Nightmare Abbey (1818)
Contributors: Lisa Vargo (Editor)
Publisher: Broadview Press
Published: April 9, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 243
ISBN-13: 9781551114163
Subjects: Classic fiction; Fiction; Fiction - General; Horror - General; Fiction / Literary; Literary; 1785-1866.; Gothic fiction; Humorous fiction; Nightmare Abbey; Peacock, Thomas Love,
Description: "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 modelled 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 instead to 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." "This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and a range of illuminating contemporary documents on the novel's reception and its German and British literary contexts. A selection of Peacock's critical and autobiographical writings is also included."--Jacket.
Notes: Broadview Editions