Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) is one of the most distinctive prose satirists of the Romantic period. The Cambridge Edition of the Novels of Thomas Love Peacock offers the first complete text of his novels to appear for more than half a century. Nightmare Abbey (1818), Peacock's third novel, is a spirited satire that shows Peacock to be a perceptive observer and engaged critic of the literary and political preoccupations of his time. While the novel has often been characterized in popular culture either as a burlesque of the Gothic novel or a mere spoof of Romantic gloom and doom, this edition recognizes it as a purposeful critique of Romanticism. Explanatory notes illustrate the ways in which several characters are caricatures of prominent Romantic writers, including Peacock's close friend Shelley as well as Coleridge and Byron, and also identify the various sources, some previously unsuspected, from which Peacock created their dialogue.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) was a lifelong and assiduous letter-writer at a time when the familiar letter was often virtually an art-form in itself. He had a wide circle of correspondents, and was a close friend of Shelley, whom he assisted over both personal and business affairs after Shelley's abandonment of his wife Harriet and departure to Italy. Friend also of many Radicals of the early nineteenth century, his letters often display the satiric wit of his published prose works such as Headlong Hall and Crotchet Castle. In the later part of his life he rose to high position in the East India Company's service, succeeding James Mill, under whom he had worked, as Examiner. This is the first time his extensive correspondence has been gathered together and given scholarly annotation: the two-volume edition will be invaluable both to students of Romantic literature and to historians of the period.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) was a lifelong and assiduous letter-writer at a time when the familiar letter was often virtually an art-form in itself. He had a wide circle of correspondents, and was a close friend of Shelley, whom he assisted over both personal and business affairs after Shelley's abandonment of his wife Harriet and departure to Italy. Friend also of many Radicals of the early nineteenth century, his letters often display the satiric wit of his published prose works such as Headlong Hall and Crotchet Castle. In the later part of his life he rose to high position in the East India Company's service, succeeding James Mill, under whom he had worked, as Examiner. This is the first time his extensive correspondence has been gathered together and given scholarly annotation: the two-volume edition will be invaluable both to students of Romantic literature and to historians of the period.