Thomas Love Peacock

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

Works

Peacock's own place in literature is pre-eminently that of a satirist. That he has nevertheless been only the favourite of the few is owing in a measure to the highly intellectual quality of his work, but chiefly to his lack of the ordinary qualifications of the novelist, all pretension to which he entirely disclaims. He has no plot, little human interest, and no consistent delineation of character. His personages are mere puppets, or, at best, incarnations of abstract qualities, or idealisations of disembodied grace or beauty.

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It will not be the judgment of any capable of appreciating the Aristophanic comedy of which, restricted as their scale is in comparison, Peacock's fiction is, perhaps, the best modern representative. Nearly everything that can be urged against him can be urged against Aristophanes too; and save that his invention is far less daring and opulent, his Muse can allege most of "the apologies of Aristophanes". When he is depreciated, comparison with another novelist usually seems to be implied, but it would be as unfair to test him by the standard of Miss Austen or Miss Edgeworth, as to try Aristophanes by the rules of the New Comedy.

Related Topics:
Aristophanic - Miss Austen - Miss Edgeworth - New Comedy

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A master of fiction he is not, and he never claimed to be; a satirist, a humourist, a poet he is most undoubtedly. The literary historian would have to note in him the first appearance of a new type, destined to be frequently imitated, but seldom approached, and never exactly reproduced.

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Novels

• Headlong Hall (published 1815 but dated 1816)
• Melincourt (1817)
• Nightmare Abbey (1818)
• Maid Marian (1822)
• The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829)
• Crotchet Castle (1831)
• Gryll Grange (1861)

Verse

• The Monks of St. Mark (1804?)
• Palmyra and other Poems (1805)
• The Genius of the Thames: a Lyrical Poem (1810)
• The Genius of the Thames Palmyra and other Poems (1812)
• The Philosophy of Melancholy (1812)
• Sir Hornbook, or Childe Launcelot's Expedition (1813)
• Sir Proteus: a Satirical Ballad (1814)
• The Round Table, or King Arthur's Feast (1817)
• Rhododaphne: or the Thessalian Spirit (1818)
• Paper Money Lyrics (1837)

Essays

• The Four Ages of Poetry (1820)
• Recollections of Childhood: The Abbey House (1837)
• Memoirs of Shelley (1858-60)
• The Last Day of Windsor Forest (1887)
• Prospectus: Classical Education

Plays

• The Three Doctors
• The Dilettanti
• Gl'Ingannati, or The Deceived (translated from the Italian, 1862)

Unfinished tales and novels

• Satyrane (c. 1816)
• Calidore (c. 1816)
• The Pilgrim of Provence (c. 1826)
• The Lord of the Hills (c. 1835)
• Julia Procula (c. 1850)
• A Story Opening at Chertsey (c. 1850)
• A Story of a Mansion among the Chiltern Hills (c. 1859)
• Boozabowt Abbey (c. 1859)
• Cotswald Chace (c. 1860)