Rossini to Mozart - Nightmare Abbey is, at heart, a satire, as Peacock makes clear in the preface to a later edition, in which he describes the characters - allusions to his friends - as 'status-quo-ites', 'morbid visionaries', 'romantic enthusiasts' and 'lovers of good dinners'.