Thomas Love Peacock

Thomas Love Peacock (October 18, 1785 - January 23, 1866) was an English satirist and author.

Later life

For many years after his appointment Peacock's authorship was in abeyance with the exception of the operatic criticisms which he regularly contributed to the "Examiner", and an occasional article in the Westminster Review or Bentley's Miscellany.

Related Topics:
Examiner - Westminster Review - Bentley's Miscellany

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In 1837, Headlong Hall, Nightmare Abbey, Maid Marian, and Crotchet Castle appeared together as vol. 57 of Bentley's Standard Novels. About 1852, taste or leisure for authorship returned, and he commenced a series of contributions to Fraser's Magazine with the first, and most interesting, paper of his Horae Dramaticae, a delightful restoration of the "Querolus", a Roman comedy probably of the time of Diocletian.

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Peacock had in the interim retired from the India House on an ample pension (March 29, 1856). Throughout 1860 his last novel, Gryll Grange, continued to appear in Fraser's Magazine.

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Peacock died at Lower Halliford, January 23, 1866, and is buried in the new cemetery at Shepperton. His grand-daughter remembered him in these words:—

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: In society my grandfather was ever a welcome guest, his genial manner, hearty appreciation of wit and humour in others, and the amusing way in which he told stories made him a very delightful acquaintance; he was always so agreeable and so very witty that he was called by his most intimate friends the "Laughing Philosopher", and it seems to me that the term "Epicurean Philosopher", which I have often heard applied to him, describes him accurately and briefly. In public business my grandfather was upright and honourable; but as he advanced in years his detestation of anything disagreeable made him simply avoid whatever fretted him, laughing off all sorts of ordinary calls upon his leisure time.

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: After he retired from the India House he seldom left Halliford; his life was spent among his books, and in the garden, in which he took great pleasure, and on the river.

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